Steven Raichlen's Project Fire

Grilled vegetable paella; Vietnamese beef and rice noodle salad; mystery box challenge -- tofu.

Hanger steak with mustard and caramelized onions; Cambodian steak with salads and condiments; reverse-seared porterhouse steaks with poblano crema.

Spice-rubbed baby back ribs with chipotle bourbon barbecue sauce; Korean grilled beef short ribs; mystery box challenge -- lamb ribs.

Killer Barbecue - Hold the Meat You don’t need a degree in barbecue to know that vegetables have hit the grill big time. Veggies for hardcore carnivores who crave killer accompaniments to their meats, for health-conscious grillers, and for everyone who delights in the smokiness and supernatural sweetness live fire imparts to plant and dairy foods.

Charm City ‘Que: Baltimore, the town where I grew up, boasts plenty of awesome foods for grilling. Pit beef was born here. In the seafood department you find a sweet white-fleshed fish the rest of the world calls striped bass and Baltimoreans know as rockfish. And no Charm City meal would be complete without chocolate top cookies.

Barbecue on a Budget: A lot of American barbecue began with inexpensive meat cuts, like spareribs, beef shoulder, and pork belly. With the economic insecurities brought on by COVID-19, we’re all feeling the pinch, and budget grilling has taken on new urgency. Besides, why should Kobe beef and tomahawk steaks get all the love? This is barbecue on a budget.

Sustainable Seafood: Pollution. Overfishing. Abusive labor practices. There’s a lot of negative news coming out about the seafood industry lately, and much of it breaks your heart. Today’s show celebrates seafood we can eat because it’s fished in a way that’s humane and environmentally sound. Activists call it sustainable seafood. I call it three great reasons for firing up your grill.

Social Distance Tailgating: From its humble origins on the back of a buckboard wagon to today’s high-octane outdoor foodie extravaganzas, tailgating continues to enthrall(make that obsess) American sports fans. This episode is our our annual celebration of tailgating with a global twist. The socializing may be distant this year, all the more reason to up your game at the grill.

Little Italy: When I was growing up, a trip to Baltimore’s Little Italy always meant culinary adventure. Today we celebrate Italian grilling and the food of Little Italys around North America, honoring the Italian reverence for simplicity and fresh seasonal ingredients, and the American passion for big flavors and ingenious grilling techniques.

Cured and Smoked: In humankind’s long march to food security, two ancient preserving techniques have stood out over the millennia: curing and smoking. The first involves preserving foods with salt, soy sauce, or sodium nitrite, and the second technique involves blasting foods with flavorful clouds of wood smoke. Today, we’re pushing the envelope on traditional curing and smoking.

The Improbable Grill: In this show we explore three unexpected techniques for grilling. The first stands the vertical rotisserie used in Mexico and the Middle East. The second involves a piece of equipment you don’t usually find at a barbecue—a roofer’s torch. The third involves a mystery ingredient that virtually no one on the planet has ever grilled.

Maryland Crab Feast: This show focuses on my favorite food growing up: callinectes sapidus, better known as the Maryland blue crab. Maryland seafood markets and restaurants come alive with soft shell crabs, eaten shell and all, traditionally deep-fried, here seared over live fire. Which brings us to the summum of the Maryland crab experience: a crab feast known as Maryland steamed crabs.

Grilled Pound Cake with Berry Salsa and Smoked Whipped Cream, Salt Slab-Grilled Pears with Amaretti And Smoked Whipped Cream, Dessert Quesadillas, Smoked Ice Cream with Rum Raisin Sauce.