The Technique: Grilled Vegetables

Who doesn't love grilled vegetables? Fresh flavors combined with a smoky char, nothing better represents summer than grilled vegetables. As an apartment dweller in New York City, grilled vegetables are not restricted to the warm summer months. With a large grill pan, vegetables can be grilled year round, with zucchini and tomatoes being replaced by butternut squash and beets as the seasons turn. For me, the best technique is the simplest: fresh ingredients and a hot grill(pan).  

Vegetables are unique, and no two vegetables cook exactly the same. If you try and grill eggplant along with tomatoes the same way for the same amount of time, you will be in trouble. A thick slice of tomato might take a few minutes to cook whereas a thick slice of eggplant might take up to 10 minutes! Martha Stewart's website has a fantastic guide for grilling all types of vegetables from eggplant to peppers to mushrooms. Remember that timing your vegetables is important. Peppers before zucchini. Eggplant before tomatoes. 

There are some steps home cooks can take to ensure that whatever vegetable you grill, you get the best flavors on your plate. First, use olive oil. I may have a Mediterranean cuisine bias here, but a really good olive oil goes a long way in drawing out flavor from your vegetables. Second, use fresh herbs. As with olive oil, fresh herbs go a long way toward bringing out flavors in your vegetables. Here is a a great guide from Epicurious for fresh herbs and some examples of recipes which showcase each herb. Finally, cut vegetables to same size pieces.  This might seem obvious, but nothing is worse than a plate a vegetables where half are cooked into oblivion and the other half are still raw! By preparing them to the same size and cooking them for the appropriate amount of time, all of your veggies will be cooked to the same degree when you serve them.

There is no "best" way to prepare grilled vegetables, as different people have different preferences. There are, however, wrong ways to prepare grilled vegetables. Grilled vegetables should not be hard or soft, but tender just like a steak. By understanding the vegetables you are cooking, using olive oil and fresh herbs, and cooking veggies of the same size, you will be hard pressed to go far wrong!