Gentl & Hyers - The outdoor kitchen live-fire cooking from Hartwood

Acknowledgments

To the Hartwood kitchen : this book would not have possible without your help and hard work. Thank you!

To Amber Burling : thank you very much for the great job you did with recipe development and recipe testing.

To Francine Lee : thank you very much for your dedication and efforts to The Outdoor Kitchen .

Special thanks to:

Katherine Cowles

Mya Henry

Charlie Werner

Nils Bernstein

Andrea Gentl

Marty Hyers

Frankie Crichton

Piotr PM Welding

Emily Timberlake

Emma Rudolph

Emma Campion

Allison Renzulli

Jane Chinn

Mari Gill

Kristin Casemore

Dulci DeCarlo

Frank DeCarlo

Emily Isabella

Cheryl Rogowski

Andrea Gallego

Erick Celaya

Austin Simard

Jazmine Yurtin

Jon Santos

About the Authors

Eric Werner is the chef and owner of Hartwood restaurant in Tulum, Mexico, which he opened with his wife, Mya Henry, in 2010. Situated between the Yucatn jungle and the Caribbean Sea, Hartwood is renowned for highlighting local Mayan ingredients and for its staunch dedication to wood-fire cooking. It has garnered acclaim from publications such as Bon App tit , Vogue, and the New York Times. Werner originally embraced the primal, wood-fired cooking method in his formative years by cooking over campfires, and furthered his knowledge at a school for disenfranchised youth in New Yorks Catskill Mountains. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, he went on to work at Vinegar Hill House in Brooklyn and Peasant in NYC before moving with Mya to the Yucatn to construct his dream project: an environmentally sustainable outdoor restaurant serving vibrant and inspired seasonal food. Their first book, Hartwood: Bright, Wild Flavors from the Edge of the Yucatn , was released in 2015 and was the recipient of the IACP Cookbook Award for Culinary Travel.

Nils Bernstein was born and raised in Seattle and now splits his time between New York City, Mexico City, and the Mexican state of Yucatn. He traded a long career in the music industry, running the publicity departments for independent record labels Sub Pop and Matador, for one in food, drink, and travel writing. Bernstein is the food editor for Wine Enthusiast magazine, and he also writes and develops recipes for many other outlets. Erics whole-kitchen home-grilling tips have permanently changed the way Bernstein cooks at home.

Cauliflower Steaks with Beer-Raisin Glaze

Serves 4

Cauliflower is one of the best vegetables to grill. It can stand up to high heat, its flavor improves tenfold when its deeply browned or charred (its almost impossible to burn), and it goes with almost any of the sauces in this book. The beer-raisin glaze couldnt be more simple, but it has incredible complexity. The raisins sweetness is offset by the savory depth of the chiles and the reduced beer. Use a malty, rather than hoppy, beera porter, stout, or Scotch or Belgian alesince a very bitter beer can taste even more bitter when reduced. I developed this sauce to serve with lamb T-bones, but lately Ive been liking it just as much with thick cauliflower steaks.

Beer-Raisin Glaze

1 cup raisins (any type)

3 mulato or ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded

Two 12-ounce cans dark beer

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon salt, plus more for seasoning

2 large heads cauliflower

Oil, for coating

Pepper, for seasoning

Wipe the grill grates with oil to prevent sticking. Build a two-zone fire. Your high-heat zone should have embers 1 to 2 inches from the cooking surface, with occasional flames licking it. To create your medium-heat zone, nudge the embers 2 to 3 inches lower than that.

To make the glaze: Combine the raisins, chiles, beer, butter, and salt in a saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Move the pan to medium heat and simmer until the liquid has thickened and is syrupy, about 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and discard the chiles. Set aside.

Meanwhile, trim the leaves and stem from a cauliflower and place it stem side up on a cutting board. Starting where the florets attach to the core, slice vertically at 1-inch intervals; you should end up with two or three steaks and loose florets from either end (reserve these for another purpose, such as adding to a salad or grilling as a side dish for another meal). Repeat with the other cauliflower.

Rub the cauliflower steaks with the oil and season with salt and pepper. Place directly on the grill grates over high heat and cook until well charred in spots, about 4 minutes, then flip and repeat on the other side. Move to medium heat and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, turning often. Cauliflower is done when a fork pierces it easily.

Serve with a drizzle of the glaze, making sure each serving gets a few raisins.

Crudits with Grilled Green Goddess Dip

Serves 6 to 8; makes about 2 cups of dip

For an outdoor dinner, most people would expect you to serve grilled vegetables with a straightforward dip, but here Ive done something slightly more unexpected and paired barely-cooked vegetables with a grilled dip. Put some effort into crudit shopping; theres nothing worse than a crudit plate that looks as if you just took the plastic off a supermarket party platter. 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 whatevers the freshest and most interesting.

Grilled Green Goddess Dip

2 ripe avocados

Oil, for coating

5 large tomatillos, peeled and rinsed

2 jalapeo chiles, stemmed, halved lengthwise, and seeded

2 tablespoons roasted garlic (see )

Juice of 2 limes (about cup)

1 cup basil leaves

1 teaspoons salt

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

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.

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.