Fourth of July weekend is upon us or, you know, whatever we’re calling it considering the holiday lands on a Tuesday this year. That means our employers will give us a five-day weekend right? Right? Right? Come on, we can dream! Look, however long the holiday weekend ends up being, one thing is for certain — you’re probably barbecuing sometime between today and July 4th. And before you heat up that grill and throw some meat on the grate, let us help fill you in on all the best grilling advice for barbecue season.
And who better to guide us than James Beard nominated chef and host of Tastemade’s All Up In My Grill, Dale Talde?
In addition to All Up In My Grill, Chef Talde has served as a three-time contestant and judge on Top Chef, and appeared on Chopped, Iron Chef America, and more. He’s a prominent personality on cooking competition shows and a well-respected chef with the restaurants TALDE, Rice & Gold, and Goosefeather under his belt. The latter concept earned him a nomination for a James Beard award in the wildly competitive category of “Best Chef, New York City.”
His accolades are numerous, but what really drove us to seek out Talde’s expertise is that we really vibe with the ethos of All Up In My Grill — which is all about elevating and leveling up. So we chopped it up with Chef Talde and asked about grilling techniques, tools, and general advice to help you level up your grill game before we hit barbecue season. After the interview, be sure to catch up on season three of All Up In My Grill on the Tastemade streaming channel. Let’s dive in!
Just to start, what can people expect with this season of All Up In My Grill?
I think one of the biggest things that we decided to do with this season was constantly level up, and make sure that we’re not just using gas grills this season. We’re using charcoal grills. A lot of us made some pandemic purchases and bought outdoor pizza ovens. So we’re using those. But we’re trying to challenge the viewer to understand that it’s not just brats and hot dogs, what else can we cook on the grill?
We’re doing whole prime ribs. We’re still theming every episode, the Father’s Day Feast is just real decadence. But it’s always this idea of leveling up a little bit. So pushing the viewer into doing a little bit more, and we’re doing more.
I wanted to ask you about grills in that regard. Do you have a preference between charcoal and gas grills? Let’s take out for a second the convenience of a gas grill. Say that’s not part of the equation. When it comes to flavor or control, do you have a preference?
Oh man, nothing beats charcoal or hardwood. Honestly, nothing beats the flavor of that. Grilling is the only cooking method that actually imparts flavor into whatever you’re cooking. But nothing beats the flavor of cooking on charcoal or cooking over wood. It’s unbeatable. In the summertime, it’s so iconic. You smell it, you get hungry. You smell wood burning, you smell charcoal, fat dripping on charcoal, it gets you salivating immediately. I have the opportunity to cook but it’s not a reality for a lot of people, you know what I mean? Sometimes, what we love about cooking outside is that, especially in the summertime, is that it’s convenient. The house doesn’t get hot. You’re not raising the temperature up there.
A gas grill sometimes, it’s super easy. Light it up, 15 minutes later you’re ready to go.
You mentioned how the All Up In My Grill ethos revolves around leveling up. What are some simple level-up techniques people can utilize in their own home grilling, that maybe they’re not thinking of?
Even if you have a gas grill, adding smoke sticks to impart some of that smokey flavor, even more smokey flavor. Wood chip baskets in a gas grill help burn it and impart some flavor to the gas grill. We love gadgets on the show. Meat probes and fish baskets, I think are underutilized things to help get dinner, or whatever meal you want, onto the grill.
A fish basket isn’t just for fish. Say you have green beans, or smaller vegetables that might fall through the grates. Putting them in one of those wire baskets helps turn things over to get them cooked evenly, without it falling through a grate.
Or another trick I use is that anything that’s harder, like cauliflower, broccoli, or potatoes. A wet towel, season salt and pepper and a little bit of olive oil or butter, in the microwave for two to three minutes. Maybe even five minutes, before it gets onto the grill. It really helps cook it through, so you don’t have something nice and charred, and then it’s still crunchy and raw in the middle.
I think things like that, those tricks help me. Especially with vegetable cookery, I think we focus a lot on proteins, but I love grilled vegetables. Oftentimes, you don’t just have one vegetable, you have a few, and they cook at different times. So to get them all cooked at the same time, get them a jumpstart in the microwave.
