I love grilling vegetables because doing so concentrates their natural sugars and amps up their flavor. During the summer, the usual suspects are zucchini, eggplant, onions, peppers and corn. They’re all delicious this way and — Bonus! — they all become tender in an agreeably short amount of time.
But it recently occurred to me that a number of the veggies I love roasting in the oven — broccoli, cauliflower and carrots — might also shine if cooked on the grill. Turns out, they do!
The first problem was to figure out how to cut these vegetables so they wouldn’t fall through the slats of the grill grates. The solution was to keep them in big pieces; I cut the carrots in half lengthwise, left the broccoli attached at the stalk, and sliced the cauliflower head straight down into half-inch cutlets (or “steaks”).
These precautions kept the vegetables from falling into the flames, which allowed me to discover that it took forever for them to become tender. To speed up the process, I started by blanching them. After this quick bath in boiling water, I popped the vegetables in ice water to stop the cooking, then made sure they were dry before oiling, seasoning and grilling.