Holy moly, it's warm enough to step outside and heat up the grill. Are you excited? I'm excited. To kick off the grilling season, I decided to throw together some great fresh veggies (Hurray, asparagus season's start coincides with grilling season!) and try out a technique for grilling sausage.
Spicy Sesame Asparagus
Ingredients:
Fresh asparagus, the woody ends removed
Sesame oil
Shichimi togarashi, curry powder, Chinese five-spice, or anything else that suits you (I went with the togarashi)
Grilled Sweet Potato Slices
Ingredients:
1/4 inch thick slices of sweet potato
Honey-Basted Sausage
Ingredients:
A good, flavorful sausage (I used Hillshire Farms kielbasa)
Honey
Warm water
To cook:
Prep: Drizzle enough sesame oil onto asparagus to make sure that your chosen seasonings can be sprinkled on and not fall off during grilling. For the sausage, I used about 1/4 of a cup of honey. This was enough to baste a kielbasa repeatedly during cooking. Mix a little (maybe a 1 to 5 ratio) warm water into your honey so that it can be easily applied to the sausage with a brush. Get your grill nice and hot (very scientific measurement, right?).
1. Lay sweet potato slices down in a single layer. Any overlapping will increase their already lengthy cooking time. Add sausage to the grill and brush with honey.
2. Flip the sausage about once a minute, brushing with honey each time. When the potato slices look cooked on the bottom, flip them over. This is the time to add your asparagus to the grill.
3. Everything should be done at about the same time. The potatoes are really what matters most. Nobody likes biting into undercooked potato, sweet or otherwise. If anything really needs not to be overcooked, it's the asparagus. Once you get some good grill lines on it, don't be afraid to plate it. Drizzling tamari over the cooked asparagus is optional (and delicious).
4. Enjoy your meal with something cold and tasty, and feel great knowing that this is just the start of the grilling season's adventures!
