Barbecue Tricks

BBQ Tips and Tricks

Chips

Recipes

Tortillia Chips Made Easy

nacho chipsTortillia chips can be easy to make at home.  The recipe is as easy as three ingredients. Click through the video for the easy step by step.

The best things about these home made chips is the buttery taste and the sturdy firmness of the chip.  In fact, you’ll have a hard time finding a chip that can stand up to guacamole and spicy bean dip any better than these.

Add some salt right after frying and serve ’em hot.

Tortillia Chips
Fresh corn tortillias
Vegetable oil
Salt

Featured

Pita Chips – Making Them Easy

Barbecue’s big flavors often call for a collection of robust sides. Often times a backyard cookout is accompanied by some cheap potato chips. Here’s a way to dress it up and offer a slightly healthier (baked) alternative. Sure you can buy pita chips in the store, but they tend to be small overpriced bags and not enough for small gathering.

Go ahead and try to make these chips at home they’re super easy and we nailed it on the first try.


Garlic Pita Chips

1-2 packages pita bread

Olive oil

Seasoned salt

Garlic powder

Olive oil spray

  • Cut pita bread in half, then cut each half into four triangles and separate each triangle.

  • Place chips on baking sheets lined with parchment paper and brush heavily with olive oil.

  • Sprinkle salt and garlic powder over all. (One side only for best result.)

  • Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.

  • Flip chips and spray with olive oil spray.

  • Bake 6-8 more minutes until golden brown. (For convection, use 325 degrees and only 6 minutes on the second round.)

  • Drain on a paper towel and serve with your favorite dip!

Tricks

Foiled Again – Smoking Barbecue

You don’t need a thousand dollar stainless smoker to prepare great BBQ. In fact, you may already have all you need in the kitchen.

Even a gas grill can provide a succulent slow smoked flavor to almost any meat. The secret is in the smoke and getting the heat down LOW.

Good thing is many of today’s gas grills come with a temperature gauge right on the lid. 225 degrees to 250 degrees should do nicely for most slow smoking. Just give it plenty of time.

You’ll also need just enough smoke. Here’s how you can handle it even without a special green egg or smoker box. Just soak some wood chips for about an hour in water. You can buy great chips and chunks in most grocery stores these days. Hickory is good but pit masters will argue over flavors of wood for hours… our advice is just stay away from pressure treated! (We’re not kidding! It can kill you.)

Create an envelope out of heavy duty aluminum foil. It need not be pretty… sometimes I’ll just wrap up the larger chunks of hardwood in a wad. Then, lay the pouch on or near the gas burner (or even on charcoal). Have another pouch handy after an hour or so. It’s OK to leave the “done” pouch in the grill until after cooking. You’d be surprised how much smoke flavor continues to emit from the pouch even after the visible smoke is gone. This easy extra adds a nice touch to gas grill ‘cue. Clean up is also a breeze.

Recipes

Smoke This

Don’t limit your babecue to just smoking with hickory and mesquite. Try Basil Twigs. If you happen to grow fresh basil during the summer months you’ll likely find that you have an dry bush of twigs as winter nears. Not good looking… but good for cooking!

Use the completely dried twigs to add flavor to your next cook out. Soak the twigs as you would any wood chips and use them to add that secret basil flavor to pork chops or a good London broil. Enjoy a cold one while your buddies argue over what wood your using!