Planking for Flavor

We do things these days that we would never associate with cooking out when I was young, like rubbing, mopping and planking.

This is about planking--smoking your meat or fish on a plank to bring out some good flavor. The Southern Living Cookbook gives us a good method of planking and it is not that hard.

This is how you do it:

1. The plank. You find a untreated piece of wood 12 x 12 to 12 x 18 inches and one inch thick. You can choose from different kinds of wood for different flavors of smoke, such as

• Oak for chicken, fish or port
• Hickory for beef or chicken
• Maple for fish, chicken, pork - adds a slightly sweeter flavor
• Alder for mild flavor
• Cedar also works well for fish

Soak the plank for up to 24 hours completely immersed. The longer you soak it, the more smoke you get and the less chance of burning.

2.  Preheat the grill to medium of about 350 degrees. Drain the plank well, and spray it with cooking out before putting on the meat or fish. Place it on the grill an shut the lid immediately to allow the smoke to build up.

3. Cook the meat or fish to the desired doneness and enjoy!

A nice grill that would work well for planking is our Pro Deluxe Grill shown

here from bestbackyardchef.com, and we have a variety of Southern Living
Cookbooks on our bfcookbooks.com website. Please comment if you have
questions.