Throughout all the seasons, and for many, many years now, I’ve been marking all sorts of ingredients with chargrilled stripes. Stalks of asparagus and sprouting broccoli, wedges of halloumi and feta, chunks of bread, red tomatoes, orange squash, white cauliflower: the effect of the chargrill is to make things look great – those smart, black lines – and taste great, taking on the smoky flavours of the grill.
When the sun is not calling, I’ll do this indoors, in the kitchen, on a ridged griddle pan, with a high flame on the stove and the extractor turned up to the max (or the window opened very wide). The results are pretty much the same, but nothing quite beats the allure of food that’s cooked and eaten outdoors.
Whether you’re cooking inside or outside, the time anything needs to spend on the grill will vary hugely depending on the make of your barbecue, the strength of the heat and how close the grill is to it. Use your own judgment, then, to look and prod until everything is just as stripy as it ought to be.
Baby peppers with grilled bread and salsa verde
If you’re making this on a barbecue (you can use a griddle pan indoors), don’t put the peppers directly over the hottest coals. You want the grill marks to be clear but not too heavy and dark: if you take the grilling too far, the peppers and bread will end up tasting bitter. Serves four as a side dish.
50ml olive oil
1 tbsp rose (or regular) harissa
Salt
550g small sweet peppers (a mix of yellow, red and orange ones, if possible), cut in half lengthways and deseeded, leaving the stalk on, if you can (but don’t eat it)
100g sourdough bread (ie, 1-2 slices), crusts left on, torn into 5cm pieces
For the salsa verde
10g parsley leaves, finely chopped
10g basil leaves, finely chopped
5g mint leaves, finely chopped
1 tsp finely chopped rosemary
2 tsp capers (rinsed if salted, drained if brined), finely chopped
2 anchovy fillets, finely chopped
1 tbsp lemon juice
½ garlic clove, peeled and crushed
3 tbsp olive oil
Up to a day ahead, put all the ingredients for the salsa in a bowl and mix to a coarse salsa. Don’t be tempted to do this in a food processor: you want a rustic salsa with some texture, not a refined, smooth paste.
Mix two tablespoons of the oil in a large bowl with the harissa and a quarter-teaspoon of salt, then add the peppers and toss to coat. Lay the peppers on a hot barbecue or griddle pan, and grill for four to five minutes on each side, until they begin to soften and get visible char marks. Transfer to a bowl and cover with cling-film (or a plate) for 20 minutes: the residual heat will help the peppers soften a bit more.
Toss the bread in the remaining oil and grill for one to two minutes on each side, until crisp and showing medium grill marks (again, take care not to take it too far and burn them). Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper.
Arrange the peppers on a platter, discarding any water that has collected in and around them, and season with a good pinch of salt. Scatter the grilled bread on and around the peppers, spoon over the salsa and serve.
Grilled cucumber with chilli and ginger
Grilled cucumbers are a bit of a revelation: yes, they take on that gorgeous smoky oomph from the grill, but they retain all their freshness, too. Once cooked, they’ll begin to discolour after about an hour, so don’t leave them sitting around too long. Serve just as they are, alongside grilled meat or fish, or with roast potatoes or sweet potatoes topped with a dollop of creme fraiche. Serves six as a side dish.
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1½ tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp sunflower oil
3cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
Flaked sea salt
1 small garlic clove, peeled
2 cucumbers
2 large mild red chillies, cut in half lengthways and deseeded
5g mint leaves, roughly torn
5g coriander leaves, roughly chopped
½ tsp nigella seeds
For the dressing, whisk the vinegar, lime juice and oil in a small bowl. Put the ginger in a mortar with a teaspoon of salt, then crush to a paste. Add the garlic and pound again, until you have a coarse paste. Scrape the garlic and ginger into the dressing bowl and stir to combine.
Cut each cucumber in half widthways, then cut each half lengthways into quarters. Lay the cucumber pieces on a very hot barbecue or griddle pan, and grill for four minutes a side (ie, 12 minutes in total), until they have visible char marks all over. Leave to cool slightly, then cut into 0.5cm-thick slices.
Put the cucumbers in a large bowl with a quarter-teaspoon of salt and combine with three-quarters of the dressing, then set aside for 10 minutes while you cook the chillies.
Grill the chillies on the barbecue for two minutes on each side until they get dark char marks. Leave to cool slightly, then cut into very thin slices, and mix with cucumbers and two-thirds of the herbs.
Use a large spoon to transfer the cucumbers and chillies to a platter, leaving behind most of the liquid (this can now be discarded). Drizzle the remaining dressing on top, scatter over the nigella seeds and remaining herbs, and serve.
Tropea onions with feta yoghurt
Tropea onions, which are grown in Calabria, southern Italy, are purple, elongated, juicier and sweeter than other onions. They’re perfect here, but you can also use chunky salad onions, ideally with green shoots still attached. If you can get neither, use a combination of spring onions and regular red onions, though peel the red onions and cut them into quarters or eighths and leave the spring onions whole; the red onions will probably take a few minutes longer to cook, too. Serves four as a side dish or garnish for barbecued meat, fish or other grilled vegetables.
