Testing the temperature of the barbecue grill using your nose is not a good idea. You can ask my buddy Kelly Kirby, yourself, why he prefers this innovative method.
When I first witnessed the application of the nose-check method, it was employed during a raft trip. We had built a large raft and were floating it down the Yukon River with a small portable BBQ unit on board that was apparently not operating properly. Kelly, at that time, was experiencing some difficulty with the ignition of his portable BBQ contraption.
I was far more concerned about an explosion than I was about the ensuing fire, unless it got to the inner tubes. The fire could be controlled by the sea kayakers of our group who were paddling playfully around our raft. Using their bailing pumps, which could move a surprisingly large amount of water, quite a distance, the kayakers could easily put out a large fire in short order.
In fact, the problem was that the propane cylinder may have had a slow leak and Kelly was leaning in to listen for gas escaping. To the rest of us on the raft who were doubled over with laughter, what he was trying to repair was unimportant; we wanted to laugh at the guy with his nose on the BBQ grill.
We also wanted Chorizo sausages with chimichurri sauce, but all we got was plain old smokies.
Our barbecue-on-a-raft idea turns out to be quite lame when compared to German inventor Sebastian Schmitt’s idea of an inflatable floating BBQ for 10 people. This 10-seat “BBQ-Donut” can actually travel at a fairly brisk four kilometres per hour.
The inflatable donut has a charcoal BBQ table in the middle and apparently a very powerful sound system for the party, which is certain to begin the moment you board the actual donut itself.
No one should ever joke about a motorized inflatable BBQ Donut. Germany must not have a department of transport, occupational health and safety, or fisheries and oceans for that matter. In the promotional photograph of the BBQ Donut there is no sign of washrooms; I guess, over the side it is.
By now you could only have one word in mind and that word would be “bratwurst”. To cook a raw meat or fresh bratwurst, the first step, obviously, is to cook them in a pot with beer and onions.
On the stovetop, put a bottle of beer for every one-and-one-half pounds of bratwurst into a pot and cook on low for about 10 minutes, being careful not to cook them until the skins split. Throw in some onions while you boil your bratwurst and try to refrain from using “lite” beer if at all possible.
After the stovetop portion of the show, cooking the bratwurst on the grill is the same as a hot dog. Make sure your fire is not too hot, and cook until you have a juicy centre and a crunchy skin.
In the making of a true bratwurst, every imaginable part of the critter but the tail and the “oink” is used.
Sauerkraut is the natural accompaniment for bratwurst, but I would suggest kimchee, instead. Kimchee is basically Korean sauerkraut that smells like old gym socks. The first mention of it in history was 3,000 years ago in a Chinese poetry book. Imagine that.
I have had a whiff of kimchee, myself, while on a recent alcohol research project in the Philippines, and let me tell you … between the kimchee and the durian fruit, it is amazing they can taste anything in Southeast Asia. Maybe that is how they can eat all that chili.
Remember to shop locally and avoid kimchee at all costs.
