Primal Grill with Steven Raichlen

Smoke is the soul of true barbecue. As you climb the ladder of barbecue enlightenment, you’ll want to be able to smoke a variety of foods in a variety of grills and smokers. This show explores four diverse foods: ribs, turkey, salmon, and even a dessert—prepared in a traditional offset barrel smoker, a water smoker, a charcoal grill, and a stovetop smoker. Sorry…no gas grills allowed.

Meat on a stick represented the first technological leap forward in the evolution of barbecue. The popularity of kebabs and sates around the world attests to the universal appeal of skewered foods. So why do so many kebabs come on bamboo skewers with burnt ends or on metal skewers with raw onions, overcooked meat, and tomatoes that fall into the embers? If you’ve ever had trouble nailing the perfect shish kebab, or you want to expand your repertoire, this show is for you.

People may dream of smoking whole hogs and briskets, but admit it: what you really want to know for everyday use on a practical basis is how to grill the perfect steak. This show reveals all the secrets, from selecting the right steak to setting up the grill to the perfect seasoning and sauces. You’ll learn how to achieve perfect doneness every time using the “four-finger” poke test.

When I was growing up,” barbecue” meant chicken marinated in sweet barbecue sauce, burnt charcoal-black on the outside, still raw inside, and reeking of lighter fluid. Sound familiar? This show will teach you the right way to grill America’s favorite bird: on a charcoal grill, in a smoker, and on a gas grill.

A lot of people are intimidated by the idea of grilling fish. With good reason! When you grill fish, does it A) stick to the grill grate; B) break into pieces; C) come out raw in the center; D) come out hopelessly overcooked; or E) all of the above? This show will give you three great ways to grill fish without fear—or tears.

When I was growing up, the options for a vegetarian at a typical barbecue were limited to hamburger buns or potato salad. In many parts of the world…in India and Japan, for example…meatless grilling produces some of the most interesting food to come off the fire. So whether you’re grilling for vegetarians, or you just want to cut back on the meat sometimes, this sizzling show has you covered.

When it comes to flavor, you can’t beat meat that’s still attached to the bone. This simple truth is appreciated by anyone who has ever barbecued a rack of ribs, grilled a long-bone veal chop, or roasted a whole leg of lamb. Grilling and, more importantly, serving meat on the bone, transports us to a time back before the invention of knives and forks when barbecue buffs ate with their hands, chewing the fire-roasted meat right off the bone. Discover your inner caveman.

More taste than time? There’s no excuse not to fire up your grill. Travel the world’s barbecue trail and you’ll discover that in many countries, grilling is the original fast food. Here are three grilled masterpieces that let you assuage your hunger without making you break a sweat—basil-grilled tuna steaks, chicken breasts grilled under a brick, and coconut-grilled pineapple for dessert. Because there’s simply no reason not to fire up the grill when you get home from work.

Back before there were supermarkets (or barbecue grills), grill masters hunted, fished, gathered, and grilled in the wild. This show celebrates the primal pleasures of cooking wild foods with live fire. It starts with—what else?—wild salmon from the Pacific Northwest grilled on cedar planks with a juniper and wild berry glaze. Our next course is grilled elk loin, marinated in wine and wrapped in bacon, and grilled wild mushrooms foraged in the forests of Washington State. Steven will even show you a wild dessert—a smoke-roasted wild fruit crumble.

Seafood may come from the water, but nothing brings out its briny succulence like the high, dry, smoky heat of the grill. This truth is readily apparent on the beaches of Brazil, at the waterfront grill stalls in Asia, and the seaside communities of the Yucatan. Here are three great grilled seafood dishes that solve the age-old problems of fish sticking to the grill grate or breaking apart when you go to turn it: Brazilian coconut grilled shrimp, Asian garlic grilled halibut, and snapper grilled in banana leaves, Yucatan-style. And grilled asparagus rafts make an appropriately nautical accompaniment.

