Cooking Tips

Nothing beats a Holland Grill for preparing fantastic tasting food. Click on any of the following links to access our collection of tips and hints for cooking and maintenance tips to get the most out of your Holland Grill.

Grilling burgers and steaks

Two of the most common foods people grill are hamburgers and steaks. We've all learned the hard way that burgers and steaks will catch on fire on an "ordinary" gas grill and you better keep the garden hose nearby. With the Holland Grill, you can get juicy, moist burgers and steaks and leave the garden hose where it belongs -- in the garden!

Additional Information

Many Holland Grill owners say they love the way the food tastes on their grill but it cooks hamburgers "a little slow." An average hamburger, under normal circumstances, should take approximately 10 to 12 minutes on each side. Thicker burgers will simply take a few more minutes per side. The same grilling times will give you a "medium" doneness on a 3/4 to one-inch thick steak.
When you ask them how long it took to grill a burger on their old flamer grill, the response is usually "about seven or eight minutes on each side." So, I suppose we are a little slower when it comes to grilling burgers. But, we cook burgers without burning them to a blackened crisp on the outside and leaving them raw in the middle. And you don't have to constantly babysit the grill -- moving the food from side to side as the grill catches on fire while billowing hot, greasy smoke into your face. The Holland Grill will blacken a burger, but not burn it. It will be done all the way through and will be arguably one of the juiciest hamburgers you'll ever eat.
"But will it have that outdoor, grilled taste," is also a common question potential Holland Grill owners have. First, we can guarantee that it won't taste like charcoal or propane. Charcoal does give food a different taste than do gas grills. Compared to a lava rock type gas grill, however, the Holland will give you that "outdoor" taste. Lava rock is just that--a rock. It has no flavor. Its purpose is to become heated from the flame and give the juices a hot surface upon which to drip and smoke. The problem is, the lava rock soaks in all the grease and will eventually flare up as it gets to the flame. When a flame strikes a piece of meat, it tends to suck all the moisture out of the meat, leaving it dry. The Holland Grill's patented sizzle tray gives you that hot surface without the messy rocks, bars, ceramic discs, or other gimmicks found in "ordinary" gas grills. The drippings hit the hot drip pan, sizzle and smoke back up around the food, while the excess grease is channeled out a dedicated drain into your drip bucket and not into the flame. The rolling smoke plus the seasonsings you apply to the meat gives it that distinctive, juicy Holland Grill taste.
"Will it sear a steak?" is another common question. Searing, or burning the outside of the meat to supposedly "seal in the juices" is a topic that has spurred much debate over the years. Those "black marks" left on a steak from an "ordinary " gas grill are just that...burned black marks. A chef from a famous restaurant in Las Vegas once told me that he put "sugar" on the steaks to burn and leave the black marks. He said the only way to truly sear a steak is to place it in an iron skillet that has been heated to about 500 degrees, sizzle it for two or three minutes on each side (be sure to turn on the vent hood as the steak will smoke alot.) and then place it on the grill on a "medium" heat to complete the cooking. With the Holland's unique indirect-radiant heat, there is no need to sear or burn your steak.
In his recent book Morton's Steak Bible, Klaus Fritsch, co-founder of Morton's, the world-famous steakhouse, listed these three tips for grilling a perfect steak:

Meat should be at room temperature before you cook it. Leave it out 30 to 60 minutes.

Once the chill is off the meat, season it lightly but evenly with seasoned salt.

When a steak is on the grill, turn it only once. Use tongs so the meat is never punctured.

Well how about that! Those are all tips that have been recommended by Holland Grill for years. One easy way to get a great flavor from burgers and steaks on the Holland Grill is to use plenty of Holland's Carolina Seasoning mix. Bar none, it is perhaps one of the best all-purpose meat seasonings ever concocted. It will even make a hot dog taste good! Season the burgers liberally with the seasoning mix and let them sit out on the kitchen counter for 20 minutes or so while your grill is heating up. This will let it "soak" into the meat.
One final tip on grilling burgers and steaks is know where to place them on the cooking surface. By design, the Holland Grill cooks similar to a convection oven. But, unlike a kitchen oven, when you're grilling meat, the juices hit the hot drip pan and sizzle and smoke back up on the food to give that great Holland taste. You couldn't do that indoors. Because of the constant "rolling heat", the grill is hotter the closer you get to the outer edges. And normally, the back side of the cooking surface is the hottest. When grilling burgers or steaks place them closer to the edges (see photo above) of the cooking grid if possible (Do not place too close as grease could splatter over the drip pan to the flame and cause a flare.) The hotter edges will lightly blacken the meat, giving it a more desirable appearance.
After you've grilled burgers and steaks a few times on your Holland Grill, you'll find the time that gives you a desired doneness. You'll grow to love how juicy burgers and steaks are on your Holland Grill. And you will really grow to love the fact that you don't have to babysit your grill anymore.