Cooking with Fire: Charred Cabbage

I have to say that Jim Dixon's commitment to grilling or, as he would say, cooking with fire, is pretty close to matching the obsession that my husband, Dave, has with the flame. So when one of them offers advice on improving and/or expanding on your fiery repertoire, it's best to prick up your ears.

While fire and food have been part of the human experience for millennia, cooking over burning embers still offers surprises, like the charred cabbage I ate last week. More on that below; the first step is is the actual fire. One of my favorite quotes says everything: "The first thing, if you have a gas grill, is get rid of it," said Donald Link.

The standard Weber works great, but so does a backyard fire pit with a grill. Some kind of cover comes in handy for longer, lower heat cooking, but it's not absolutely necessary. I burn a mixture of real wood charcoal (sometimes called lump briquet even though it's not the same as the standard charcoal briquet) and hardwood, usually a mix of oak and frutwood trimmings from my backyard trees. Whatever you burn, don't use lighter fluid to start it; get a charcoal chimney.

Start your fire, spread it out in your Weber (or whatever you're using), and let it burn down a little. Move the coals around so one part of the fire is hotter. Clean your grill grate with a wire brush after it gets hot. You're ready to cook.

Charred Cabbage with Mint & Walnut Pesto

Make the pesto by picking the leaves from a lot of mint (for a cup or so of walnuts, use about 2 cups of loosely packed mint leaves). Blitz the walnuts in the food processor* with a couple of garlic cloves, then add the mint, about a half cup of extra virgin olive oil to start, and about a half cup of grated pecorino romano cheese (or Parmigiano Reggiano or a mix of both). Add a pinch of salt and process until smooth, adding more oil if the mix seems a little dry.

Cut a head of green cabbage into quarters, keeping the core intact so the pieces hold together. As usual, the grilled vegetable manifesto applies, so no oil on the cabbage. Cook the cabbage pieces over direct heat (right over the hot coals), turning occasionally until they're nicely charred on all sides. Move the cabbage to the cooler part of the fire while you cook other stuff (if you build a fire, you might as well cook everything over it).

Serving the charred wedges whole is more dramatic, but chopping them up makes for easier eating. Either way, pour some good extra virgin olive oil on them and serve with a big dollop of the pesto.

*  I use a blender for making pesto. It seems to make a smoother sauce, and doesn't warm up the ingredients the way a processor can. - KAB

Inspiration Strikes From Afar, Baba Ghanoush Results

Someone once asked a lunch table of techies what they thought the internet, then in its infancy—think dial-up connections, tel-net, CU-SeeMe, listserv mailing lists—would become, and everyone present started talking about commerce and capitalism and corporations.

When it was my turn (I was a guest and just there for the food; dim sum, as I recall), I said that, for me, it wasn't the commercial possibilities that intrigued me, but the interpersonal potential that seemed revolutionary. That is, the ability it gave people on opposite sides of the world to connect over issues of common interest and to share information quickly and easily.

That luncheon conversation came rushing back when my friend John, who works for Marqués de Valdueza olive oil with his lovely wife Ana, was inspired by my neighbor Jim Dixon's post on Good Stuff NW about grilling eggplant. He e-mailed from his home in Madrid, "I tweaked your aubergine salad recipe and made baba ghanoush Marqués de Valdueza! I'll serve it tonight with pita and a dust of Pimentón de la Vera. Thank you very much for the inspiration, it turned out delicious!"

See what I mean about that internet thing? Whether it's bonding over food or politics or other concerns of our daily lives, there's always someone out there willing to engage. Gotta love that.

Baba Ghanoush Marqués de Valdueza

Roast one eggplant over a grill, turning a quarter turn every 15 minutes, for a total of 1 hour. Spoon out the roasted eggplant into a blender. Add one small sweet onion, two small very ripe tomatoes, half a salad cucumber (thin skin), fresh parsley, fleur de sel (to taste), a couple of tablespoons of Merula extra virgin olive oil* and a splash of Marqués de Valdueza red wine vinegar*. Blend it all, leaving small chunks for texture. Serve dusted with Gualtaminos picante Pimentón de la Vera*, crackers and pita bread. And a spoon to not leave any behind!

* Regular good quality extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar and pimentón (Spanish smoked paprika) can be substituted.

Eggplant: When Burning Your Food is Good

I prefer to call it aubergine, the lilting name that the French use for this member of the nightshade family, but say that to an employee at Whole Foods and you'll have a choice of the only-reserved-for-certain-customers official eye roll or the more traditional shoulder shrug. Botanically classified as a berry, it's a summer favorite of contributor Jim Dixon of Real Good Food, who believes everything tastes better cooked on his grill.