I’m going to try that this Fourth of July. Because I love grilled vegetables, but it’s always like, “How do I practically do this,”
Yeah, literally taking a head of broccoli, or a head of cauliflower, and splitting it in half. Wetting a wet paper towel, salt, pepper, and olive oil, and then zapping it in a microwave for five minutes. Then it gets the center cooked because microwaves cook from the inside out. Then you can get a nice char on the outside, and it is a perfect al dente, but still nice and charred.
Then potatoes, we’ve all been there with potatoes. You’re trying to grill them, they’re falling through the grate, and whatever. It ends up nice and cooked on the outside, and it’s raw in the middle. Instead of you having to boil a pot, fish them out, just put them on a plate. Follow exactly what I did. A wet paper towel, salt, and pepper, and some olive oil. Then get them started. Then by the time they’re nice and crispy on the outside, they’ll be nice and tender in the middle.
I know you got your start cooking as a kid, alongside your mom in Chicago. I just was curious, what meals were you working on?
I watched my mom cook everything. We were a very classic Filipino household, so my mom was frying fish, and cooking dried fish, outside on a portable outdoor wok, which I can remember. Just so you didn’t stink the house up. But everything from very traditional meals, like stewed ox tails with tamarind, to fish head soups, to wonton soup, to simple fried rice. I watched my mom cook it all. We got three meal periods at the house, and my mom took care of most of it.
When did you first get into grilling deeply? What unlocked it for you?
I’ll tell you what really helped, is camping when I was younger. We were 18 years old. We would get together, and we would go get a bunch of stuff, and go camping, and go hang out, and go fishing. Then cooking over a wood fire in a pit, it’s pretty cool. Especially when not a lot of us have experience cooking, and we’re all trying to make meals happen while we’re out in the woods in Wisconsin, and outside of Chicago. A lot of those meals.
What basic tips for grilling proteins can you offer us?
Yeah, I think one of the biggest things for proteins is, and someone asked me this the other day. If you have a protein, and you either have a spatula or tongs, and you’re trying to get it off the grill, and it’s not coming off, then it shouldn’t be pulled off. It’s not ready to come off of it, do you know what I mean by that?
Yeah yeah, for sure.
When people try to force the issue, you start tearing away at the skin on chicken. If you’re worried that it’s too hot, turn it as much as you can down, or just move the grate with the protein on it. Those are really simple things. It sounds simple, but intuitively you’re like, “Oh, it’s flaring up. I need to move it.” Yeah, turn it down. Water. Water will help tame some of the fire, and drop the temperature a little bit. But if something’s not ready to come, if it’s stuck on the grill, or if it’s not coming off very easily, it means it’s not meant to come off yet.
If you love grilled fish, but you don’t eat the skin, or you have a hard time with the skin, when you buy fish, don’t have them scale it. Cook it with the scale and skin on. That will help protect the fish. Then you can just literally peel the skin off. When you do that, it’s an added layer of protection. It keeps the skin moist, or the meat of the fish moist.
Then if you’re talking about beef, or steaks, or chops, things that are big proteins. Say you’ve got a 32-ounce T-bone steak, for four people. Try the reverse sear, where you put it on a very low part of the grill. Bring it up to a certain temperature that you want, bring it up to 110. Then on the ripping hot side, get it seared off, hot. So you can get that optimal medium rare in the middle, and then you have a nice crusty outside.
I wanted to talk a little bit about the Bougie Badass Burgers episode. I was wondering if you could walk us through what your own personal favorite elevated burger recipe on the grill is. It doesn’t have to be your explicit favorite. Maybe just something that you’re feeling right now, that sounds the most delicious to you at this very moment.
Yeah, so for me, I love a good smash burger. That’s my everyday burger. But if I’m doing a burger that’s like, “This is all I’m making. This is it.” If we’re doing burgers, which I rarely do, because for me it’s, I don’t know, I feel like a lot of people can do a good burger. But if I’m doing a burger, I’m going to make sure it’s really special. Dry aged meat. Usually a blend of short rib, a little bit of rib eye, and some chuck for fat, or brisket.
I’m doing blue cheese, and really good blue cheese, like a Stilton. I’m doing pickled onions, and pickles, on a brioche bun. A lot of salt and pepper, and truffle aioli, and maybe some bacon. But no other vegetables, no ketchup. Just a lot of things to help cut through the richness of the fat of the patty, and the patty has to be big. Eight ounces or bigger. Especially if it’s like, “This is our dinner.”
