Meat-free barbecue: Ben Allenβs recipes for flame-grilled vegetables
A meat-free barbecue feast: charred leeks with pecorino sauce and pickled oyster mushrooms, grilled hispi cabbage with a classic French sauce, and barbecued chestnut mushrooms with habanero, lemon and rocket pesto
When it comes to barbecuing, subtlety is often overlooked amid the sizzle of sausages and the char of burgers, but it takes only a light extra touch to elevate your alfresco meal into something really special. I love fire cooking, because that lick of flame turns even simple ingredients into something greater than the sum of their parts. You can take something as ordinary as a leek, say, and transform it over hot coals into a dish that is unrecognisably delicious. Of course, it also helps that youβre then covering that leek in a rich pecorino sauce, but Iβm telling you, without those flames, it just wouldnβt be the same. Todayβs recipes, which are all taken from our restaurant menu at the Parakeet, show thereβs magic to be had in the seeming chaos of smoke-infused vegetable cooking. For those who canβt resist the allure of traditional barbecue fare, theyβre all also designed to pair with sausages (wild boar, ideally), thick-cut pork chops or flame-grilled fish.
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