Crudités With Grilled Green Goddess Dip

Name: Crudités With Grilled Green Goddess Dip
Yield: Serves 6 to 8; makes about 2 cups of dip
Ingredients: 2 ripe avocados; Oil, for coating; 5 large tomatillos, peeled and rinsed; 2 jalapeño chiles, stemmed, halved lengthwise, and seeded; 2 tablespoons roasted garlic (see Note); Juice of 2 limes (about 1⁄4 cup); 1 cup basil leaves; 1 1⁄2 teaspoons salt; An assortment of lightly charred vegetables, such as asparagus, jicama, fennel, snap peas, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, and endive, for serving

By Eric Werner

May 13, 2021

Crudites with grilled green goddess dip colorful vegetables green dip in a small bowl

Photo by Gentl & Hyers

For an outdoor dinner, most people would expect you to serve grilled vegetables with a straightforward dip, but here I’ve done something slightly more unexpected and paired barely-cooked vegetables with a grilled dip. Some veggies I like to include are jicama, fennel, endive, asparagus, and snap peas, but usually I try to go to the farmers market the same day and just buy whatever’s the freshest and most interesting.

Note:

When you just need a little roasted garlic, individual cloves can be quickly roasted on a plancha or griddle until they are charred and soft. Be sure to keep each clove encased in its outer skin when separating the cloves. To prepare whole heads of roasted garlic on the grill, rub the loose papery coating from however many garlic heads you want to cook, keeping the heads intact. Place over the coolest part of the grill and roast, turning occasionally. When the heads are done, the outside should be well charred and the cloves soft when poked.

Recipe information

Yield
Serves 6 to 8; makes about 2 cups of dip

Ingredients

2 ripe avocados

Oil, for coating

5 large tomatillos, peeled and rinsed

2 jalapeño chiles, stemmed, halved lengthwise, and seeded

2 tablespoons roasted garlic (see Note)

Juice of 2 limes (about 1⁄4 cup)

1 cup basil leaves

1 1⁄2 teaspoons salt

An assortment of lightly charred vegetables, such as asparagus, jicama, fennel, snap peas, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, and endive, for serving

Preparation

Step 1
Wipe the grill grates with oil to prevent sticking. Build a medium-heat fire. Your medium-heat zone should have embers 3 to 5 inches from the cooking surface.
Step 2
To make the dip: Cut the avocados in half and remove the pits. Cut again so the avocados are quartered. Keeping the skin on, coat the flesh sides with oil and grill each flesh side over medium heat for about 60 seconds, or until there are nice grill marks. Set aside.
Step 3
Coat the tomatillos and jalapeños with oil and grill over medium heat on all sides until charred but not blackened, about 5 minutes total.
Step 4
Remove and discard the skins from the avocados. Add the avocados, tomatillos, jalapeños, garlic, lime juice, basil, and salt to a blender and puree until very smooth. The dip can be made up to 2 days in advance and stored, covered, in the refrigerator.
Step 5
Cut the larger vegetables, such as fennel and jicama, into pieces that are slightly larger than bite size and keep the smaller vegetables, such as asparagus, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, and endive, whole. Arrange the vegetables on a platter and serve with the dip.

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Reprinted with permission from The Outdoor Kitchen: Live-Fire Cooking from the Grill by Eric Werner, copyright © 2020. Photographs by Gentl and Hyers. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Penguin Random House, Inc. Buy the full book from Amazon.