Being an apartment-dweller means that I’m pretty short on porch space. I mean, we do actually have a front and back porch, but there’s just not a ton of room for outdoor activities like grilling. But man, I love grilled food. So when the 4th of July rolled around this year, Jess and I decided we’d go down to the Walmarts and see if we could find a grill that would suit our needs: it needed to be small, it needed to be easy to put together, and it needed to be cheap. Like, way cheap — because let’s face it, I’m not sticking an expensive grill out on my porch in the middle of Little Rock.
What we found was this little 156-square inch grill for the bargain price of $10. Assembly took about 15 minutes, and it fit nicely on the corner of the front porch. A bit of charcoal and some fire later, we were ready to cook. So how does the world’s tiniest grill stack up? We cooked burgers, dogs, and chicken on it and were happy with the results. You wouldn’t want to feed a crowd off this thing, but for a little two person cook-out (or a way to keep from heating up the house with the stove on a hot summer day) this thing was perfect.
Because the surface area is so small, I decided to go with a couple of Cornish game hens, butterflying them so that they would lay flat on the grill. This technique, known as “spatchcocking” is a great way to cook chicken evenly — you remove the backbone with a pair of kitchen shears, then pop the breast bone loose so that the bird lays flat, cooks evenly, and doesn’t dry out. These little guys were tasty.
A couple of days later, I came across some small fryers at the market that were split completely into halves. This is my other favorite way to grill chicken — there’s nothing like settling down to a complete feast of white and dark meat; it also makes me feel like a medieval lord to tear into one of these birds. Again, the grill did a great job, and we were left with chicken that was flavorful, juicy, and had a crisp, crackling skin. The only complaint I have with the grill is that the single air vent on the lid isn’t sufficient to keep the oxygen flowing over the coals, so sometimes I had to leave the lid askew so that my fire wouldn’t cool down too much. But after some experimentation, I found that with a little tenacity, the world’s tiniest grill turned out some great food.
Summertime is grill season, and even if you don’t have a lot of room (like us), there’s no reason not to pick up one of these cheap-o grills and get to it. You’ll be glad you did. Happy cooking!
