Book Review: "Charred and Scruffed" by Adam Perry Lang

I recently read Adam Perry Lang's "Charred and Scruffed" and really enjoyed the techniques he presented.

His background is quite impressive with classical chef experience as well as much time spent in the traditional BBQ circuit.  However, in this book he blows up typical notions about grilling and I was excited to test some of his techniques.  You can read the book for more and visit his website, but what I did was to test out his "board dressing" concept, which seems intuitive but is rarely something you come across in recipes.  Yes, a good pan sauce is common and makes a ton of difference in the kitchen, but when it comes to grilling, most recipes just suggest to let your meat rest and soak in its own juices before slicing--and that's it.

Lang's concept is to have a bit of sauce to spread on the cutting board before you let the meat rest, and "layering" on more flavor.  Here's a simplified approach I took:

First, I grilled some skirt steak with minimal seasoning (salt & pepper).  For the board dressing, I mixed some teriyaki sauce with garlic salt and chili powder, and spread it across my cutting board:

I then placed the skirt steak on the board to rest for about 10 minutes as you would normally do with steak:

Finally, I sliced the skirt steak across the grain (essential basic for skirt steak, brisket, etc.--look this up if you aren't familiar) and tossed the slices a bit around the "dressing":

This seems like a simplistic technique and an obvious thing to do, but I never read recipes that suggest anything like this (not that I go by recipes that much anymore).  What Lang does with his book is present a series of steps like this that he uses in a multi-step process that opens up a whole new set of flavors--even seasoned grillers should learn something from it.  He finishes the book with slew of great little side dish recipes that complete the meals.

I recommend this book highly and look forward to more food experimentation using the techniques!