BBQ Season Kick-Off

Grilled Romaine With Tahini and Ramp Dressing

  • Grilled Romaine With Tahini and Ramp Dressing
  • Grilled Romaine With Tahini and Ramp Dressing
  • Grilled Romaine With Tahini and Ramp Dressing
  • Grilled Romaine With Tahini and Ramp Dressing
  • Grilled Romaine With Tahini and Ramp Dressing
  • Grilled Romaine With Tahini and Ramp Dressing
  • Grilled Romaine With Tahini and Ramp Dressing
  • Grilled Romaine With Tahini and Ramp Dressing

INSTRUCTIONS

Wash and pat dry your heads of romaine. Remove loose outer leave s and slice in half lengthwise. Coat evenly with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Pre-heat grill and cook lettuce until brown and crispy. Remove from heat.

In a high powered blender, combine all dressing ingredients, except for the olive oil. Start blender on medium low, and pour olive oil in through the top of the blender in a slow stream.  If the dressing is too thick to pour add another tsp of water. Taste it, if it needs more acid, add more vinegar. If it is too sharp, add more olive oil and blend.

Drizzle dressing over the romaine, garnish with herbs, caper berries and bell pepper. Serve.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

MODERATE

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SERVES

8

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PREP TIME

15 MINS

Dressing

  • 1 
     
    handful fresh Italian parsley
  • 1 
    tbs 
    tahini
  • 1 
    tbs 
    minced fresh horseradish root (optional)
  • 4 
     
    fresh ramps, roots removed but use the whole thing aside from that
  • 1 
    tsp 
    Dijon mustard
  • 1 
     
    lemon, juiced
  • 1 
    tbs 
    red wine vinegar
  • 2-3 
    tbs 
    water
  • 4 
     
    oil-packed anchovies, including the oil (omit to make this vegan)
  • 1/2 
    tsp 
    brined capers
  • 1/4 
    cup 
    olive oil
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    sea salt and cracked pepper to taste

Romaine

  • 4 
     
    eads of romaine, slice in half lengthwise. You can use the hearts or use a regular head and just remove the outer loose leaves
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    Olive oil, salt and pepper to lightly but thoroughly coat the lettuce
  • 1/2 
     
    ed or orange bell pepper, minced
  • 5-10 
     
    aperberries
  • 1 
    tsp 
    fresh chives, minced
  • 1 
    tsp 
    fresh oregano, minced

INSTRUCTIONS

Wash and pat dry your heads of romaine. Remove loose outer leave s and slice in half lengthwise. Coat evenly with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Pre-heat grill and cook lettuce until brown and crispy. Remove from heat.

In a high powered blender, combine all dressing ingredients, except for the olive oil. Start blender on medium low, and pour olive oil in through the top of the blender in a slow stream.  If the dressing is too thick to pour add another tsp of water. Taste it, if it needs more acid, add more vinegar. If it is too sharp, add more olive oil and blend.

Drizzle dressing over the romaine, garnish with herbs, caper berries and bell pepper. Serve.

This past weekend we hosted the first of many impromptu BBQ’s of the season. I have been toiling away in my garden, my very own Salad Garden, to be exact. It doesn’t look like much at this point in the season, but it will soon (stay tuned).  Gardening is a patience game, and I am not known for my patience.

So, I decided to fast forward, and grill some big, bushy heads of romaine lettuce to christen our brand new BBQ. This is a great party dish — it is cheap to do on a large scale, it’s beautiful to plate, and it’s surprisingly rewarding to reinvent one of the most basic, run-of-the-mill lettuce varietals. Your friends won’t see it coming. Tons of herbs, fresh ramps (just in season now on the East Coast) make this dressing really bright and flavorful. (Don’t let Lionel pictured above, Allison Weisberg and Peter Barker Huelster’s son be the judge, he hasn’t developed his salad taste buds yet).

I am not posting the recipe here, but that cucumber salad seen above was a little something I came across when recently visiting Asheville, TN for Moogfest, an electronic music and arts festival. We attended an artist event at the Moog factory (the birthplace of the most widely used Synthesizer in the electronic music world), and we were served a salad so simple, I couldn’t wait to replicate it. Chunks of lightly salted Persian Cucumber, drizzled with Sriracha sauce and tahini (thin your tahini with water before attempted to drizzle). My guests couldn’t keep their little hands out of the dish long enough for me to take a photo, as you can see. This is less a recipe, more a magic trick.