Chuck Blount shows how grilling fruits adds flavor to summer meals.
An easy, inexpensive way to enjoy the fruits of summer
The outdoor grills in the Food Shack get put to a lot of work. Burgers, sausages, chicken, steaks and roasts get most of the action, but I like to throw them a curveball from time to time.
One of the best ways to add a little variety to your grill game is to add fruit to the grates over the hot coals. Fruit can grill up similarly to meat, taking on grill marks and absorbing smoke flavor to transform how it tastes.
“Fruit is great because it caramelizes from the natural sugars, and the grill gives it an umami effect, where the smokiness transfers into it, almost like it is an additional ingredient,” said Robyn Lindars, a national authority who runs the popular website grillgirl.com. “I’m one of those people that is always experimenting and look at the grill for what it is: a heating source. Anything that can be done in an oven can be done on the grill.”
Experimenting with grilled fruit is low risk and has a high reward potential. Fruit is rather inexpensive; you can get a lot of it for what you might pay for a single steak. It also requires minimal prep time, with little more than some cutting, peeling and applying some sort of binding agent, such as olive oil, that can hold in ingredients such as sugar, salt or maple syrup.
Any fruit can technically be grilled; however, smaller fruits like strawberries and grapes don’t fare nearly as well as larger varieties such as peaches (my favorite), apples, bananas, pineapples, grapefruits, mangoes, watermelon and various citrus fruits. It’s fun to mix and match with skewers.
New Braunfels-based chef John Herdman, the director of operations for Los Olivos Market, treats fruit on the grill exactly as he would a piece of protein. He cuts it into large fillets, and flips it back and forth as
needed over medium-high heat (350 to 400 degrees).
“I like to work with a large surface area and cook it for a shorter period of time,” Herdman said. “So with something like pineapple, I would avoid the rings and cut it like a steak, then top it with something like a fresh ceviche.”
A benefit to grilling fruit is that it doesn’t need to be cooked to any certain temperature for proper doneness. Herdman prefers to cook his fruit quickly so it attains classic grill marks and char while also maintaining a cool and crispy center.
I was able to cook two recipes over the coals while listening to the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” which runs about 6 minutes, and had plenty of time left in the song when I pulled off the fruit.
“Once you get the (grill) marks and you see that deeper color in the fruit, it’s ready,” Herdman said. “The only way to screw it up is to go too long, because then it will get mushy on you.”
Lindars also recommends pairing fruits with natural proteins. Pork chops and applesauce is a classic, so she takes it further by grilling cinnamon apple slices and serving those with pork ribs or chops.
Herdman typically avoids pairing fruit with red meat, opting instead for gamier proteins such as quail or duck.
While great eaten whole, grilled fruit also is perfect as a garnish or topping for desserts, sauces and cocktails.
“Grilled fruit for cocktails is really fun, and it will deliver a distinct flavor that your guests will notice right away,” Lindars said. “That little kiss of smokiness, with something like a grapefruit paloma or maybe even some limes for a margarita, really adds another element of flavor.”
And after taking a sip of her grilled grapefruit paloma recipe, served ice cold on a sweltering July afternoon with a freshly grilled piece of watermelon, it was more satisfying, given the circumstances, than any piece of meat.