Meat Technique: Using Wood Planks

Planking refers to cooking on a piece of hardwood called a plank. While primarily done to impart your food with some of the flavor of the wood, planking has other cool benefits. It ensures fish won't stick to the grill, prevents veggies from falling through grill grates and is a cinch to clean up. Here are a few tips for deciding why, what and how to plank:

• Because food that is planked essentially steams from the underside and cooks on the top via convective heat, foods like steaks, chops and burgers – all foods for which a crust is desirable – aren't usually planked. However, that doesn't mean they can't be. Meats cooked on a plank can be transferred to direct heat in the last few minutes of cooking to produce a deliciously dark, crusty, charred exterior.
   
• Planks should be soaked for no less than 30 minutes to ensure that they won't catch fire. Soaking also helps produce smoke, further flavoring the food as it cooks.
   
• Prolonged exposure to heat could dry out a soaked plank, which can cause it to catch fire. To avoid this, an extra-thick piece of wood may be preferable.
   
• As with wood for smoking, your choice of wood should match the food you are cooking. Cedar is a common choice for fish, as in our recipe for Kowalski's Cedar Plank Grilled Salmon (pictured); its mild flavor won't overpower any plank-cooked foods.
   
• Like smoking, planking requires two heat zones. Grill and cook over the indirectly heated side of your grill to prevent the plank from catching on fire.
   
• Cooking over indirect heat allows longer exposure to the wood and wood smoke, imparting a deeper flavor, but it is possible to plank lean meats and fish over direct heat to prevent them from drying out due to prolonged heat exposure.
   
• A spray bottle of water is good to have on hand at all times to deal with any possible flare-ups.
   
• Cooking on a scorched and smoking plank will impart more flavor from the wood. If desired, you can start the plank directly over the flame, then flip and move it to the cool side.
   
• Planks can be washed and reused, but just make sure you don't use soap, as it can sink into the wood. You can also recycle them when they've reached the end of their life by chopping them and using them for smoking.