GRILLING ON A PLANCHA

Vegetables grilling on a plancha.

Summer means grilling season. I know that. But rarely do I fire up a charcoal or wood-fired grill for only one or two persons. Instead, I do my grilling on a plancha in the comfort of the kitchen.

Plancha means a metal plate. It’s also the word for “iron,” the sort you iron your clothes with. Nowadays, irons are electric, but I once lived in an old mill house in the country with no electricity. We heated heavy planchas on a gas fire to iron our clothes. I had a pair of them—one to heat while the other was in use. 

But, back to grilling on a plancha. In a tapa bar, a plancha is the same sort of griddle you might find in a fast-food joint for grilling hamburgers. Instead of burgers, the grill meister is cooking tiny squid; whole, unpeeled prawns; slabs of swordfish steak; pork cutlets, and small steaks, basting them with aliño, a mixture of olive oil, garlic, parsley and lemon. I am amazed at the skill, knowing exactly when to turn each piece of food, when to remove it from the grill.

A plancha is a great tool for home cooking. I prefer a heavy, cast-iron grill pan that heats evenly. Especially useful is a reversible one—ridged grill pan on one side, great for steaks, and flat griddle on the other, perfect for fish and shellfish. The plancha sets directly over a gas burner.

Hake steak on a flat plancha.

How to grill on a plancha: Place the plancha over high heat until very hot, about 4 minutes. Then brush the grill with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt (same procedure whether using a flat or ridged grill pan). Place food to be grilled on the plancha. Keep the heat on high to get a good sear on the food. Don’t move it around. Then turn it.

Timing is the tricky bit, just as it is with grilling on charcoal. It takes some practice to know when to turn the food, when to take it off the grill.

Chicken breasts on a ridged grill pan.

If you don’t have a plancha, substitute a large cast iron skillet. An extractor fan helps to draw out the smoke from grilling, but you might set off the smoke alarm in any case. By the way, any of the foods cooked on a plancha can also be cooked a la parilla, on a charcoal or wood-fired grill.

What I most like about plancha cooking is that it doesn’t need a whole lot of pre-planning—no marinades, rubs, brines required. But, plancha-grilled foods really do need a sensational sauce. Romesco sauce with grilled shrimp. Alioli (garlic-olive oil mayonnaise) with griddled lamb chops or rabbit. Piquillo pepper sauce with fish. Here’s a bunch more.

Aliño
Sauce for Grilled Foods

This simple sauce is spooned over grilled foods immediately before serving. Use it with griddled baby cuttlefish, grilled chicken breast or any fish fillet. The sauce can also be used as a marinade or basting sauce. Keep it handy when you´re grilling meat, poultry and fish.

Aliño in the making.

2 cloves chopped garlic
½ cup chopped parsley
3 tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and stir to mix. Use at room temperature. Sauce may be kept, covered and refrigerated, for up to one week.

Grilled hake and vegetables, drizzled with aliño.

Mojo Verde
Green Chile Sauce with Cilantro

This spicy Canary Islands sauce is sensational with grilled fish, lamb, or vegetables.

Cilantro, garlic, chiles for mojo verde.

4 cloves garlic
1 green chile, such as jalapeño (or to taste)
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
½ cup chopped parsley
½ cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves
¼ cup olive oil
3 tablespoons wine vinegar
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons water
   
Place all ingredients in a blender container and blend until smooth. Sauce keeps, covered and refrigerated, one week.

Squid and sliced potatoes are grilled on a plancha, served with spicy mojo verde. The squid was cut open lengthwise, edges snipped to prevent their curling and grilled whole, then cut in pieces to serve. The potatoes were partially cooked whole, then sliced and brushed with olive oil before placing on the grill pan.

Mojo Picón
Red Chile Sauce

Serve this as a dipping sauce for chips, with grilled chicken or meat.

Piquant mojo picón.

3 tablespoons pimentón (paprika), not smoked
1 fresh red chile, seeded and chopped, or cayenne to taste
4 cloves garlic
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons wine vinegar
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons water

Place all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. If desired, thin with a little water. Sauce keeps one week, refrigerated.

Grilled chicken and butternut squash with mojo picón.

Sliced chicken on grilled bread with spicy red chile sauce.

Salsa Cabrales
Cabrales Blue Cheese Sauce

Cabrales is a distinctive blue cheese from Asturias—sharp, but remarkably creamy in consistency. It makes a delightful dressing or dip when thinned with wine or, in the Asturian style, dry cider. It's a classic served with grilled entrecote steaks. But, you know what? I didn't really like the blue cheese sauce with the steak. It was delicious, however, with the potatoes and as a dip with endive leaves.

