Tips for the tastiest grilled zucchini

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: the most delicious grilled zucchini.

Anyone who has ever put zucchini slices on the barbecue or in a grill pan (us, all the time!) knows that it can be quite a hassle to prevent getting wet, limp, watery ribbons, but also not half-raw tasteless thick sponges. So how do you tackle that?

Because it seems like the ideal vegetable for the grill: easy to flavor with a marinade, handy to grab and turn with tongs, quite a crowd-pleaser, in short; only good news. But in practice, you often end up with soggy, overcooked zucchini slices that are not well flavored. This is the solution for that:

Nice salty soaking
A brine bath! We have previously sung the praises of brining chicken because really, it makes a huge difference in the final tenderness and flavor of, for example, fried or poached chicken breast. But this vegetable also benefits greatly from it.

Anyone can do it
And it can't be much easier, you just need to factor in some brining time. For this technique, you make (in a rectangular Tupperware container, for example) a brine bath of a small liter of water with fifty grams of salt; about three generous tablespoons. Cut the zucchini lengthwise into thick slices of about two centimeters and place them in the brine. Let them brine for three quarters of an hour to an hour; you might need to place a pot or something similar on top to keep them submerged. In the meantime, make a delicious fresh salsa verde according to this recipe, and heat the barbecue or grill pan.

Get it hot (or underneath)
After brining, place the zucchini slices on a plate with paper towels and pat them dry. Then grill them on both sides until they have nice dark grill marks, and serve them with that amazing salsa verde. Delicious!

Now that you know the trick, feel free to vary the brine, just like with other brining cases! Never throw away the leftover liquid from pickle jars, olive jars, jalapeños in vinegar – really, everything that contains acidity and/or salt works as a brining train. You'll never want to do it any other way...