Cooking with Fire: If You’re Not Grilling Over a Real Fire, What Even Is the Point?

Editor’s note: Sally Kohn— journalist and CNN political commentator, TED talk giver, and design aficionado—has been chronicling her adventures in remodeling for our sister site Remodelista (e.g., The Case for Unstained Wood Floors from a Stealth Design Nerd). Recently, she shared her DIY wisdom on outdoor lighting here on Gardenista. Today, she sings the joys of cooking with real fire. 

I’m going to start with a potentially controversial assertion: If you’re not grilling over real fire, what even is the point?

I guess I understand gas grills in theory. They’re easy. Turn them on and you’re good to go. But that’s also how your stove works. It does the same thing. I get that the stove makes your kitchen hot, and when you’re having friends over, it’s fun to hang out around the grill. But still . . . you’re not really doing anything dazzling as a host—you’re just holding a spatula.

Charcoal bedevils me. It takes forever to light. I’m never sure I lit them correctly. And it’s hard to figure out when I need more, how to heat it up more while I’m actively grilling, etc.  Also charcoal is literally just a stand-in for real fire. So why not use real fire?

I became obsessed with live-fire grilling when I vacationed for a few weeks at a rental home that had a full-fledged outdoor kitchen, including multiple rustic grilling stations.  I quickly bought the book On Fire by the famous fire-based Argentinian chef Francis Mallmann. And my childhood friend Ian Knauer—chef, cookbook author and frequent open fire cook and caterer —spent countless hours on Facetime walking me through the basics of banking fire for coals and how to rig up spits or place bricks to raise or lower cooking grates. That was fun, but a little too DIY for every single time I wanted to grill.  So when I moved to the country, literally the first thing I got was a Ñuke Delta Argentinian-style live fire grill. It is, by far, my favorite thing about living in the country.

This puppy has everything.  It’s an Argentine-style grill, meaning it’s meant to use with live fire and has a grill rack that you can raise up or down to adjust the cooking temperature. There’s a firebox on the side where you build and continue to feed your fire throughout cooking; the coals fall through slots in the basket and you can then move them over to under the grill rack. There’s even a warming drawer. It’s quite the marvel.  

Yes, you can use the Ñuke Delta with charcoal—but again, why? Yes, burning wood is bad for the planet, but I’m not cooking that often.  nd as the daughter of a fire protection engineer, I’m very careful about creating any house fire or wildfire risks. I won’t grill if the conditions are too dry or windy, I have a garden hose nearby, and my grill is placed away from the house and away from low trees and shrubs. I even created a little platform on some cement pavers onto which I mortared and grouted some cement tiles from Lili Tiles. The effect, if I do say so myself, is a little grilling oasis—and, more important, a level grilling surface. I probably will expand the footprint of the pavers/tiles and maybe add more of a prep station setup down the road. (Let me know if you have ideas!)

You can just grill straight-up on the Ñuke Delta’s grates; I do that a lot, especially with steaks. For more delicate endeavors—think fish or vegetables—I use Made In’s carbon steel grill pan a ton, which makes it easy to stir-fry or sauté anything right over the firebox. I also have Made In’s half grill griddle, which is great if I want, for instance, the fire to lick the burgers I’m grilling but not the vegetables. And incidentally, if you are intrigued by fire cooking but can’t make the full Argentine grill plunge, Made In has a very cool rack system so you can build a fire under it and make your own live-fire cooking set up, at home or on the road.

Lest I forget to say, food tastes better when it’s cooked over real fire. Plus, I look like a total rock star when we entertain; the fire keeps away the mosquitos; and I’ve realized that when the food is all cooked but I still have a log or two burning, I can carry it over (wearing my fireproof gloves and using tongs, of course) to my Solo Stove and instantly get a fire going in there for everyone to hang out around during or after dinner.  

And are you ready for this? I recently discovered that there’s a pizza oven attachment that can rest above the giant Yukon Solo Stove, which is what I have: The Pi Fire sits on top of the Solo Stove so you can make pizza. Solo makes a free-standing pizza oven that looks great, too, but I love the versatility of the Pi Fire. It’s so smart and seamless, and again, pizza cooked in, over, or around fire just tastes better. Don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself! Fire. Is. Better.

See also:

• The Year of Magical Lighting (or How I Nailed My Outdoor Lighting Scheme)
• Heidi Swanson’s Summer Toolkit: 12 Outdoor Living Favorites from the Creator of ‘101 Cookbooks’
• Object of Desire: A Towering Open-Fire Grill, for Cooking Like an Eccentric Argentinian Chef