I love Napoleon's Phantom BBQs. I think they're really beautiful (you know, I love anything "black on black" 😉) and I'm crazy about their grills. So I thought it wouldn't hurt to show you all the things you can do with a Rogue or Prestige Phantom .
FYI, the special feature of the Prestige Phantom is that its main grills and the grill above the infrared burner are made of cast stainless steel. The grills therefore store a lot of heat before transmitting it to the meats, which gives them incredible markings and a good caramelized taste, and they do not rust. The Rogue Phantom has stainless steel grills.
However, both have the cooking rack as a "top rack", so you can easily cook chicken drumsticks, seafood, vegetables and bread on it.
With such a well-equipped BBQ, you can imagine that you can grill/cook several foods at the same time. Here are some ideas to inspire you (for the record, all my cooking was done at 400 °F):
- Chicken drumsticks
Coat your chicken drumsticks in your favorite dry rub, then hang them upside down on the grill rack. Arranging the chickens like this is a real game changer because all the juices from the meat go into the head of the drumstick. I absolutely love this; the result is juicy and pretty wicked. Let the drumsticks cook until they reach an internal temperature of at least 165°F, then continue cooking until they get as crispy as you like them.
- Oysters
Place the oysters on the cooking rack, then let them open by themselves with the heat of the BBQ. Once that's done, take them out of the BBQ and open them with a knife. Discard the first juice and then garnish them with whatever you want. Personally, I would say that you can never go wrong if you add a fatty substance and a salty/protein substance or meat. What I also like is to enhance the whole thing with a little spicy sauce or dry marinade.
For example, you can make any combination you want with cheese curds, blue cheese, bacon, Chipotle Damn! sauce , Tex-Max BBQ Quebec dry rub … Once you have put whatever you want in your oysters, you put them back on the cooking rack, then let everything heat up and the cheese brown.
- Bacon
The cool thing about bacon is that you can experiment a little bit. You can go "traditional" and cook it flat on the grill rack, but you can also cook it hanging, like you would chicken drumsticks.
Of course, you can also spoon or roll it over other foods once it's cooked a bit to add flavor and give them a sexy "look."
- Vegetables
Thanks to the holes in the cooking rack, you can easily insert several types of vegetables. You can slide in mushrooms, tomatoes and peppers, for example.
And to give them even more flavor, you can garnish them beforehand with cheese, dry marinade, meat… even cover them with bacon! ( Mmm ! I can already see beautiful jalapenos poppers… 🤤)
- Tuna
Searing a tuna steak on the infrared is a great idea. Sprinkle your favorite dry rub (I like to use CaribbeanBBQ Quebec ) on both sides of your fish, then sear it over the infrared burner. You want the center of your tuna to remain pink, so make sure to flip it at the right time, when it easily comes off the grill. Once your steak is nicely grilled on both sides and has beautiful sear lines, you can enjoy savoring it. (Seriously, the sear adds a little caramelized touch to the fish, it's really good. 👌)
- Beef flank steak
Although flank steak can be seared using infrared, I prefer to prepare it "old school". In the sense that, a few years ago, there was no infrared on BBQs, so you had to "crank" the BBQ to the max to sear the meat and turn it 3 to 5 times during cooking to sear it.
So if you want to do the same thing I did, season the flank steak on both sides with a dry rub ( Steven Raichlen's Project Smoke Santa Fe works great!) and grill it over high heat on the main grill of your BBQ. About 3-4 minutes later, when the meat is releasing nicely from the grill, flip it over and sear it on the other side. Repeat this process about 4 times.
Then place the meat in an indirect cooking zone and let it cook for approximately 5 minutes, or until it has an internal temperature of 130 °F. Once this is done, wrap it in BBQ Québec butcher paper and place it, ideally, in an oven preheated to 200 °F for 20 to 30 minutes to rest.
Got you hungry? Let your creativity flow! Make art to make gold! 😜
Happy BBQ!