Burned Eggplant Salad

I'm cooking outside as much as possible during this hot weather, and I try to make sure I have an eggplant on hand when I light the grill. While you can roast eggplant in the oven, you don't get the smoky flavor you get when you burn them over fire. And I rarely build a fire just for burning eggplant; I'm usually cooking something else but want to take advantage of the hot coals.

The technique is simple. Put the whole eggplant over the fire, turn it over periodically and cook it until the skin is charred all over and the eggplant has collapsed. The time will vary depending on the heat of your fire, but it's difficult to overcook (unless you literally burn it up). I've left eggplant on the grill overnight to cook slowly over the dying embers.

When the eggplant is ready, let it cool enough to handle, then cut it lengthwise and remove the skin. Sometimes it just peels off, but you may need to use a spoon or knife to separate the skin from the cooked interior.The cooked eggplant makes great baba ghanoush, but I like to make a modified version of the eggplant salad found throughout the middle east.

Chop the cooked eggplant coarsely, then combine it with chopped tomato, onion (sweet onion if you can find one), cucumber (thin-skinned cukes are best), mint, parsley, red wine vinegar (or lemon juice) and plenty of extra virgin olive oil.

Summer's Worth of Grilling

It's all a matter of perspective. I just got back from a terrific camping trip along the Imnaha River in the Wallowa mountains (more on that later), glad to have missed the searing temperatures here in Portland. Though contributor Jim Dixon of RealGoodFood found those same readings virtually balmy compared to what he experienced in Washington, D.C., recently. So with the rest of July and August still to come, Jim has done us the favor of providing recipes for the rest of our outdoor cooking needs. Thanks, Jim!

Since the mercury topped 100 for a couple of the days we were in Washington, DC, coming home to the upper 90s with fairly low humidity was actually pleasant. But I still didn’t want to cook anything inside. For last week’s heat wave I cooked everything on the Weber, which one night included salmon, grilled eggplant and corn on the cob.

Grilled Sockeye with Balsamico

The short Bristol Bay sockeye season is here. My favorite species, sockeye is second only to Chinook in fat content, and the smaller fish yield perfectly sized fillets. I cook them skin side down using indirect heat (I build my fire on one side of the Weber and put the filet on the other). The rich fish is perfect with the sweet, acidic tang of true balsamic vinear, so drizzle the salmon with Profumi Estensi balsamico at the table. (The Bristol Bay fishery is threatened by mining; see details here.)

Grilled Eggplant with Romesco

While the salmon cooks on the indirect heat side, I grilled slices of eggplant over the coals. I never salt eggplant, and I’ve never understood the claims that the vegetable is bitter. The process, to me, is a waste of time. Slice the eggplant about a half inch thick, then brush lightly with olive oil. Grill over a hot fire until nicely browned on both sides. We ate with our fingers, rolled around a dollop of romesco.

For the romesco, roast 3-4 red bell peppers (I had some already roasted and peeled in the freezer, but you can blacken them on the grill before you cook anything else).

An aside: My very first published food article more than 30 years ago was about roasting red peppers, and at the time I used the propane torch I also used for waxing my cross country skiis. Since then I’ve roasted hundreds of peppers using that torch, the burners on my old Wedgewood gas stove, and a hot fire in the Weber, but I think the easiest way is to put the peppers in a hot oven for about 45 minutes. They don’t really need to be completely blackened for the skins to come off, and the step of “sweating” the cooked peppers in a plastic bag can be skipped, too. I often do this step a few days in advance, storing the roasted peppers, skins still on, in a bowl in the refrigerator.

Peel the peppers, and discard the seed core and as many of seeds as you care to pick out. Put them into the food processor with 2-3 roughly chopped cloves of garlic, about a cup of almonds (I use blanched and slivered almonds, but whole almonds or even walnuts or filberts are okay), a half cup or more of extra virgin olive oil, a quarter cup or so of Katz Gravenstein apple cider vinegar (sherry vinegar is traditional, but the Katz vinegars have more flavor than industrial vinegars), a little salt, and about a half teaspoon of pimenton (smoked Spanish paprika). A half cup or so of breadcrumbs is optional, but makes the sauce a little thicker. Process into a chunky paste, adding more olive oil if necessary.

Grilled Corn

You can leave some of the outer husk attached, remove the rest and the silk, then wrap the ears with the husks before grilling. Even easier, husk corn and put right over the coals. Some kernels get a nice char, and the corn is sweet and smoky.