Outdoor cooking adds savory flavor to fish. The grilling basket shown here rotates, cooking fillets more evenly.

Not all rotisseries are created equal, however. In fact, if you don’t buy a rotisserie with your grill, you may not get the whole rotisserie package, which should include a rotisserie burner that cooks the meat from the side (at the rear of the grill). That allows renderings to fall onto cold coals, thereby preventing flare-ups. (There is no avoiding scorching flare-ups if you “spit cook” directly over hot coals.)

Generic rotisseries provide the apparatus to skewer, hold in place and “spin” your entrée over the coals, but there are two potential problems:

1) Flare-ups, as mentioned above, can and often do ruin your dish and preventing them without a side burner is impossible without dousing your coals, which temporarily halts cooking. With a side rotisserie burner, just put a meat thermometer in your meat, fish, or game and turn on the rotisserie. Set a timer for checking your entrée every 15 minutes or so and give it a baste, if necessary. Now you’re grillin’ on Easy Street!

2) The other problem with after-market rotisseries is the rod may not properly fit your grill. There is a precisely rounded area--or there should be--on your rotisserie’s skewer rod to fit in your grill’s opening. This allows the rotisserie to spin smoothly. Without it, your entrée “clunks” ever time it hits a right angle on your square spit rod. While that is annoying, the slightly jolting movement can knock your entrée off the spit (tines). Try to avoid this Elmer Fudd type of “wotisserie gwilling.”

Electric rotisseries are best because they are more powerful. Also, check the length of the rotisserie burner. I have a smallish gas grill (25 inches by 15 inches). While my rotisserie burner runs along the middle of the back of the grill and is indeed 25 inches long, the cooking area is 16 inches long. I have seen similar-sized grills with rotisserie burners only half that length. I like a rotisserie that will simultaneously cook two ducks or two chickens, or several smaller birds, and if I want to thread a long ribbonfish on the pointed rod, I can--not that I ever will--but I have threaded on some long, trimmed fillets of dolphin.

A nice option for the rotisserie is a basket that allows for self-basting of red meats. Put some sausage links (pricked with a fork first) and the renderings from them will baste the fish or whatever. If your basket is large enough, you can also put some potatoes, carrots and/or onions in it with the meat. While fish won’t take the tumbling about of a basket full of extras, the waterfowl, poultry and red meats will. You’ll understand much better once you get a powerful rotisserie and fill up a “grill basket” and take it for a spin.

To extend the life of your rotisserie basket, coat the attaching thumbscrews with a light coat of heat-resistant, white lithium grease before cooking. Remove the screws when done cooking so they don’t freeze up.

The HD rotisserie, rotisserie side burner and basket all combine to sometimes give the gas grillers an edge over the charcoal guys. But that edge is only as sharp as you make it.

FS