Fiery fruit
Hot trend: Vegetarian live flame cooking
WORLD-FAMOUS CHEF Francis Mallmann, known for his livefire meat cookery, transforms vegetables and fruits with fire in his first book of vegetarian recipes. Green Fire is an extraordinary vegetarian cookbook, as Mallmann brings his techniques, creativity, instinct for bold flavours, and decades of experience to the idea of cooking vegetables and fruits over live fire. Blistered tomatoes reinvigorate a classic Caprese salad. Eggplants are buried whole in the coals—a technique called rescoldo—then dance that fine line between burned and incinerated until they yield an ineffable creaminess made irresistible with a slather of parsley, chile, and aioli. Brussels sprout leaves are scorched and served with walnuts; whole cabbages are sliced thick, grilled like steaks, and rubbed with spice for a mustard-fennel crust. Corn, fennel, artichokes, beets, squash, even beans—this is the vegetable kingdom, on fire.
WHOLE ROASTED PINEAPPLE with BLUEBERRIES
Fruits are so delicate and evanescent that they rarely benefit from long cooking. But pineapples—just like a rib roast—can cook for a long time. When I cook them on a dome, I hang them for hours, but you can also cook them, as I do here, on the grill and obtain lovely results in less time. Think a young wine versus aged Burgundy: they both have their virtues, but with a different investment of time.
Ingredients
2 cups (475 ml) water
2 cups (400 g) sugar
1 ripe pineapple
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus more if needed
3 cups (435 g) blueberries
3 cups (710 ml) vanilla ice cream
Method
Prepare a fire for medium heat and set a grate over it. If cooking indoors, preheat the oven to 190C.
Meanwhile, make a syrup. Pour the water into a saucepan and add the sugar. Set over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves. Pour into a deep roasting pan just large enough to hold the pineapple.
Slice off the bottom and the sides of pineapple and trim out the eyes. Lay the pineapple down in the hot syrup and turn to soak all sides.
If cooking outdoors, brush the grate with oil. Lay the pineapple down on one side and grill until nicely caramelised, about 15 minutes. Pick it up with a set of tongs, dunk it in the syrup to thoroughly drench it, and return it to the grill to brown on the second side. Grill for at least an hour, dunking it in the syrup every 15 minutes and returning it to the grill until all sides are browned and the pineapple is tender. You should be able to poke a bamboo skewer all the way through when it’s done (it will put up slight resistance at the core).
If cooking indoors, lay the pineapple on its side in a second roasting pan and put it in the oven. Every 15 minutes, take it out and roll it in the syrup to baste. When it is tender all the way through and very juicy but still holding its shape, transfer it to a cutting board to rest for 5 minutes before serving.
To serve, divide the blueberries among six serving plates. Crush half of them with the back of a fork, leaving the rest whole, and top each portion with a scoop of ice cream. With a long serrated knife, carve the pineapple into thick rounds and stand one slice upright on its side in each serving of ice cream. —