Best Tips And Recipes From The Pros For Grilling Summer Fruits
On a never-ending quest for new grilling adventures, The Daily Meal's Cook editors turned their attention to the sweeter side of food and started thinking about grilling fruits for the summer.
It's not an entirely new concept, as we've seen recipes for grilled fruits before and have tried them in past dishes, but to reallyimprove our grilling repertoire, we asked the industry's experts to get the dirt on this new age form of grilling.
Click here to see Best Tips and Recipes for Grilling Summer Fruit
Why grill summer fruits? It's definitely something to think about. Besides the fact that they're naturally sweet, and anything grilled and smoky is considered savory, fruits are pretty darn delicious all on their own, so messing with their naturally flavors seems like a questionable act.
Despite our hesitation for grilling fruits, when we asked some of our country's top chefs, including Michael Lomonaco of New York's Porter House and chef Jeff Mahin of Stella Rossa Pizza Bar in Santa Monica, why they do it, we were pleased to hear they had some pretty good reasons.
Take, for example, one of our favorite ingredients when whipping up a dessert: caramel. By cooking fruits on direct heat, such as with a grill, you can actually create a natural caramel from their sugars, resulting in a rich and indulgent flavor that you'd never experience with them when they're raw. Or consider the idea of grilled fruits as not being the end, but a means to an end, because not only can you eat them just as they are fresh off the grill, but you can take them even further by puréeing them into sauces or pairing them with savory ingredients such as cheese to a create a dish with both flavor and depth.
Click here to see The Daily Meal's Grilling & Barbecue Guide
Grilling fruits doesn't always come naturally, which is why we're grateful to have these trusted tips from the pros to help us get the hang of it. Not only are we providing you with highly regarded advice, but we've included recipes, too, to inspire you to start getting a little sweeter with your grill. Join us on our journey with the grill this summer and grill up some summer fruits.
Anne Dolce is the Cook editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @anniecdolce