Properly cooked vegetables can truly elevate a barbecue. Though often overlooked, this technique opens up a world of textures, colors, and flavors. We don’t need to resort to the same clichés every time we grill like corn on the cob and we can cook with the seasons: Spring offers vibrant green peas, early summer brings fennel and cauliflower—followed by bright sweet peppers—and fall brings forth squash and pumpkins. As winter sets in, we find robust kale and Brussels sprouts. If you share a love for grilling or cooking over live fire, neglecting vegetables would be a missed opportunity, whatever month of the year.
However, the diverse range of vegetables and their varying textures present challenges on grilling day. Each vegetable requires different cooking times, making it difficult to achieve consistent results when cooking them from raw. Some tougher vegetables struggle to cook through the center without losing vibrant color or becoming overly charred on the outside. Additionally, if a significant effort has already been dedicated to cooking the meat, vegetables might become a burden relegated to the end of the barbecue.
An elegant solution is to pre-cook the vegetables before heating up the grill. And the best way to do so is to blanch them. Blanching is the best way to preserve their flavor, texture, and color. Heat coaxes them out and ice locks them in. Much like the Chinese practice of blanching vegetables prior to stir-frying in a wok, this method ensures the vegetables only need a brief encounter with high heat on the grill to achieve the desired blistering and smoky flavor we crave in barbecue. With this approach, the vegetables will cook for a similar length of time on the grill, just a couple of minutes to achieve a delightful char. Personally, I prefer to cook my vegetables early on in the grilling session when the barbecue is at its hottest, typically at the beginning once the coals are white hot.
The following recipe focuses on grilling cabbage, a notoriously challenging vegetable to grill from raw. However, the technique can be applied to any hearty vegetables you have available. This dish also features an all-purpose sauce inspired by the beloved halal cart white sauce, enhanced with the addition of savory smoked oysters. The sauce is creamy and substantial, while the optional garnishes provide additional texture, herbaceousness, spice, and zing. —Lucas Sin
This recipe features instructions for napa cabbage, but is a great recipe for grilling an assortment of oddly-shaped, hard vegetables, like cauliflower, parsnips, squash, and more. —Food52
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