There’s not much difficult about grilling with wood.  It is, however, a mystery to many.

The main concept is simple: create smoke to add flavor.  The details aren`t much more complex: avoid burning the chips in open flame (they burn off too quickly and produce ash which can cover your food).

Here is what to do:

1. Make the chips yourself or buy them at a hardware or outdoor store (Canadian Tire as an example) and bring them home.
2. Soak them in water – about 4 hours should do, overnight is fine as well.
3. Wrap them in foil (shiny side in).  I like to make a pack that is the same width of my BBQ.
4. Poke holes in the foil pack with your fork as if you were ventilating it – lets some heat in and some smoke out.
5. Rest the foil pack in or near the flames you cook with and presto!

Let them smoulder and enjoy the flavor of smoke (cook with lid down for best results).  Donèt be alarmed if the bag is all charred when removing – the heat will eventually burn all of these off.

Now for a recipe that blew us away on the weekend (using apple wood wood chips):

1. Cut bosch pears into quarters.  Remove any seeds with a spoon.  Place on hot grill and ease off the heat.  We kept the lid open as we wanted to warm the pears and stimulate natural sugars but were not trying to turn them soft and mushy.  A few grill marks, a little browning and patience were key.
2. Remove pears and place in a bowl.  Toss with maple syrup (maple syrup and wood and a natural match of course).  Put back on BBQ – be careful to make the heat medium to low – we are not trying to char or caramelize.  This heats the syrup and slightly candies a few of them.
3. Remove from heat, toss in Peach Butterscotch preserve (well put the recipe up in peach season – I promise!)
4. If this is for friends, serve in a communal bowl.  Sticky fingers are part of the fun.  If they are for strangers (or more formal), place in bowls – even with ice cream!

These had a smoky undertone followed by a few layers of sweetness – Paul J gets huge kudos for his work (he really cooked these up for the crowd at our fete!).