This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
Planning your garden to roast your crops is a good idea! Because contrary to what you might think, barbecue isn’t just for steaks, hamburger patties and hot dogs. Rébéca Rouleau, owner of Serres Dame Nature, in Saint-Gédéon in Lac-Saint-Jean, and Jean-Philippe Lavoie, “BBQ Master” at BBQ Québec, offer us their best advice on how to incorporate more vegetables — your vegetables! — on your grill menu this summer.
Whether we grow our vegetables or herbs from our own seedlings planted in a large vegetable garden in the backyard or from seedlings bought from a garden center and repotted on the balcony in town, one thing is certain: they can be cooked on the grill.
First of all, avoid cooking vegetables en papillote or on skewers, suggests Jean-Philippe Lavoie, co-founder, with his brother, of the company BBQ Québec. Since each vegetable does not have the same heat requirement, the cooking could then be uneven. Instead, put them directly on the grill!
“The barbecue offers more stable cooking than an oven,” explains the grill expert. Very high heat is used to grill waterlogged vegetables (such as asparagus, peppers, aubergines, zucchini) and with stable indirect heat, very dense ones, such as potatoes, are cooked for a long time. . We can also smoke our food. » Properly oiled and seasoned, the vegetables will be juicier and highly flavourful.
If you only have a very small space to devote to your food autonomy, you first opt for fresh herb plants that will be used to season the summer grills. Among the customers of Serres Dame Nature, the most popular are still rosemary, mint and sage. “People add them to marinades or as a cooking finish in order to keep all the flavors,” notes Rébéca Rouleau.
Rosemary goes very well with grilled chicken, mint will add freshness to lamb kebabs and sage will enhance the flavors of vegetables. And don’t forget to reserve a small part of your vegetable garden for greens, the leaves of which will be added to burgers and sandwiches.
Then there are the hot peppers, which are, at Serres Dame Nature, among the most popular plants of the barbecue season: “The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T, one of the strongest in the world, is very fashionable with us. “A pepper plant produces a lot, so it can be cooked in several ways: grilled, smoked or dried.
Fancy a small challenge? According to the market gardener, there is a strong craze for baby potatoes, which you can now grow on your balcony using geotextile pots (of the ” smart pots ”) specially designed for this mini potato format. The baby potatoes cooked on the barbecue, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, go perfectly with grilled meat or turn into a potato salad to bring to your next picnic.
Finally, if you have a large area to grow, add asparagus to your vegetable garden. “It’s a perennial plant,” Rébéca Rouleau points out. You will harvest it for years! »
What accessories for vegetables?
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the Duty, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of Duty did not take part.