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Project Fire: Cutting-Edge Techniques and Sizzling Recipes from the Caveman Porterhouse to Salt Slab Brownie S'Mores
Where there’s Smoke there’s Fire! And where there’s fire, there’s Steven Raichlen. Following the breakout success of Project Smoke, the New York Times bestseller that brought Raichlen’s Barbecue! Bible® series to a new generation, comes Project Fire—a stunning, full-color celebration of the best of contemporary grilling from America’s master of live-fire cooking.
No one knows his way around a grill like Steven Raichlen, and no one is better equipped to teach us how to deliver its best performance. Drawing on a combination of classic and boldly contemporary techniques, here are 100 inspired recipes that capture the full range of what grillers want to cook today. Consider your basic steak. Raichlen starts with the iconic—T-bone grilled over direct heat, smartly tattooed with grill marks and lavished, the way the pros do it, with sizzling beef fat. Then he teaches a technique new to most of us—reverse-searing, which allows you to grill a monster steak, like a beef tomahawk, to perfection while also imparting a haunting smoky flavor. Of course, there’s a Caveman Sirloin—meat seared right on the coals, as dramatic as grilling gets. Plus here’s how to blow-torch a veal chop. Spit-roast whole cauliflower on a rotisserie. Grill mussels in hay, squash on a salt slab, salmon steaks on a shovel over a campfire.
From breakfast (Bacon and Egg Quesadilla) to cocktails (Grilled Sangria), from veggies (Caveman Cabbage and Smoke-Roasted Carrots) to dessert (Grilled “Piña Colada” and Cedar Planked Pears with Amaretti and Marscapone), Project Fire offers a radically righteous new take on live-fire cooking from the man who reinvented modern American grilling.
No one knows his way around a grill like Steven Raichlen, and no one is better equipped to teach us how to deliver its best performance. Drawing on a combination of classic and boldly contemporary techniques, here are 100 inspired recipes that capture the full range of what grillers want to cook today. Consider your basic steak. Raichlen starts with the iconic—T-bone grilled over direct heat, smartly tattooed with grill marks and lavished, the way the pros do it, with sizzling beef fat. Then he teaches a technique new to most of us—reverse-searing, which allows you to grill a monster steak, like a beef tomahawk, to perfection while also imparting a haunting smoky flavor. Of course, there’s a Caveman Sirloin—meat seared right on the coals, as dramatic as grilling gets. Plus here’s how to blow-torch a veal chop. Spit-roast whole cauliflower on a rotisserie. Grill mussels in hay, squash on a salt slab, salmon steaks on a shovel over a campfire.
From breakfast (Bacon and Egg Quesadilla) to cocktails (Grilled Sangria), from veggies (Caveman Cabbage and Smoke-Roasted Carrots) to dessert (Grilled “Piña Colada” and Cedar Planked Pears with Amaretti and Marscapone), Project Fire offers a radically righteous new take on live-fire cooking from the man who reinvented modern American grilling.
640 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 1, 2025
179 people are currently reading
78 people want to read
About the author
Steven Raichlen
119 books76 followersSteven Raichlen is a multi-award winning writer, television host, and novelist. His books include the international blockbusters The Barbecue Bible, How To Grill, Project Smoke, and the New York Times bestselling Planet Barbecue. His novel, The Hermit of Chappaquiddick, tells a story of love, loss, redemption and really good food set on Martha's Vineyard. Translated into 17 languages, Raichlen's books have won 5 James Beard Awards and 3 IACP-Julia Child Awards and have sold more than 5 million copies. Raichlen also hosts the popular TV shows, Project Smoke and Project Fire on PBS; Steven Raichlen Grills Italy in Italy; and Le Maitre du Grill in Quebec. He lives and writes in Coconut Grove, Florida, and on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. His websites are stevenraichlen.com and barbecuebible.com
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 7, 2023
This is the book that is teaching me how to grill. I want to eat every recipe in here, and I’ve had success with every one that I’ve tried. Sometimes the author gets a little fancy with the ingredients, but he’s very good about giving alternatives and variations.