5-6 purple tropea onions (about 350g), green shoots intact (or red onions, peeled and cut into quarters or eighths)
40ml olive oil
Salt and black pepper
50g Greek-style yoghurt
25g feta, finely grated
1 lemon, zest finely grated, to get 1 tsp, then juiced, to get 1 tsp
¼ tsp cumin seeds, toasted and roughly crushed
Trim the roots and the tips of the onion shoots, then cut the onions lengthways into halves or quarters, depending on their size – try to cut them in such a way that each piece has some shoot attached. Put the onions in a bowl, season with two tablespoons of oil and half a teaspoon of salt, then toss to coat. Grill on a barbecue or hot griddle pan for eight minutes, turning the pieces of onion two or three times, until they have clear grill marks on all sides. Transfer to a bowl and cover with a plate for 10 minutes; the residual heat will soften the onions more. Meanwhile, mix together the yoghurt and feta.
Transfer the onions to a large plate and pour over the lemon juice. Spoon the yoghurt evenly over the top, then drizzle on the remaining two teaspoons of oil. Finish with a sprinkling of lemon zest, cumin seeds and a good grind of pepper.
Pointed cabbage with nam prik
Thanks to Calvin Von Niebel, our well-travelled dinner chef at Ottolenghi, for coming up with the recipe that inspired this. Serves six as a side dish.
4cm piece fresh galangal (or ginger), peeled and roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tbsp fish sauce
1½ tsp aleppo chilli flakes (or 1 tsp regular chilli flakes)
1 tbsp tamarind paste
1¼ tbsp soft light brown sugar
50g cherry tomatoes
2 limes – 1 juiced, to get 1½ tbsp, the other cut into 6 wedges, to serve
3½ tbsp vegetable oil
2 pointed cabbages (aka sweetheart or hispi cabbage), quartered lengthways
Flaked sea salt
5g coriander, finely chopped
First make the nam prik. Put the galangal and garlic in the small bowl of a food processor and blitz. Add the fish sauce, chilli, tamarind, sugar, tomatoes and lime juice, blitz again, then tip into a small bowl and stir in a teaspoon and a half of the oil.
Toss the cabbage quarters in the remaining oil and a teaspoon of salt, then lay them on a very hot barbecue or griddle pan, and grill for four to five minutes on each side (ie, 12-15 minutes in total), until it has clear grill marks all over, and has softened on the outside but still has a crunch. Transfer to a platter, overlapping the cabbage quarters in places. Add the coriander to the nam prik, then spoon evenly over the cabbage pieces. Serve either warm or at room temperature, with the lime wedges.
Grilled apricots and blackberries with ginger nut biscuits and cream
I love roasting fruit on the barbecue, but it’s not always practical, especially when that fruit is juicy and you don’t want to lose those juices to the coals. My solution is to cook fruit in a small oven tray on top the grill. (Of course, if you’re using a griddle pan on the stove top, you can just grill the fruit directly on it.) I like to serve these in individual dessert glasses, but any bowl or glass will do. You probably won’t use up all the bay sugar: keep any leftovers in a jar for sprinkling on fruit salads or yoghurt. Serves six.
1½ tbsp mild olive oil
1 lemon, finely shave off the peel in 5 long strips, then juice, to get 1 tbsp
70g caster sugar
3 apricots, pitted and quartered
8 fresh bay leaves, 4 left whole, the rest finely blitzed or very finely chopped
300ml double cream
Seeds scraped from ½ vanilla pod
180g Greek-style yoghurt
150g blackberries
4 ginger nut biscuits, roughly chopped
In a large bowl, whisk the oil, lemon juice and two tablespoons of sugar. Add the apricots, lemon peel and the whole bay leaves, and leave to infuse for at least 30 minutes.
Put the cream, vanilla seeds and two tablespoons of sugar in the bowl of a freestanding mixer with the whisk attachment in place (or large bowl, if using a hand-held whisk). Whisk on a high speed for one to two minutes until firm. Detach the bowl from the machine and gently fold in the yoghurt, keeping as much air in the mix as possible, then refrigerate.
In a small bowl, mix the blitzed bay leaves with two teaspoons of sugar, and set aside.
Put a small ovenproof tray on a hot barbecue to heat up. Once hot, tip the contents of the apricot bowl on to the tray and roast for about six minutes, turning the fruit once. Add the blackberries to the tray, mixing them in with the apricots, and cook for about four minutes more, until the blackberries begin to soften and turn syrupy and the apricots are completely soft. Leave to cool.
Spoon the yoghurt cream into six dessert glasses and sprinkle over half the chopped ginger nuts. Top with the apricots and blackberries, and finish with the remaining biscuits and a sprinkling of bay sugar.
Fiona Beckett’s drink recommendations
These days, barbecues are less about the meat and more about the salads and sides. So take your cue from the style and origin of whatever you’re serving. With bright Asian flavours such as Yotam’s cucumber and cabbage dishes, I’d go for an Australian or German riesling, such as Wageck Fundament Green Label Riesling 2016 (£10.50 Oddbins; 12% abv), from the Pfalz. Salsa verde points to a crisp Italian white such as Morrisons The Best Verdicchio 2016 (£6.25; 13% abv), which would also do duty for the onions with feta yoghurt, although with that I’d be tempted by a Greek assyrtiko such as the 2015/16 Hatzidakis Assyrtiko from Santorini (£13.99 Waitrose; 13.5% abv).
