A couple of weeks ago, to take a break from cooking in my tiny kitchen, I grilled somecheeseburgersoutside. I find nailing cheeseburger timing especially satisfying: carefully making sure to get the cheese on just before the burger is done cooking, so that the meat is still nice and juicy, but the cheese has plenty of time to melt. I love how the slice of cheese hugs itself around the patty as it warms.
I wanted more cheese hugs. So I started playing with adding a slice of cheese to whatever vegetables I was grilling, just at the moment before they were done. One day I charred a bunch of halved sweet baby bell peppers, then topped each with a piece of pepper Jack. The slices of cheese had to be small to hug those little grilled peppers instead of ending up all over the grill, but the results were delightful. Over cocktails, we popped those peppers in our mouths like jalapeño poppers.
Next, I grilled wedges of radicchio, topped with thin melted slices of sharp cheddar. The fan-like wedges gave ample surface area for cheese-melting, and made a novel side forgrilled chicken. Broccolini charred on the grill had to be bunched together into little clumps to hold up slices of fontina for melting. I ate that on its own for lunch, with a little lemon juice drizzled over. Broccoli and cheese never fails. When I get some asparagus, I want to try it with Taleggio. Or maybe Gruyère? Or more cheddar?
How to make your own grilled vegetables better with cheese:
1.Start with any vegetable you like to grill, and proceed until it'salmostdone cooking.
2.Place a slice of cheese over the top of your vegetable—or group of vegetables, in the case of thin long things like broccolini or asparagus. Make sure that slice of cheese isn't wider than your vegetable raft.
3.盖烤了一两分钟,然后打开它up and the cheese should be nicely melted and hugged around your finished grilled veggies. Use whatever cheese you like, or simply stick with deli-sliced cheddar or Monterey Jack. If it'll melt, it'll hug. And that's a very good thing.