Then grilled wedge fries, you know what I mean? Steak house style. I love a good French fry, but I feel like with this type, I feel like you’re eating a steak. A steak on a bun. So I want something with a little more substance, and a little bit more interesting.
What are you cooking that to, temp-wise, medium?
Medium. Almost always. Bigger burgers, medium. I can’t do mid-rare, rare. To me it’s, I want textural contrast, do you know what I mean? I think sometimes, I know people who eat mid-rare, rare burgers, and for me, there’s no textural contrast. It’s just soft and squishy, and I don’t love that.
I know people who eat burgers like that, and to me, it’s just, I want … There isn’t that satisfaction of sinking your teeth into something, and there’s that resistance. I need that.
You mentioned one, in the fish basket, but what are some more essential grilling tools people need?
I think one that people overlook is a misting bottle, and having it loaded with some water. Because I think it’s really easy for someone to lose control of some of the heat. If it’s flaring up, just hit it with some water.
Essential? A cake tester. I know it sounds silly, but it’s what we use to temp steaks and chicken and fish. You put it into the heaviest part of it, and then you bring it to your wrist and feel how hot it is.
I love those saute pans that are perforated. They have holes on the bottom of them. So if I want to saute, if I want to grill Brussels sprouts, you can just oil them up and then put them in the grill. Get that pan hot and saute and grill at the same time. I think it’s cool and fun.
I love paella pans, and cast iron pans, because I love doing rice and noodle dishes on the grill, and that’s a way to do it. It’s paella. That’s how they traditionally made paella, over an open fire. So something like a fideua, which is similar to paella. Or even a baked pasta dish, in a cast iron pan. It’s a side to whatever. Say you’re doing steak Florentine, and you want a baked pasta side. It’s a really cool way to get that going.
I think people don’t think about that enough. It’s a heat source, so get the pan hot, you know what I mean? I think people look at it too, “Oh, I have to put the protein directly on.” No, you don’t.
Right, or, “I have to do what is traditionally grilled.”
Yeah. I think that’s the idea. For us, in season one, we were making rosti potatoes, or a very traditional pomme Dauphinoise on a grill, in a grill pan. Or in a cast iron pan. It’s just a heat source, so anything you can do in a kitchen, you definitely can do it on a grill. Once you close the grill, I think what people don’t realize is that, now you’ve just created this oven effect. Now you’re grilling and roasting things. So as long as it’s on the lower heat side, you won’t char it.
If you could lay out a meal for us. Again, doesn’t have to be an all-time favorite. But just a full-grilled meal, what sounds good to you right now?
Right now? For me, any time it’s summertime, it’s seafood and shellfish. So a whole roasted fish. A couple of different salsas that we’ve made on the grill, like a salsa roja, or salsa verde chard, blended, or making tortillas on a plancha, on the grill. Some shaved cabbage, pickled vegetables, and maybe a rice dish to accompany the whole fish. You can’t beat that. I don’t know, pretty hard to beat that in the summertime, when you’re outside with friends.
A whole roasted fish, to me, it’s a hard one to beat. It’s just so good. On the bone, stays nice and moist. A trick for cooking a whole fish is, if you’re going to cook a whole fish, you keep the spines on the back. The fin on the back. Don’t cut that. Then if you can pull them out cleanly, the fish is done. On a whole fish. With the bones in.
Just as a last question, this is something we ask all the chefs we talk to. What’s your favorite, or go to fast food chain?
Popeye’s. Untouchable. You can’t even touch it. In my opinion, it’s the premium brand of fried chicken. Their spicy chicken sandwich stomps out Chick-fil-A any day of the week. It’s flavorful. It’s crispy almost all the time. I will say, one thing about Popeye’s that I do enjoy is that, for some reason or another, and this is one-offs, but the ones that I go to, the people there are always hilarious and having a good time. I don’t know why it is, or how it is.
I used go to one in Chinatown that was family-owned. You could tell, they had a good time because they were all related. They also had a secret rice cooker, that you could ask them for white rice, that they only gave to people in the know. Then the ones out in the burbs, out here in Jersey, the people are just, I don’t know if it’s the atmosphere, or if it’s just the company. But the people always seem to be really nice. But it’s always, my meal is a four-piece dark, biscuit, mac, coleslaw, dirty rice, done, and a regular tea, not sweet tea.