The Veggie
Including a robust barbecue vegetable salad with peaches and crushed corn chips that I need to eat off a soggy paper plate by a pool, immediately.
On summer evenings in my Brooklyn neighborhood, you won’t get far before you’re enticed by the exhaust of a charcoal grill parked on the sidewalk. From a full block away, the smoke sweeps me clear off the ground, luring me forward like it’s a cartoon pie left to cool on a windowsill. I want to grill!
Last weekend, grill I did — some 800 miles away at my parents’ place, which is not a one-bedroom apartment without an inch of outdoor space, but a house with the grilling infrastructure to feed a rec league’s worth of dads.
For one meal, I sliced zucchini into thick planks, scoring both sides in a crisscross pattern to optimize blackening and create crevices to capture the ponzu butter I brushed on top. It’s a trick that Hetty Lui McKinnon employs in her recipe for grilled zucchini with miso glaze, and one I like to use when grilling other porous summer produce, like eggplant.
Grilling isn’t only a carnivore’s game. It renders fruits and vegetables supple, sweet, spellbinding. Ali Slagle knows this, which is why she’s put together a vegetable lover’s guide to the grill, with new recipes that illustrate the transformative powers of a good char.
There’s so much to choose from. I’d start with her barbecue vegetable salad (above), a real fork-and-knife affair complete with white beans, your favorite vegetables (zucchini, eggplant, green beans, peppers, whatever you’ve got!), red onion and peaches, all tossed in a zippy dressing, piled over leafy greens and topped with crushed corn chips. I need to eat it off a soggy paper plate by a pool, immediately.
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