BBQ Hall of Fame inductee Adam Perry Lang’s classic BBQ cookbook, “Charred & Scruffed: Bold new techniques for explosive flavor on and off the grill” is available for at Amazon.com, with Charred & Scruffed, bestselling cookbook author and acclaimed chef Adam Perry Lang employs his extensive culinary background to refine and concentrate the flavors and textures of barbecue and reimagine its possibilities.
Adam’s new techniques, from roughing up meat and vegetables (“scruffing”) to cooking directly on hot coals (“clinching”) to constantly turning and moving the meat while cooking (“hot potato”), produce crust formation and layers of flavor, while his board dressings and finishing salts build upon delicious meat juices, and his “fork finishers”—like cranberry, hatch chile, and mango “spackles”—provide an intensely flavorful, concentrated end note.
Perry Lang opens by explaining his building blocks: seasoning, controlling heat, adding layers of flavor during the cooking process, and finishing the meat with still more flavor even after removing it from the fire. In chapters on Meat, Fish, and Poultry, he introduces exciting new techniques like scruffing (roughing up meat to create more surfaces where seasonings and bastes can cling for extra flavor), clinching (cooking meat directly on the coals to enhance crunch), and cooking high and slow (especially effective for crust development in larger cuts). He covers familiar cuts of meat and also introduces new ones such as the “Man Steak” which combines every texture in steakdom in one piece of meat.
Side dishes such as Creamed Spinach with Steeped and Smoked Garlic Confit, Scruffed Carbonara Potatoes, and Charred Radicchio with Sweet-and-Sticky Balsamic and Bacon, far from afterthoughts, provide exciting contrast and synergy with the “mains.” Perry Lang’s passionate yet cerebral approach to barbecue extends to side dishes such as Crispy Moonshine Onion Rings, Polenta with Mascarpone and Rosemary, and Charred Radicchio with Sweet-and-Sticky Balsamic and Bacon.
We can’t wait!