May 25, 2018
Another outstanding book by a fantastic author, and one that not only comes up with different recipes for each book but also something a little different. In this one the beginning once again talks about the gear you will need but also how the different upgrade especially in the thermometers which have now gone to digital, as well as the old fashion kind. It is really up to you. He also goes over all of the types of grills out on the market and the difference between them and what each one is best at. He also goes into the price of each and lets you know that it is not the grill or the amount you spend on it, but how you decide to use it and the time you spend cooking with it that will make any type of grill the best if you chose. He also goes over the different types of wood also. There is a lot of information just like his other books just in the beginning. Once you get to the recipes and the grill there are many that I probably won’t try this time just because of my own preference. Now the ones with the pizza I will try because I already have different stones already, his cooking bread on the grill I have already been doing that, but I will say you might want to watch that the first time you try it because my grill temp was high and would have burned if I was not there watching. That goes for any grill if you are not going to watch it there is no point in spending hundreds upon hundreds of dollars if you think you can just walk away unless you are smoking, but I have cooked turkey’s, ham, bread and many other different items on the grill because of this author, and this book is another good book to go along with his other ones. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 5 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com
February 17, 2019
Last summer I made the grilled breakfast quesadillas and just that item is worth the cost of this book. Also, grilled bacon turned out to be pretty awesome and way less messy than in a pan. That said, a good chunk of this book is going to have to wait for next summer, for while I BBQ and Smoke in the winter, grilling is a lot harder because it tends to involve opening the lid a lot more or even not using the lid at all. That said, Raichlen does have a few smoke-roasting recipes here, in other words, indirect grilling. I have less experience with Raichlen recipes than Meathead recipes, but the few times I made his recipes last year I was pretty happy. One I'm looking forward to trying is a hot and fast version of pulled pork. I love my low and slow 12 hour pulled pork sandwiches, but if the faster way can work some of the time, that's a much faster route to some extremely delicious food.
January 3, 2018
Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher. and the author for allowing me to read and review a digital copy of this book. A perfect companion to Project Smoke or an excellent standalone piece, this is a sure bet for your grilling fans this year. I’m looking forward to trying out some of the fresh new ideas presented here.
April 28, 2018
Steven Raichlen does it again. He inspires you to be better at cooking on the BBQ and his recipes are so easy to follow. I have tried a couple of recipes from this but am looking forward to trying out many more when the sunshine finally appears. A great book.
March 27, 2019
Great book
A great cook book for people who like to grill. I own several other books by this author. All of them have been great this one is no exception. The tips are handy. All the recipes I have tried turned out well. I would highly recommend this book.
A great cook book for people who like to grill. I own several other books by this author. All of them have been great this one is no exception. The tips are handy. All the recipes I have tried turned out well. I would highly recommend this book.
August 1, 2024
If you like to cook, grill, or smoke this book is right up your ally. Great recipes from starters to desserts. I checked it out from the library but I liked it so much I had to add it to my grilling book shelf.
September 29, 2018
Excellent companion book to Project Smoke.
November 9, 2018
not bad, good break down of smoking methods
January 22, 2019
It was 0 degrees in this neck of the woods but nothing can make you hungrier than seeing all the mouth-watering recipes in this book that includes grilling and smoker techniques.
June 19, 2022
Alot of direct heat recipes here which isn't surprising. The fire management stuff is some of the best I've seen in printed format.
January 31, 2018
Project fire by Stephen raichlin available at bookstores May 1, 2018
Grillmaster Stephen Raichlin continues his exploration of the subtle art of grilling with Project Fire. It’s a subject Raichlin has pursued many times before, most recently in his book Project Smoke, which the author calls a companion book to this title.
As an avid amateur chef and lifelong fan of barbeque, I approached this new book with eagerness. I have some experience with open flame cooking, but my old grill rusted out a couple years ago and I have only recently started researching replacement grills. I took a trip to a big box hardware store to look at new grills and I was wholly overwhelmed, which is why I felt this book preview arrived at a fortuitous time.
Raichlin starts with the basics of seven steps to grilling nirvana, which begins with selecting the appropriate grill for you. He walks us through the various types of grills available, from simple $15 charcoal grills to incredibly elaborate (and incredibly expensive) smokers and grills. Over the book’s first sixty or so pages, Raichlin tackles the benefits of various styles of grills, why you might want more than one grill, the benefits of direct or indirect grilling, and the best ways to maintain your grill. Side notes titled “grilling hack” offer tips on everything from safety to how best to clean or oil your grill.
