In simplest terms, grilling requires cooking raw food over fire, a constantly shifting and potentially volatile element. Since no protein cooks the same, and vegetables react tenderly to the flames, getting used to the nuances of grilling requires intimate knowledge of the grilling surface itself.
“When you are grilling anything, you’re literally and figuratively playing with fire,” said Daniel Mangin, executive chef of American Elm, 4132 W. 38th Ave. in Denver. “It’s not about learning how to do it one time. It’s about learning all of the variables that come with it.”
After four years at the helm of American Elm, Mangin has familiarized himself with every square inch of his grill, typical to what you’d find in kitchens across the country: a grated surface over gas-burning flames. He compared its grid to a “weather map” with different hot spots that shift in intensity throughout the night.
His grill is on full blast at all times to keep the coils sizzling. “I never, never, never, never, never mess with the knobs,” he said. Instead, he moves food to different hot spots to regulate how it cooks.
At Apple Blossom and Bloom, the two restaurants inside the Hyatt Centric hotel downtown, executive chef Amanda Singh uses a gas grill. But she learned her technique on a wood-fire grill during a three-month stint in Marfa, Texas, under the tutelage of Alexandra Gates, a James Beard-recognized chef there. With practice, Singh kept the fire running throughout a nine-course meal for 60 people, she said.
She transferred those skills to The Wolf’s Tailor in Denver and later to Apple Blossom, at 822 18th St.. Creativity and spontaneity fuel the dishes on her menu, as does local produce, including wasabi microgreens from Tall Guy Tiny Greens and carrots grown in local farms.
One of her favorites, though, is the thick, beet-infused lion’s mane mushrooms that she brines overnight in tamari, beet and honey juice. “The vegan option that bleeds,” she calls it. To her, grilling it on her indoor kitchen grill — similar to Mangin’s but half the size — was a no-brainer.
“I put the honey in there, so it’s gonna caramelize,” she said as she watched the purple mushrooms char. “Whatever this crust that I made [is], it’s gonna caramelize and get those grill marks and get that really nice chargrilled flavor on it.”
Cut them open with a fork and knife, beet juice mixture oozes out of the mushrooms.
When it comes to steak, though, Singh and Mangin follow different philosophies.
At American Elm, Mangin moves his cut of ribeye around the grill and flips it so each side faces the heat and chars the outside, guaranteeing a more even cook inside. Singh, on the other hand, grills her New York strip enough to develop brown outer marks but otherwise keeps it at a “rare plus.”
Her aversion to well-done steak stems from a fateful beef stroganoff her mother once made for dinner. “It was the toughest steak I’ve ever had in my life,” she said. At Apple Blossom, she sprinkles coarse salt flakes on her steak once it’s off the grill and plates it with a garlic bourbon sauce.
Both favor texture over temperature when judging their steaks. Mangin instructs his line cooks to drop their reliance on thermometers and instead use cake testers, stabbing them inside the meat for five to ten seconds and pressing them against the inside of their wrists. The tester stick gets progressively warmer as the steak cooks, he said.
Fish also show their own signs of progression as they cook. In what’s known as the Maillard reaction, a cut of salmon will start browning underneath and lift itself off the grill as it caramelizes, Mangin said. Flip it too soon and the fish will stick to the grill.
“It’ll tell you when it’s ready,” Mangin said.
His grilled salmon is served over a mound of cauliflower and a minced golden raisin gremolata. He understands there are proponents of salmon skin — including the family of American Elm owner Bob Reiter — but he prefers to cut it off of every fillet for a more evenly cooked product.
For his squash cavatelli, he grills squash directly over the fire until the skins are fully black and charred. From there, they’re sliced and tossed inside a smoker, where the squash develops into a sauce that forms the foundation of the pasta dish.
Stirred with a little garlic, butter and fishy bonito flakes, everything but the skin of the squash is served with the cavatelli and topped with anchovies, lemon zest and drizzled herb oil that add acidity and fragrance to the savory sauce.
All in all, it’s a two-day process that begins on the grill.
“Patience is necessary, but finesse can conquer — usually,” Mangin said. “Just because you burn something doesn’t mean it’s ruined.”