Grilled Fish, a Smartphone and Dinner
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I had an hour to pull dinner together.
My mother dropped by last week, and I was determined to make a quick meal for five. And because it was summer, I was determined to grill.
In the past, this might have been a questionable strategy because my grilling technique was probably better described as my incinerating technique. It typically yields something resembling a carbon-dating experiment.
But because the great promise of smartphones is that they make you, well, smarter, I figured I'd try again with an Android device (a Droid), an iPhone, a BlackBerry Curve and an iPad.
It worked, but the process was not without some drama.
I found that going zero-to-dinner in 60 minutes was easier with an iPhone than anything else on the list, thanks to Weber's On the Grill app ($5), which works on only iPhones and iPads.
I also relied on Epicurious and BigOven, two very good all-purpose cooking apps that operate on Android and Apple devices. (BlackBerry had many fewer choices for grilling fans and nothing especially good free.)
I picked up Weber's app with some skepticism because apps sponsored by product manufacturers often bury a shred of useful information in a mountain of marketing blather.
On the Grill took the opposite approach. The app includes tutorials and 250 recipes from Jamie Purviance, a well-regarded cookbook author and grilling specialist, and it lets users store recipes and shopping lists.
The Grilling Basics section offers content commonly found online, but the lessons are readable on the phone, with good photography. The recipes were intelligently detailed and tempting, but I was disappointed that I couldn't sort them by preparation time or cost.
Those constraints added only a slight delay to my one-hour dinner effort.
Pulling out my iPhone at 5:30, I opened the Weber app and headed for the Steak section. After surfing for a few minutes, I settled on the Flank Steak with Dried Mushroom Magic recipe, which looked quick and fairly cheap.
First Published August 6, 2010 2:00 am
