Grilling is defined as “to broil on a gridiron”. A grill itself is defined as “a cooking surface of parallel metal bars”.http://www.thefreedictionary.com/grilling Grilling can refer to food cooked on a grill, a grill pan or a griddle. A grill pan is similar to a frying pan but has raised lines to imitate grill lines. A griddle is a flat pan.

Grilled meat is distinguished by the aroma. The roast aroma comes from a process called the Maillard reaction or browning reaction. The reaction happens when meat is exposed to temperatures over 300 degrees F. A Maillard reaction is chemical in nature between an amino acid and a reducing sugar. It creates a caramelization or brown of the food item.http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/meat/INT-what-makes-flavor.html

The most common form of grilling in North America is barbecue, where food is placed on a grill, directly over a source of dry heat. Some types of barbecue include a dry rub on the meat while others use a barbecue sauce. Meat can be barbecued whole or cut up.http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Barbacue

Other common food items to grill in the United States are steaks, chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, potatoes, vegetables and fruit.http://www.thegrillingcoach.com/public/574.cfm/ref.

In other countries, grilling and broiling mean the same thing. Here is the United States, the difference between grilling and broiling is the location of the heat source. For broiling, food is placed under a heat source, whereas food is placed over the heat source in order to grill.http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/question228.htm

To properly grill food, the heat source whether an outdoor barbecue grill or an indoor flattop pan should be clean to most directly apply heat. Most relatively thin cuts of meat will grill quickly over high heat and should only need a few minutes on each side.

Some methods of grilling are:

• Direct grilling is cooking directly over hot coals usually with the cover off.
• Indirect grilling is when coals are heaped on two side of the grill. A drip pan is set in the middle of the piles of coals. The food is placed above the drip pan.
• Multi-level grilling maintains different heat levels on the same grill. The stacking of coals in various ways produces more heat zones.http://www.bigdaddyskitchen.com/bbq&grilling/Grilling%20Guidelines.htm