Grilling brings out the cowboy in all of us. After all, smoked brisket originated in Texas cattle country and barbecue was brought to Missouri with the great cattle drives along the Chisholm Trail from Fort Worth to the meat-packing houses in Kansas City. This show will make you at home on the range, or at least at home with some of the smoked and grilled foods traditionally associated with America’s cattle country: Hellfire T-bone steaks (with grilled jalapeno poppers to keep them company), smoked brisket, and, the newest addition to the “range”—free-range chicken grilled with herbed butter under the skin.

Barbecue means meat to millions of grill masters, of course, but it’s also about vegetables. Just ask one of India’s 300 million vegetarians, who love tandoori (Indian barbecue pit cooking) every bit as much as a carnivore does. When it comes to bringing out the caramelized sweetness of a vegetable, nothing beats the searing heat of a grill. In this Episode, Steven will show you a barbecue where vegetarians will not feel like second-class citizens. On the menu? Grilled eggplant “caprese” salad; Indian pepper, tomato, and paneer cheese kebabs (served with Indian grilled puff pastry); and a “carb-haters” sandwich—grilled portabello mushrooms cheeseburgers.

Smoke is the soul of true barbecue. As you climb the ladder of barbecue enlightenment, you’ll want to be able to smoke a variety of foods in a variety of grills and smokers. This show explores four diverse foods: ribs, turkey, salmon, and even a dessert—prepared in a traditional offset barrel smoker, a water smoker, a charcoal grill, and a stovetop smoker. Sorry…no gas grills allowed.

In 1516, a Spanish explorer encountered a band of Taino Indians roasting game and seafood on a wooden frame over a smoky fire. They called the cooking device a barbacoa-the origin of modern barbecue. This show takes us to the birthplace of barbecue-the Caribbean-where you'll learn to make Jamaican jerk chicken, buccaneer baby back ribs with pineapple barbecue sauce, and a Raichlen classic: shrimp grilled on sugarcane.

Gaucho describes the cowboys of northern Argentina and southern Brazil. These rustic cattle herders developed a simple yet powerful style of grilling over an open wood fire, a tradition still celebrated around Planet Barbecue today.Here are three indispensable gaucho favorites:Chicken roasted in a salt crust, from Uruguay's celebrity grill master, Francis Mallmann; the monster beef ribs that made the reputation of Brazil's famous grill house, Fogo de Chao; and a dessert from Brazil's cattle country, a pineapple you roast on the rotisserie.

Since Roman times, the Italian focus-hearth-has made monumental contributions to the world of live fire cooking. A new addition to the Primal Grill equipment collection, an authentic Italian-style wood-burning oven, inspired this shows menu: two versions of Italy's iconic food, pizza, cooked on the floor of the oven but easily adapted to a conventional grill; wood oven-roasted sweet and sour duck; and monster bone-in pork chops glazed with a reduction of red wine, honey, and balsamic vinegar. Benissimo.

The whole world grills, and a few countries smoke. But only one place on Planet Barbecue has highly evolved traditions of both-the U.S.A. (Of course, in the South, Midwest, and Texas, smoked meats are better known as barbecue.) In previous seasons of Primal Grill, we've shown you how to barbecue the familiar-chicken, ribs, and brisket. So here's a look at some less well-known regional live fire cooking: lobster the way we do it on Martha's Vineyard (my summer home); Texas beef clod-a massive cut from the shoulder that handily feeds a carnivorous horde; and Puerto Rican pork shoulder, seasoned with oregano and garlic, basted with annatto oil, and spit-roasted until the skin is shatteringly crisp and the meat fork-tender.

More than 5000 years ago, a potter in Central Asia made a tall, urn-shaped, incredibly efficient clay barbecue pit-the origin of the Indian tandoor. Today, tandoori, Indian barbecue, is enjoyed from New Delhi to New Caledonia to New York. This show features tandoori salmon (washed with garlic water and marinated in spices, yogurt, and chickpea flour). Next up, two traditional Indian charcoal-grilled breads made from the same dough: naan and flaky, puff pastry-like lachha paratha, followed by fragrant Persian-inspired saffron chicken tikka kebabs. Best of all, each recipe can be cooked on a conventional grill, too.