Snow Peak Iron Grill Table

[Hafwit]

Santa's helper drove up in a nicely appointed black FJ and delivered my present early this year. I am now the proud owner of a Snow Peak Iron Grill Table with quite a few bells and whistles. I can't wait to fire it up.

Thanks Santa (and your helper Zach)!

[Salue]

Looks like an awesome setup you got there! One of these days.....

[dwatsonkc]

sweet. you'll love it.

[Hafwit]

It is looking like the weather might be warm enough here tomorrow to fire up the bbq on my new iron grill table. I'm thinking I should start with some Japanese cuisine as it was originally intended. I have some reference books that I will be looking through, but if anybody here has some ideas for a good yakitori sauce or harami miso marinade or bibimpap, or....

[Hafwit]

We were lucky to have warm weather on this first day of the new year and this gave us the opportunity to inaugurate the Iron Grill Table. My whole family enjoys going to various Asian restaurants where you cook at the table, so we decided for this 1st use to go with something we were familiar with. There are various Japanese restaurants that serve Yakiniku style cooking--locally we have Gyu-Kaku and Tamaen. This style entails cooking over charcoal at the table. Classically they use special Japanese charcoal called Binchotan made from a Japanese oak tree--this is supposed to burn with less smoke than traditional charcoal. Since there is a substantial local Japanese community, there are several stores that have what I needed. I got some Binchotan charcoal to give it a go--it is quite expensive, so I will probably try to see if I get similar results with the lump charcoal or briquets next time. As for what to cook, I went to a Japanese supermarket and purchased some very thinly sliced meat that was well marbled--they label it as for shabu shabu or sukiyaki. I got some beef and pork. They also had two kinds of Japanese sausages that I wanted to try since my daughter will always eat "hot dogs" if you tell her that is what it is. As for marinades, I made a miso marinade similar to one described in a cookbook and I bought some spicy miso teriyaki sauce and ponzu sauce to use as well. The two packages of beef I got were treated to the two miso marinades and the pork got the ponzu treatment. While the meats were marinating, I put my Binchotan charcoal into my folding charcoal starter--not the Snow Peak one, but rather the cheaper one I see a lot of people using. Using newspaper to get it going, I thought this process was going to slow, so I fired up my Snow Peak butane torch and blasted it--that torch works great!!! The now glowing charcoal was transferred to the BBQ box and we were ready to start cooking. My wife--who until now had been skeptical that this expensive set-up was worth even half of what I paid for it--immediately fell in love with it and is now a huge fan. The process of cooking is identical to what we have done many times at restaurants, and the results where phenomenal. We already have what may be the best BBQ you can get--a Kalamazoo--but the traditional American-style BBQ cannot replicate the Asian cooking style that the IGT provides. Sitting around the table and having everybody contribute to the grilling process is what this IGT is all about. Having only used it at home, I can imagine how much we will enjoy taking it on the road as well. It is not in any way a replacement for my Kalamazoo since they are intended for different purposes. The IGT is well-suited for cooking small thinly sliced meats and sausages. It could be used for larger/thicker cuts of meat, but it would not likely work as well for this. Next time around we will probably do Korean BBQ. We will also be using our Baja burner to do shabu shabu and sukiyaki.

Happy New Year!
Thanks, Overland Gourmet (Zach) for great service!
Thanks, Snow Peak for a great product!

Cheers,
Greg

[Honu]

looks nice

being a Maui guy now on mainland I still get my shoyu from the islands and prefer Aloha Shoyu but have lots of Hawaiian/Asian style cookbooks

cant wait to sell our trailer and get a nice SP setup congrats and happy grilling

my big thing is short ribs YUMMMMY and actually prefer doing smaller batches eat as its hot everyone cooks their own doneness ? if thats a word

[Hafwit]

I agree. The IGT brings everybody together to participate in the meal preparation. It creates a social interaction that is missing with more conventional bbq cooking. While it is true that a number of my buddies will hang around the grill drinking microbrews while I am doing all the work, it is not the same situation. Don't get me wrong--I love my Kalamazoo Hybrid Grill--it does traditional bbq as well or better than anything else out there and it will cook large items much better than the IGT. So, bottom line is--I need them both.

....and Aloha Shoyu and short ribs are indeed quite good.

Cheers,
Greg

[Honu]

What's funny is in the islands the BBQ is the center the food is the center much more than what goes on here from what I have seen at least


Yup aloha shoyu some pineapple with juice and ginger some brown sugar few cloves garlic all in a bag soak short ribs a day or two and slow cook in sauce finish over BBQ or do complete on BBQ I used to do mine from raw over the slow cook then BBQ method
Yummmmmmmmmy stuff

[Borrego60]

From the first picture I thought it was pimped out in COPPER. I guess it is the way the lighting hits the table. Nice set up maybe Zack In The Box will deliver a table to me.

[Hafwit]

I'm sure Zach will be happy to hook you up. Right now it seems that the bamboo side tables (the thin extensions--not the whole tables) are unavailable. If anybody has some of these and would consider parting with them, I'd be very interested.

Thanks,
Greg