Grilling

Adapting a technique we learned in Barbados, grilled mahi mahi gets a flavor boost by saucing it twice — first with a bright lime and brown sugar rub before grilling, and then a fiery but fruity habanero sauce afterward. 

You can substitute swordfish or halibut, but if the pieces are thicker than 1 inch, they will take slightly longer to cook. If the fish you purchase was previously frozen or seems particularly wet, refrigerate it on a paper towel-lined plate for a few hours before marinating. This will remove excess liquid that will otherwise prevent the fish from browning.

For grilled onions that could stand on their own as a side dish, we started with halved onions. Cutting them from pole to pole rather than through the equator helped keep them intact. Grilling the onions directly over the flame until very dark ensured that they had sufficient chargrilled flavor; we then steamed them in a covered disposable pan so they would cook through evenly, turning buttery soft. Leaving the skins on kept the bottoms of the onions from burning but still allowed for plenty of caramelization.

We like serving the eggplant in its charred skin, but the cooked flesh also can be scooped into a bowl, mashed, and mixed with the herbs, then finished with olive oil and lemon juice. Look for smooth, unblemished eggplants, and leave the stems on when halving them.

To achieve maximum charring without drying out the corn, we grilled husked corn directly on the grates over a very hot fire. Coating the corn with oil and chili powder gave it spice and prevented it from sticking to the grill. A mixture of sour cream and mayonnaise proved a good substitute for hard-to-find crema in the sauce used to coat the cooked corn in this authentic-tasting grilled corn recipe.

Making a pretty good veggie burger is easy. Making a great one is a lot harder.

The downfall of many a recipe is the mush factor. Most of the elements that often go into a homemade veggie burger (vegetables, beans and tofu) are high in moisture, which can lead to a soggy patty that’s unpleasant to eat and nearly impossible to flip on the grill without it falling apart. Getting a veggie burger with great flavor and the right texture is challenging. 

Loving the flavor and look of Hasselback potatoes, I knew it wouldn't be long before I found myself grilling them again. This time around I went with a sweet potato rather than a russet since they're one of my favorite winter foods.

I kept the process exactly the same: slicing, washing, then jump starting the potato cooking process in the microwave. Then the partial cooked spuds were finished on the grill, where they fanned out and got crisp around the edges, while being soft and smooth on the inside.

Of all the Thanksgiving staples, I've never been able to get behind candied sweet potatoes. These orange tubers are one my favorite fall vegetables for their warming sweet flavor, and I can't understand why you'd want mask that sweetness with more sugar, and then top it off with marshmallows? In contrast, if I were doing a sweet potato dish, it'd be something more in line with this sweet potato and corn salad.

For a baba ghanoush recipe that would fulfill its potential as a dip full of redolent, smoky eggplant flavor and brightened with garlic and lemon juice, we grilled the eggplants directly over a hot fire until they were wrinkled and soft. To avoid watery texture and bitterness in our baba ghanoush recipe, we drained the flesh of excess fluid before combining it with flavor-enhancing ingredients. 

For potent garlic flavor in our grilled potato recipe, without bitterness or charring, we needed to introduce the potatoes to the garlic-oil mixture not once but three times. So in our final grilled potato recipe we brushed on the garlic mixture before cooking, after parcooking in the microwave, and after grilling.

Depending on the size of your grill, you may have to cook the vegetables in multiple batches. When grilling more than one vegetable at a time, be prepared to take each off the grill as it is done cooking.