the place I just moved into has a nice outdoor area and came with a (pretty busted but functional) propane grill. we're thinking of replacing it but maybe it's worth considering charcoal? Bwaaa

  • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    both have their place, charcoal as others have said is a bigger time investment but I have found as long as I use a charcoal chimney and decent charcoal I can get the coals hot in and in the grill ready to go in like twenty minutes

    Also smoking stuff is way easier with charcoal. I've smoked various things but possibly the best thing I ever did was a complete accident, I wanted to smoke some salsa ingredients as an experiment but I waaaay overdid it and the resulting salsa verde was overwhelmingly smokey. The revelation is that I put the incredibly smokey salsa verde into a silicon ice cube tray and froze it and kept a bag of turbo smokey salsa ice cubes. Making beans and want a smokey hit in them? Chili? Soup? Stew? Toss in a spicy salsa verde smoke cube and you're going to flavortown.

      • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        extremely strong recommendation on that, genuinely any kind of salsa ingredients in a tray in a smoker or charcoal grill with the tiniest bit of heat and some smoke

        for verde, you want roughly the bulk to be tomatillos, with maybe two thirds that much onion, and jalapeno or serrano peppers with honorable additional mention of habaneros (i'd still do some jalapenos and serranos if you're gonna add habs) and some garlic but no need to smoke the garlic, also salt and pepper if you're just making salsa and not doing overboard smoke

        edit: adding this note because it took me personally a very long time to come to real grips with this but recipes aren't math and you can adjust everything and you're even encouraged to so like do whatever when it all shakes out