This is a simple meal to prepare, and its really big on flavor. The brats are parboiled in a mixture of beer, shallots, and spices (think the sweet but savory, clean flavors of juniper and caraway) before they get crisped up with the smoky flavor of the grill, leaving the beer mixture to reduce to a thick sauce. These are served alongside some tender,

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The pork chops were massaged with a simple spice rub and kissed with that distinctly smoky flavor you can only get from the grill. While those cooked, I prepared the cream sauce in the style of

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I really enjoyed this–the burgers had a nice, tangy-but-sweet teriyaki flavor, with a good mix of peppers and light heat to them. The texture, something I was curious about (never dealt with ground chicken before), was also thankfully quite nice. The sweetness to the teriyaki also made it easier to get a good caramelization on the outside of the burgers from the high heat of the grill, which made it that much more enjoyable. The burgers were topped with a surprisingly

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I chose two well marbled and very beefy cuts for the burger: ribeye and shortribs (and this is entirely personal preference–you want intense flavor and a good bit of fat). Then, I incorporated other flavors from green curry–green curry paste, peppers, ginger, lime, basil, coconut–and worked all of that into the ground beef. The flavor was a bit more subtle than I’d expected; kind of an upfront aftertaste–a pretaste–before the dominant beefiness dominated. You pick up a hint of coconut, the distinct green curry flavor, a bit of heat, and a green oniony/gingery kind of lingering flavor that

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This was my excuse to play with my new KitchenAid meat grinder. I started with two separate cuts of beef: chuck (for fattiness–keeps the burger juicy) and ribeye (also fatty, but much more intense beef flavor). You could certainly throw the steak in a food processor, but a real meat grinder won’t turn your meat into texture-free paste. The goal is to nicely emulsify the meat and fat so you have a somewhat homogenous and tender end result

But anyways, back to the meat. These were incredible–very flavorful, very beefy, and very juicy. The supporting elements I worked into

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In reality, this is quite simple and that’s why it’s so darn good (but such is barbecue). The chicken is slowly smoked–richly flavorful, crispy skin, and surprisingly tangy from a simple marinade. Plus, whole chicken is the best (I always love a good roast chicken).

What made this different was the sauce glazed on at the end. It’s a simple barbecue sauce, but tinged with a generous helping of Indian flavors–cinnamon, cardamom, tamarind, fenugreek, cilantro, etc. The total combination worked wonderfully and had me licking my fingers clean.

• 1 whole chicken
• Marinade
  • 1/8

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Now I know this one sounds strange, but this was incredible. This begins by making a barbecue sauce where the big players are chiles, tomatoes, and tamarind–fruity, earthy, spicy, sweet, sour–there’s a lot of flavor going on. The tamarind flavor was distinctly present, but not overpoweringly so while the chiles gave a very solid flavor backbone to the sauce. The brisket is then braised in the sauce for hours, pulled and shredded, and tossed in the sauce. Finally, this is piled on top of

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And how did it come out? Quite surprising–I’d never had watermelon in any form other than dessert, so I was really curious to see where it would go. The end result didn’t quite have the tex-mex sort of flavors I was expecting, but it was nonetheless quite enjoyable.

The peppers give the salsa a bit of heat, the avocado some creaminess and richness, the jicama a tartness and a firm crunch, while the watermelon played the curious role of…refreshment. Sort of like having a salsa with really juicy tomatoes…but not. It was definitely a good one–the only downside is that if you have extra, it

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I used to be of the saucy ribs camp, but given everything I’ve heard about dry rubbed ribs, I thought it was time to give this a fair shot. I could never fathom it before–I mean after all, its just meat! Wouldn’t it be dry (“dry rub”–sounds dry!)? Wouldn’t it be bland? And so on. Ribs simply needed sauce.

Well now that I’ve finally tried dry rub, this is definitely the way to go. I love a good sauce, but keep it off of my ribs! You start with a light coating of mustard

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This was absolutely delicious and very well suited to July 4th weekend (or any summer weekend) kind of grilling/barbecuing occasion. The effort is pretty minimal and the results are very flavorful. If you were to taste the sauce alone without the chicken, it will taste a little unbalanced as far as a barbecue sauce goes (in my opinion–it leans most heavily towards sweet and spicy), but when combined with the chicken as a glaze after being flavored with the brine and smoked with the spice rub, you get that full four-way flavor experience that is good barbecue (sweet, savory, spicy, smokey).

The chicken was crusty, sticky, smoky, tangy,

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