Raichlin makes a case for cooking every part of your meal on the grill, including drinks, salad, appetizers, sides, proteins, and dessert. And if you’re cooking all of your dinner on the grill, why not cook every meal on the grill? The bbq master divides later sections of the book into methods for cooking breakfast and components of other various meals such as pizzas, breads, veggies, and tofu.
When most people think about grilling, they think proteins. The largest part of this book -- six chapters-- is related to recipes and how-to’s for beef, pork, lamb, ground meat, poultry, and seafood. Like any good cookbook or DIY book, photographs are essential. Not every recipe has a photo, but many do, and some others have several photos to walk the reader through step-by-step instructions. While many of the photographs make the food look appealing, some photographs of blackened food on a dark background leave me questioning how a better wasn’t chosen.
Perhaps the best part of this book is the extensive supply of less-than-obvious recipes that can help expand your grilling reperitoire. Raichlen covers the basics as well, but to paraphrase an Oldsmobile slogan, these are not your dad’s grill recipes. Some personal favorites from my “you can do that on a grill?” approach are the bacon-grilled onion rings (p 76), grilled wedge salad with smoked blue cheese dressing (p 98), the Caveman Porterhouse (p 127) in which the steak is grilled directly on the coals, swine apple kebabs (p 163), Yakitori (p 214), and smoke roasted carrots with spiced yogurt (p 266).
Give this book to anyone new to grilling for the early chapters, or to experienced grillers for the later chapters containing exotic, your-neighbors-aren’t-grilling-THIS recipes.
Grillmaster Stephen Raichlin continues his exploration of the subtle art of grilling with Project Fire. It’s a subject Raichlin has pursued many times before, most recently in his book Project Smoke, which the author calls a companion book to this title.
As an avid amateur chef and lifelong fan of barbeque, I approached this new book with eagerness. I have some experience with open flame cooking, but my old grill rusted out a couple years ago and I have only recently started researching replacement grills. I took a trip to a big box hardware store to look at new grills and I was wholly overwhelmed, which is why I felt this book preview arrived at a fortuitous time.
Raichlin starts with the basics of seven steps to grilling nirvana, which begins with selecting the appropriate grill for you. He walks us through the various types of grills available, from simple $15 charcoal grills to incredibly elaborate (and incredibly expensive) smokers and grills. Over the book’s first sixty or so pages, Raichlin tackles the benefits of various styles of grills, why you might want more than one grill, the benefits of direct or indirect grilling, and the best ways to maintain your grill. Side notes titled “grilling hack” offer tips on everything from safety to how best to clean or oil your grill.
Raichlin makes a case for cooking every part of your meal on the grill, including drinks, salad, appetizers, sides, proteins, and dessert. And if you’re cooking all of your dinner on the grill, why not cook every meal on the grill? The bbq master divides later sections of the book into methods for cooking breakfast and components of other various meals such as pizzas, breads, veggies, and tofu.
When most people think about grilling, they think proteins. The largest part of this book -- six chapters-- is related to recipes and how-to’s for beef, pork, lamb, ground meat, poultry, and seafood. Like any good cookbook or DIY book, photographs are essential. Not every recipe has a photo, but many do, and some others have several photos to walk the reader through step-by-step instructions. While many of the photographs make the food look appealing, some photographs of blackened food on a dark background leave me questioning how a better wasn’t chosen.
Perhaps the best part of this book is the extensive supply of less-than-obvious recipes that can help expand your grilling reperitoire. Raichlen covers the basics as well, but to paraphrase an Oldsmobile slogan, these are not your dad’s grill recipes. Some personal favorites from my “you can do that on a grill?” approach are the bacon-grilled onion rings (p 76), grilled wedge salad with smoked blue cheese dressing (p 98), the Caveman Porterhouse (p 127) in which the steak is grilled directly on the coals, swine apple kebabs (p 163), Yakitori (p 214), and smoke roasted carrots with spiced yogurt (p 266).
Give this book to anyone new to grilling for the early chapters, or to experienced grillers for the later chapters containing exotic, your-neighbors-aren’t-grilling-THIS recipes.
March 15, 2018
Another excellent and informative book by the king of all things BBQ. We have several of his books and were anxious to read this one. Recipes range from simple to elaborate. It's nice that Raichlen addresses how to grill/bbq/smoke using some of the newer cooking options out there.
Definitely another homerun and one that will become part of our BBQ cookbook collection.
Definitely another homerun and one that will become part of our BBQ cookbook collection.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews