02. Judging Produce Doneness

Grilled vegetables and fruits develop wonderful flavor due to their high sugar content. The sugar quickly caramelizes on the grill, creating complex flavors that are impossible to achieve by moist-heat cooking methods such as boiling or steaming. Judging produce doneness, however, is primarily a matter of texture. Most fruits and vegetables are done grilling when they are hot, crisp-tender, and lightly grill-marked. By crisp-tender, we mean that the plant tissues have retained enough cellular structure and moisture to be somewhat crisp, yet the cell walls are weak enough to be tender and palatable. When a plant is heated, its cell walls begin to break down and lose structure and moisture, becoming increasingly soft. As the internal temperature rises, the texture of grilled produce goes from firm and crisp to crisp-tender to soft and mushy and finally to dry and carbonized. That middle stage of crisp-tenderness is often the best-tasting for grilled produce.