Grilled Eggplant Slices with Asian Sauce and Scallions
Cooking directly on a grill, whether gas, electric, charcoal, or under the broiler, is a favorite technique for flash-cooking very tender cuts of meat, seafood, and vegetables. The wood-fired bread oven and gas-fired outdoor grill at our Provence farmhouse are two of my cooking treasures; just the aroma of the grill heating evokes memories standing around with friends and students, grilling lamb—infused with its own smoky cooking aroma—on warm summer evenings. Of course if you don’t have access to an outdoor grill, stovetop gas or electric grills, cast-iron stovetop grills, and oven broilers are worthy substitutes. Even a panini grill can create perfect, quick-grilled delights.
It is impossible to be encyclopedic here, but there are myriad grill books, websites, and experts out there to tell you what to do and what not to do when grilling any ingredient. For best results, I advise students to begin with a small list of foods they love to grill and work with them over and over again using their favorite grilling method and surfaces until they reach desired results. Here we offer a whole chicken, a lamb shoulder, and scallops grilled over an outdoor gas grill, and eggplant and asparagus grilled on a panini grill, to give a taste of the range of grilling possibilities at your disposal.