Saturday, May 21, 2011

Slices of Heaven

Today we were supposed to be mostly cloudy, but it turns out we were mostly sunny. The high was supposed to get to the mid sixties, cooler along the coast (which means me). Instead we hit 73.7. What a gorgeous day!

Not long ago we bought a new grill for our two families to use. It has been sitting out back getting rained on ever since. I was going to wait until Sunday to grill for the first time this spring, but it was just too nice.

I've never had grilled baby bok choy before. I was kind of getting a little sick of using them up. They have a touch of bitterness in them that I wasn't fond of. Cooking helps. Age helps too for some reason. I made a pasta salad with chopped bok choy and dried tomatoes (from last yer). I didn't like it at the start, but after a few days it tasted great. The bitterness was all gone. Well grilling takes all that bitterness away for some reason. Which is good because I've got a lot more bok choy out there to eat. And it was just pure heaven. Yum.

Grilled Bok Choy

  • baby bok choy
  • 1/4c rice vinegar
  • T oil
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • dash of red pepper
  • t sugar

Mix marinade together and pour over halved or quartered baby bok choy. Mine was pretty big and I think it could have been cut into sixths. But you don't want to cut them so small they will fall apart on the grill. Cook over medium to high heat until slightly charred. I used high heat and the leaves all went up in flames. I think it might be prudent to cut the leaves off to use for something else like soup and just use the stem parts. They just don't take the heat as well. I used the same coating for some choy sum and it was good too, but not nearly as good as the bok choy.

Even the hamburger featured some garden fare. I didn't put lettuce on it, but I put on my cucumber relish from last year. Now I'm dreaming about the first hamburger with a nice slice of Cherokee Purple tomato. Today makes me believe summer might really be around the corner.

11 comments:

  1. You always have the most delectable dishes. We love grilling too. When summer's here, we grill everything. Have you ever tried a vegetable grilling basket? We fill the basket with whatever we have, then douse it with a liberal amount of basalmic vinegar, then shut the lid. It creates a steam/grilling effect that is to die for.

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  2. Looks really yummy! I will have to try bok choy grilled one of these days. (I can't believe I've never thought to do so!)

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  3. I've never grilled bok choy before. Looks yummy!!

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  4. I never tried grilling bok choy before. What a nice idea. I grew Mei Qing Choi before and it was a bit tough if not harvest quickly perhaps this was the best way to use it.

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  5. Looks absolutely delicious. I love grilled vegetables and fruit also.

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  6. I never thought about grilling bok choy. Grilling radicchio takes the bitter away, so it makes sense. Most of my bok choy is currently either too big or too small to be at the baby stage. I'll have to give grilling a try when the choy is big enough. Yours looks quite yummy!

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  7. What a great idea! I am in a sea of pac choi at the moment and welcome any ideas on how to use it differently then we have been. Grilling does seem to add a bit of sweetness to vegetables so it makes sense that it removes the slight bitter taste.

    So glad you got a beautiful sunshine filled day! I know you were getting the cloudy/rainy days blues.

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  8. Another vegetable that is great on the grill. That looks mouth-watering. So far the only veg that I've found is NOT good grilled is okra. And maybe I went about it wrong.

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  9. I've never had grilled bok choy but I bet its delicious. I loved grilled vegetables, grilling brings out the sweetness of the vegetables.

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  10. Great ideas for Bok Choy. And I am so glad that you got a sunny day. We are in desperate need of some sunshine here as well!

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