Despite a cold Auckland winter (for someone born in the Tropics), my somewhat paleolethic habits have prompted me to grill snapper outside our house. So on an early Saturday morning on the last June weekend, I dropped by the Auckland Fish Market to buy a couple of medium-sized snappers after driving my wife into her office in the local insurance company (she was a bit busy as doing work during weekends, even for just a couple of hours is not a norm in corporate New Zealand).
Immediately right after arriving at our home (that's about 15 kms from the CBD where the fish market is), I wasted no time in grabbing the small BBQ grill that I kept just at the side of our small house and started piling up the used charcoal. I realised that they were slightly wet for quick use, probably because the grill was rained on a couple of days ago or more likely, as the grill is water-tight covered, because I've used too much water putting off the live coals the last time that I did grilling (couple or so months). I have to get my stock of charcoals I stored in my garage (garage which I recently converted into a "boxing gym" but it has been more than 3 months since I actually put on the boxing gloves and sweat it out with the standing punching bag. As a consequence my fairly aged car, a Nissan Primera Camino 1996, has to endure being parked outside and being covered with frost every morning. I need to get serious with this boxing stuff!).
Anyway, going back to the charcoal, I have accummulated 3 bags of different types/grade of charcoal. The story behind is that I initially bought a bag of charcoal that was really easy to use, but out of ignorance, I wasn't aware of the relative priciness. On my second purchase, I decided to buy the cheapest available; it felt and weighted like they were stones! This is probably what they call "coal" and not "charcoal". When I attempted to use them, it took my entire Sunday afternoon and partly the evening to successfully grill fish! It was horrible and took all of my patience and persistence, but I kept telling myself I should not give up and set my mind as if I was stranded on an island and I'd either sleep with empty stomach or persevere and have a yummy fish dinner. So basically, I started like 1 pm in the afternoon trying to start an ember on the rock-like coals. It was already 5-ish when I was able to generate enough live coals to guaranty a well-cooked grilled fish. My arms took a good deal of exercise by having to fan the live coals to life from a small ember for more than 3 hours. And I have to inhale a good deal of smoke and my eyes were already cursing me after an hour of constant irritation. But I managed to convince myself that failure is not an option if I were to survive in this imaginary uninhabited island. The third bag was a bit in the middle between the last two I've tried in terms of difficulty in creating embers. I actually discovered it when we were attending a get-together a friend couple's place (it was a dinner with a mix of watching and cheering our national fist "Manny Pacquiao" fight against his kryptonite nemesis, Juan Manual Marquez). It wasn't the kind of outcome we hoped for in the fight but it was a very enjoyable get-together.
And that's how I ended up with these 3 odd bags of charcoals of different types. I decided to use them in combination and thought this would be the best grilling session I will have so far (in a cost and convenience perspective, cost because I don't have to use all of my previous 1st choice charcoal and convenience because I don't have to endure an inordinate length of time in fanning live charcoals). But I learned another important lesson from the last session: it's not all about charcoal! I basically didn't have a good fan available and as a result, fanning the coals required triple effort to achieve the same level I had on my previous sessions! And once again, it took almost my entire afternoon to just grill a couple of snappers! I was literally starving and out of patience when I started putting the first fish on the grill. I didn't even mind or notice the cold winter wind but was silently praying that the threat of rain which the ominous clouds wanted me to know won't materialise before I finish my stuff.
After all those hard lessons, I decided that an activity as simple as grilling fish requires some serious planning and preparation. Next time, I should have all the following essentials:
1. A reliable and efficient fan
2. Sufficient fire starters and matches
3. Dry fuel. Any wet charcoals should be removed (and can be added back once there are enough embers). I also learned that I can actually extinguish embers on my BBQ grill without pouring water. I just have to cover the live coals with the airtight cover and that should do the trick as the absence of oxygen will put off the embers.
4. A mask to minise inhalation of smoke
5. A rainless weather (you can opt to use a canopy or tent though)
6. Some imagination (mostly, to help you with patience)
And with that, I will prepare a "grilling checklist" for my next session!
