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Steven Raichlen
Steven Raichlen is an award-winning author; journalist; cooking teacher; and TV host-and the man who gave barbecue a college education. His best-selling Barbecue Bible cookbook series (3 million copies in print) and Barbecue University® TV show on PBS have virtually reinvented American barbecue.
Raichlen's adventure with barbecue began with The Barbecue Bible (Workman, 1998), an IACP/ Julia Child Award-winning encyclopedic study of global grilling chronicling his 4-year, 200,000-mile odyssey on the world's barbecue trail. In 2000, Workman published How to Grill, the world's first step-by-step guide to live fire cooking, with more than 1000 color photographs, hailed by the New York Times as "astute, approachable, and eminently appealing." How to Grill won an IACP Award, as well as a Jacob's Creek Silver Ladle award in Australia and has sold more than 1 million copies.
BBQ USA (2003) is Raichlen's 780-page, 650-photograph, 425-recipe love song to regional American barbecue and won a 2004 James Beard Award. His most recent book, Indoor Grilling (2005), brings the flavors of outdoor barbecue indoors, covering everything from fireplace grills, built-ins, and grill pans to contact grills and stovetop smokers.
Raichlen's 26 books include Barbecue Bible; Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades; Beer Can Chicken; the perennially popular Miami Spice (Workman Publishing), the James Beard Award-winning Healthy Latin Cooking (Rodale), and the Big Flavor Cookbook (Black Dog & Levanthal). In all Raichlen has won 5 James Beard Awards and 3 IACP awards, and his books have been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Polish, Hungarian, Japanese, and Chinese.
Raichlen's TV show, Barbecue University® with Steven Raichlen, debuted on Public Television in spring, 2003, and is now in its third year and airs in 90 percent of PBS markets. Taped on location at the luxurious Greenbrier resort in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, the 39 part series focuses on the techniques of live fire cooking.
In 2000, Raichlen launched Barbecue University® at the Greenbrier-profiled on the Food Network (which ranked it the "Best BBQ Experience in the U.S."), and in Bon Appetit Magazine, Travel & Leisure Magazine and Esquire. In 2003, Bon Appetit named Raichlen "Cooking Teacher of the Year."
In August, 2003, Raichlen defeated Iron Chef Roksbura Michiba in a barbecue battle on Japanese television. In April, 2004, he defeated Bobby Flay and Jacques Pepin in a Barbecue Battle in Baltimore. Oprah called him the "Gladiator of Grilling" and Howard Stern hailed him as the "Michael Jordan of Barbecue."
Raichlen's newest venture is a line of grilling tools, fuels, and flavors, manufactured by The Companion Group and marketed under the name of Steven Raichlen's Best of Barbecue. The 53-item line features America's longest tongs, largest grill brush, and only square chimney starter, as well as such barbecue firsts as a grill hoe (for raking out hot coals), grill rings (for barbecuing onions and cabbages), and cast iron Tuscan grill (which helps you create killer grill marks on a regular grill and doubles as a fireplace grill in the winter). Flavorings include 4 custom barbecue rubs, 3 exotic sauces, and a set of brines, well as wood chip blends and wine barrel grilling wood.
In 1975, Raichlen received a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellowship to study medieval cooking in Europe, as well as a Fulbright Scholarship to study comparative literature. He holds a degree in French literature from Reed College and trained at the Cordon Bleu and La Varenne cooking schools in Paris. Raichlen lives with his wife, Barbara, in Coconut Grove, Florida.
ASIAN GRILLED BEEF SALAD © 2005 Steven Raichlen
Serves 4 as a generous lunch salad or 6 as a first course.
1 flank steak (about 1-1/4 pounds)
For the marinade/ dressing:
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
3 scallions, white part minced, green part thinly sliced for garnish
2 to 4 Thai or jalapeno chilies, seeded and minced
(for spicier beef, leave the seeds in)
3 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup soy sauce (or fish sauce)
1/3 cup fresh lime juice
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons sesame oil
To finish the salad:
1 ounce Asian rice noodles
1 head Boston, bibb, or red leaf lettuce, broken into leaves, washed, and spun dry
1 cucumber, thinly sliced
1 small sweet onion, thinly sliced and broken into rings
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1/3 cup fresh mint leaves
1/3 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves
scallion greens (reserved from above)
1/4 cup chopped roasted peanuts
2. Place the garlic, ginger, scallion whites, chilies, and sugar in a mixing bowl and mash to a paste with the back of the spoon. Add the soy sauce, lime juice, water, and sesame oil and stir or whisk until the sugar crystals are dissolved. Pour half the marinade over the steak and marinate for 1 to 2 hours in the refrigerator, turning several times to insure even marinating.
3. Soak the rice noodles in cold water to cover in a large bowl for 1 hour. Taste them. If tender as is, drain well. If the rice noodles are still tough, cook in 3 quarts rapidly boiling water until tender 2 to 4 minutes. Drain in a colander, rinse with cold water, and drain well.
4. Set up the grill for direct grilling and preheat to high.
5. Line your salad plates with large lettuce leaves. Tear the smaller leaves into 2 inch pieces. Place the lettuce pieces, cucumbers, onion, tomatoes, mint, cilantro, and basil in the mixing bowl with the reserved dressing, but to not mix.
6. Grill the flank steak until cooked to taste 4 to 6 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer to a cutting board and let rest for 3 minutes. Cut the steak into paper thin slices sharply on the diagonal.
7. Toss the salad and loosely mound it on the lettuce lined plates. Place a mound of rice noodles in the center of each. Fan the beef slices on top of the salad and sprinkle with the scallion greens and peanuts. Serve at once.