'Grillin' With Gas' - Cookbook Spotlight

by Sara Bonisteel, Posted Nov 13th 2009 @ 2:00PM

Photo: The Taunton Press.

'Grillin' with Gas: 150 Mouthwatering Recipes for Great Grilled Food'
by Fred Thompson
Photographs by Ben Fink
The Taunton Press -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

"Barbecue Nation" author Fred Thompson goes through the hows and whys of gas grilling in his latest book. Here you'll learn what to look for in a gas grill, how to use it and how to turn it into a meat-smoking machine.

Along the way, you'll find some solid recipes to keep you grilling all year long.

See what we tested and whether it's worth buying after the jump.

Takeaway Tips: Invest in a good grill. Look for rust-resistant, heavy-gauge metal; at least 400 square inches of cooking surface; and a tightly fitted lid. Be prepared to spend about $300 on a two-burner grill to do anything beyond the basic hamburger and hot dog.

Test the doneness of your meat using the face scale. Your cheek simulates the feel of rare, the tip of your nose is medium and your forehead is well done.

Quality of pictures: This isn't a photo-driven book. That said, Fink's shots of juicy grilled meats are worth salivating over.

What we tested: Baconized Tuna with Lemon Butter

"There's some perverse pleasure in taking a low-in-fat, good-for-you protein like tuna and surrounding it with bacon fat and butter," begins this recipe. Sold! We had to try it on a cool autumn afternoon.

This recipe was incredibly easy. He calls for poaching the bacon slices for a few minutes before wrapping them around each tuna steak. He cooks the steaks on a preheated high-heat grill and bastes them with a lemon-butter-garlic-parsley sauce for 6 minutes. (We must admit, we tried this on a charcoal grill -- as gas is illegal where we live -- which imparted a smokier flavor easily achieved with some hardwood chips on the gas grill.)

The results were delicious and the recipe easy enough that we'd make it again.

Worth the investment: If you are seriously considering entering the gas-grill realm, this book certainly can't hurt to get you up to speed.

Filed Under: Cookbook Spotlight, Books, Reviews
Tags: cookbook spotlight, CookbookSpotlight, fred thompson, FredThompson, grilling with gas, GrillingWithGas