25 Essentials: Techniques for Gas Grilling

by A. Cort Sinnes

Gas grills are easy, convenient, and clean. But the challenge, for new owners and even for seasoned vets, is to infuse the robust, soulful flavor of charcoal-grilled food, or, ideally, of smoke-cooked barbecue, into meals cooked on a gas grill. In 25 Techniques for Gas Grilling, A. Cort Sinnes, author of the bestselling The New Gas Grill Gourmet, shows how to do just that. Built around 25 techniques, each exemplified with a tempting recipe and a handsome color photo, this is a competitively priced, gift-appropriate title, sure to improve the backyard cooking skills of any gas-grill owner. Front matter addresses how to choose, maintain, accessorize, and use a gas grill, and the 25 recipes cover beef, lamb, pork, chicken, fish, and vegetarian options. The techniques include foil-packet grilling, how to grill delicate fish, grilling sliced vegetables, and 22 more.

129 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

My family moved to Napa, California in 1952, when I was five months old. We moved to a house about five blocks from where I now live. Except for a few years in the Midwest, the Napa Valley has been home for my entire life. Growing up here in the 60's could only be described as idyllic – the freedom experienced by Matt (the protaganist in Silverado Summer) is based on my own experience, especially after I bought my first 10-speed bicycle! During the summer, my best friend and I could get on our bikes, leave our houses at dawn, and not return until sundown, without any of our parents batting an eye. We rarely had a specific destination in mind, eager instead to simply explore the valley from one end to the other – from the derelict stone ruins of Napa Soda Springs, to ghost wineries almost no one knew about, to the leafy shade of "broken dam" high in the western hills and, yes, to the summit of Mt. St. Helena – one by one, we uncovered many of the secret places this valley holds.

I attended local schools, went to the University of California at Berkeley, and went to work for the legendary editor of Sunset Magazine, Walter Doty, right out of college. Along with a handful of others, Walter and I started the immensley successful Ortho Book Series out of Walter's garage in Los Altos. He was 85 years old (not to mention legally blind and deaf) and I was 22. I went on to write some 36 books on gardening and outdoor living and six cookbooks, including The Grilling Encyclopedia, which was nominated for a James Beard Award. Along the way I have been editor-in-chief of three national magazines, authored and illustrated a nationally syndicated newspaper column, In Your Own Backyard, featured in more than 300 newspapers, and hosted a popular video gardening series called Hooked on Gardening.

Reviews

[Nancy Rosenberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I was hoping for

The title suggested this was about “techniques,” but it is really just twenty five recipes. It doesn’t even try to explain how you might broaden beyond these 25 dishes. I was really hoping to learn techniques that could improve my grilling skills more broadly, beyond just following a recipe, but this isn’t the book for that.