Barbecue or barbeque is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that use live fire and smoke to cook the food. The term is also generally applied to the devices associated with those methods, the broader cuisines that these methods produce, and the meals or gatherings at which this style of food is cooked and served. The cooking methods associated with barbecuing vary significantly but most involve outdoor cooking.
Grilling is a form of cooking that involves dry heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above, below or from the side. Grilling usually involves a significant amount of direct, radiant heat, and tends to be used for cooking meat and vegetables quickly. Food to be grilled is cooked on a grill, using a cast iron/frying pan, or a grill pan.
Smoking is the process of flavoring, browning, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood. Meat, fish, and lapsang souchong tea are often smoked.
The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that gives browned food its distinctive flavor. Seared steaks, fried dumplings, cookies and other kinds of biscuits, breads, toasted marshmallows, and many other foods undergo this reaction. It is named after French chemist Louis Camille Maillard, who first described it in 1912 while attempting to reproduce biological protein synthesis. The reaction is a form of non-enzymatic browning which typically proceeds rapidly from around 140 to 165 °C. Many recipes call for an oven temperature high enough to ensure that a Maillard reaction occurs. At higher temperatures, caramelization and subsequently pyrolysis become more pronounced.
Brisket is a cut of meat from the breast or lower chest of beef or veal. The beef brisket is one of the nine beef primal cuts, though the definition of the cut differs internationally. The brisket muscles include the superficial and deep pectorals. As cattle do not have collar bones, these muscles support about 60% of the body weight of standing or moving cattle. This requires a significant amount of connective tissue, so the resulting meat must be cooked correctly to tenderise it.
A barbecue grill or barbeque grill is a device that cooks food by applying heat from below. There are several varieties of grills, with most falling into one of three categories: gas-fueled, charcoal, or electric. There is debate over which method yields superior results.
Asado is the technique and the social event of having or attending a barbecue in various South American countries, especially Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay where it is also a traditional event. An asado usually consists of beef, pork, chicken, chorizo, and morcilla, all of which are cooked using an open fire or a grill, called a parrilla. Usually, red wine and side dishes such as salads accompany the main meats, which are prepared by a designated cook called the asador or parrillero.
Smoked meat is the result of a method of preparing red meat, white meat, and seafood which originated in the Paleolithic Era. Smoking adds flavor, improves the appearance of meat through the Maillard reaction, and when combined with curing it preserves the meat. When meat is cured then cold-smoked, the smoke adds phenols and other chemicals that have an antimicrobial effect on the meat. Hot smoking has less impact on preservation and is primarily used for taste and to slow-cook the meat. Interest in barbecue and smoking is on the rise worldwide.
Indirect grilling is a barbecue cooking technique in which the food is placed to the side of or above the heat source instead of directly over the flame as is more common. This can be achieved by igniting only some burners on a gas barbecue or by piling coals to one side of a charcoal pit. A drip tray is placed below the food to prevent fat from the food igniting and generating a direct flame. Indirect grilling is designed to cook larger or tougher foods that would burn if cooked using a direct flame. This method of cooking generates a more moderate temperature and allows for an easier introduction of wood smoke for flavoring.
Barbecue varies by the type of meat, sauce, rub, or other flavorings used, the point in barbecuing at which they are added, the role smoke plays, the equipment and fuel used, cooking temperature, and cooking time.
Doneness is a gauge of how thoroughly cooked a cut of meat is based on its color, juiciness, and internal temperature. The gradations are most often used in reference to beef but are also applicable to other types of meat.
Smoked fish is fish that has been cured by smoking. Foods have been smoked by humans throughout history. Originally this was done as a preservative. In more recent times fish is readily preserved by refrigeration and freezing and the smoking of fish is generally done for the unique taste and flavour imparted by the smoking process.
Pulled pork is an American barbecue dish, more specifically a dish of the Southern U.S., based on shredded barbecued pork shoulder. It is typically slow-smoked over wood ; indoor variations use a slow cooker. The meat is then shredded manually and mixed with a sauce. It may be served on bread as a sandwich, or eaten on its own.
The bistecca alla fiorentina is an Italian steak made of young steer (vitellone) or heifer (scottona) that, combined with the specific preparation, makes it one of the most popular dishes of Tuscan cuisine. It is a high cut including the bone, to be cooked on the embers or on the grill, with a degree of "blood" cooking.
Curing is any of various food preservation and flavoring processes of foods such as meat, fish and vegetables, by the addition of salt, with the aim of drawing moisture out of the food by the process of osmosis. Because curing increases the solute concentration in the food and hence decreases its water potential, the food becomes inhospitable for the microbe growth that causes food spoilage. Curing can be traced back to antiquity, and was the primary method of preserving meat and fish until the late 19th century. Dehydration was the earliest form of food curing. Many curing processes also involve smoking, spicing, cooking, or the addition of combinations of sugar, nitrate, and nitrite.
Heterocyclic amines, also sometimes referred to as HCAs, are chemical compounds containing at least one heterocyclic ring, which by definition has atoms of at least two different elements, as well as at least one amine (nitrogen-containing) group. Typically it is a nitrogen atom of an amine group that also makes the ring heterocyclic, though compounds exist in which this is not the case. The biological functions of heterocyclic amines vary, including vitamins and carcinogens. Carcinogenic heterocyclic amines are created by high temperature cooking of meat and smoking of plant matter like tobacco. Some well known heterocyclic amines are niacin, nicotine, and the nucleobases that encode genetic information in DNA.
Cured fish is fish which has been cured by subjecting it to fermentation, pickling, smoking, or some combination of these before it is eaten. These food preservation processes can include adding salt, nitrates, nitrite or sugar, can involve smoking and flavoring the fish, and may include cooking it. The earliest form of curing fish was dehydration. Other methods, such as smoking fish or salt-curing also go back for thousands of years. The term "cure" is derived from the Latin curare, meaning to take care of. It was first recorded in reference to fish in 1743.
In the United States, barbecue refers to a technique of cooking meat outdoors over a fire; often this is called pit barbecue, and the facility for cooking it is the barbecue pit. This form of cooking adds a distinctive smoky taste to the meat; barbecue sauce, while a common accompaniment, is not required for many styles.
Korean barbecue is a popular method in Korean cuisine of grilling meat, typically beef, pork or chicken. Such dishes are often prepared on gas or charcoal grills built into the dining table itself. Some Korean restaurants that do not have built-in grills provide customers with portable stoves for diners to use at their tables. Alternatively, a chef uses a centrally displayed grill to prepare dishes that are made to order.
Memphis Wood Fire Grills is a privately held North American manufacturer of pellet grills and food-grade hardwood pellets.
