Nagbabagang Weekend (oooh, ang init!)
It’s smoldering summer, and it’s so hot we fantasize about grilling steaks to a medium rare.
And that’s what we did – got some nice tenderloin and pork steaks, seasoned them with salt and pepper, and went off to satisfy some meat-craving.
But we needed charcoal, and couldn’t get our hands dirty until we found some. It was already late afternoon, and we’ve gone everywhere but couldn’t find any. We were already considering buying some from an ihaw-ihaw stand, but decided to try at Shopwise as a last resort. And there we found green charcoal – sustainable, environment-friendly, locally made uling.
Lesson #1: Make it hot, quick.
Aida Kusinera’s Green Charcoal briquettes take more time to get fired up than your ordinary uling. We’ve already devised ways of getting them burning hot faster and better next time, including bringing a proper fan (pamaypay), more newspapers, and an intricate briquette-stacking design. The faster we set up the grill, the faster we can start cooking, the sooner we can get eating.
Lesson #2: Don’t grill in the dark.
Night has fallen when we’ve finally started. On one hand it was great that we weren’t being toasted alive under the sun, but it was so difficult to grill with poor lighting – we couldn’t tell if the meat was done or not. Grilling is like outdoor photography – natural light makes the process much easier.
Lesson #3: Don’t eat carbs.
With continued fussing, we somehow got the meat right – the tenderloin was part-perfect and part-overcooked, so it’s still good since it was out first time anyway. The pork steaks were delicious – juicy, a bit charred, delicious all the way through. We had plates of grilled meat between the two of us, and decided that it was best to skip rice.
Lesson #4: Experiment more.
This isn’t really a learning, we just want to do more grilling. We think we’ll have nagbabagang weekends regularly – BBQ, bangus, tuna and salmon, inasal, grilled rosemary chicken…we’re hungry for more.