Makes 2/3 cup

5 ounces Cabrales or other blue cheese
2 tablespoons chopped onions
1/3 cup white wine, cider or cava (sparkling wine)
Pinch of cumin seed

Place the cheese in a blender with onions, wine and cumin seed. Blend until smooth. Serve immediately or keep, covered and refrigerated, up to 3 days.

Ridged grill pan gives a good sear to steak, sliced potatoes.

GRILLING THE SPANISH WAY

Vegetables on the grill for escalivada.

When you think about traditional Spanish cooking, I bet you never think of grilling. Yet, cooking on a parilla, a grate or grill; a la brasa, over hot coals, or on a plancha, a metal hot plate set over coals, are all traditional cooking methods in Spain.

On the Mediterranean coast, fishermen haul their boats in at dawn, laden with fresh sardines. For breakfast, they make a fast fire on the sand, skewer the sardines on sticks, stick them in the sand before the fire. Simple and delicious.

Basque fishermen set a grate over a fire for cooking whole besugo, red bream, basted with a feather until the skin turns crisp and golden. In the wine region of Ribera del Duero, vineyard workers grill tiny lamb chops over a fast-burning fire of vine prunings. Hunters in La Mancha make a fire from holm oak to grill rabbits and other small game.

Char-roasted peppers, eggplant, onion and tomato.

In Catalonia, spring onions with their green tops—calçots—cooked on the grill with sausages and chops are an excuse for a party. Another Catalan dish, escalivada, combines eggplant, peppers, onions and tomatoes that have been grilled, skinned and dressed with olive oil.

While Spain may not be as famous for grilled steak as the US or Argentina, I gotta say that the best char-grilled steak I ever had in my life was at the Basque farmhouse restaurant, Baserri Maitea http://www.grupozaldua.com/baserri/, in Forua, a short drive from Bilbao, where chef Juan Antonio Zaldua has taken grilling to new heights of complexity (squid grilled over lavender; whole sole grilled over pungent holy herb; meat grilled over holm oak).

Beef for grilling at Restaurante Baserri Maitea

That steak was a thick rib chop from a 7-year-old grass-fed vaca (cow), heavily marbled, cooked medium rare, then carved off the bone.

The steak I grilled tonight was not so great. (My butcher misled me this time.) The sauce/marinade, Canary Islands mojo colorado, red chile sauce, with its touch of vinegar, complemented the beef and the grilled potatoes. Escalivada was right-on as a vegetable side.

Charcoal grilling, to me, seems wasteful—it takes such a long time to get the coals up to temperature, then, after the steaks come off the grill, residual heat could cook another meal. What I like about escalivada is that the vegetables can be put on the grill early on or at the very end. In fact, I sometimes make the vegetables at the end of a grill meal to be served cold the next day. The smoky flavor makes it all worth while.

Escalivada is a Catalan dish of grilled eggplant, peppers, onion and tomato.

Escalivada
Grilled Eggplant and Peppers

Serve escalivada as a starter, rather like a salad; as a side dish with grilled meat; heaped on a hamburger bun, or as a topping for pizza. You can also roast the eggplant and peppers under the broiler instead of over charcoal.

Serves 4 as a tapa or side dish.

Peel off charred skins.

1 medium eggplant
1 large red bell pepper
1 medium onion
1 large tomato
1 small head garlic
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil

Prepare coals (charcoal or wood fire).

Pierce the eggplant and pepper with a sharp knife in 3 or 4 places (to prevent steam from building up inside the skin). Slice the top off the head of garlic.

Place all the vegetables on the grill (or under the broiler). Grill until eggplant and pepper are charred on one side. Use tongs to turn the vegetables. Grill until charred on all sides. (If tomato softens before other vegetables are ready, remove it.) Remove charred vegetables to a bowl.

Let the vegetables set until cool enough to handle. Peel the eggplant. Chop or shred the flesh and place in a bowl. Peel and cut pepper in strips and add to the eggplant. Peel onion and cut in lengthwise slivers. Peel the tomato, discard seeds and chop the flesh. Combine the vegetables and season them with salt and pepper

Squeeze the softened cloves of garlic out of the skins into a small bowl. Mash them with a fork. Stir the vinegar and oil into the garlic paste, then stir it into the vegetables.

Serve room temperature.
 
Mojo Colorado
Red Chile Sauce

Use this as a marinade for meat or chicken, as a dipping sauce for tiny new potatoes, or as a sauce with grilled or steamed fish.

3 tablespoons pimentón (paprika)
1 fresh red chile, seeded and chopped, or cayenne to taste
3 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons wine vinegar
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup water

Place all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Sauce keeps one week, refrigerated.