A well-seasoned coleslaw is an essential element to barbecue, though the slaw that shows up on your table depends on where you smoke and eat your meat.
Dutch immigrants brought coleslaw to the New World in the 1700s, and the name stuck (from the Dutch words “kool” for “cabbage” and “sla” for “salad”). It became a part of the nation’s culinary heritage when Amelia Simmons mentioned it in “American Cookery,” the first cookbook written by an American for Americans, published in Hartford in 1796.
German immigrants left their mark on slaw — sharpened with vinegar, sweetened with sugar, and perfumed with caraway seed — in the Midwest, where it makes the perfect accompaniment to grilled bratwurst.
Vinegar slaw flavored with peppery vinegar sauce dominates southern Virginia and North Carolina. Mustard slaw goes on pork sandwiches in South Carolina and Georgia, which are dressed with an equally distinctive mustard-based sauce. Creamy coleslaw, lavished with mayonnaise and flecked with celery seed, traditionally accompanies the Kansas City barbecue big three (brisket, chicken and ribs), and is popular just about everywhere else.
But suppose you made coleslaw the star of your barbecue. You can, with a tool you have in your yard. Grilling or smoking the cabbage adds a depth of flavor that takes slaw from the periphery of the plate to the center, from supporting player to barbecue itself.
Grilled
There are several ways to harness the firepower of your grill to make slaw. The easiest is to use direct grilling: cooking the cabbage over high heat, charring the leaves to impart a decisive smoke flavor to the coleslaw.
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To do so, set up your grill for direct grilling, and clean and oil the grill grate. (To set up a charcoal grill for direct grilling, light the coals in a chimney starter. Rake out the lit coals over the bottom of your grill. On a gas grill, simply set the burners on high.)
Cut the cabbage through the stem end into quarters. Lightly brush these quarters on all sides with vegetable oil and grill directly over the heat until darkly singed on all sides, turning with tongs.
The key is to work quickly over a hot fire so you char the outside leaves while leaving the cabbage raw and crisp in the center. (Coleslaw just wouldn’t have the right crunch unless some of the cabbage remains raw.) A couple minutes per side will do it.
Recipe: Grilled Slaw With Ginger and Sesame
[Read Wirecutter’s review of gas grills.]
Ember-Roasted
Another even more theatrical technique is to roast the cabbage directly in the embers (a move I call “cave-manning”). Light a charcoal or wood-burning grill and let the coals burn down to glowing embers. Rake them into an even layer and lay a halved or quartered cabbage on top. Roast the cabbage until charred, even burned, on all sides, a couple of minutes per side.
Use long-handled tongs to turn the cabbage, and protect your hands with heavy-duty grill gloves. Once the cabbage is charred, transfer it to a sheet pan or metal tray to cool: Don’t use a wooden or plastic tray in the event that a small live ember or two has clung to the charred outside leaves. Brush the cooled cabbage with a pastry brush to get rid of excess ash.
Ember-roasting endows cabbage — and the eventual slaw — with an intense and inimitable smoke flavor, a fiery technique cooks in the Middle East have used for centuries to transform eggplant into smoky baba ghanouj. Again, the trick is to roast the cabbage long enough to char the exterior, but briefly enough to leave the center of the cabbage raw and crunchy. I particularly like to use savoy cabbage for this preparation: The corrugated leaves channel the smoke deep inside the head.
Recipe: Ember-Roasted Slaw With Mint
[Read Wirecutter’s review of charcoal grills.]
Smoked
The third method eliminates grilling entirely, but the results are no less smoky or delectable. You smoke the cabbage in an outdoor or stove-top smoker, or even with a hand-held electric smoker, sometimes called a smoking gun. Your challenge here will be to smoke the cabbage without actually cooking it — a task made easy with a pan of ice.
Shred the cabbage in a food processor fitted with a slicing blade or on a mandoline as you would for conventional coleslaw. For an outdoor smoker, place the cabbage in a sturdy foil pan over another foil pan filled with ice, which will keep the cabbage cool and crisp despite the heat. Smoke the cabbage for 10 to 15 minutes in a water smoker, ceramic cooker, pellet grill or electric or gas smoker.
You could even use a charcoal kettle grill: Set it up for indirect grilling (coals raked to the sides, the pan of cabbage on its pan of ice in the center of the grate away from the heat), adding wood chips or chunks to generate smoke. Whichever the vessel, smoke the cabbage until it’s lightly bronzed with smoke, but still cool and crisp, about five to eight minutes. Taste it to determine the degree of smokiness you desire.
If you don’t have access to a smoker or grill outdoors, you can use a stove-top smoker or smoking gun. For the stove-top method, you’ll place the shredded cabbage in its pan over another shallow pan of ice inside the smoker to keep it cool.
For the hand-held smoker, place the shredded cabbage in a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Insert the rubber tube of the smoking gun under the plastic wrap, then reseal before pumping wood smoke into the bowl. (You may want to do this near an open window.)
Let the cabbage absorb the wood smoke for four to five minutes. Remove the wrap so the smoke can escape and repeat the process once or twice more until the cabbage is smoked to your taste. For added flavor, you can use the hand-held smoker and bowl configuration to smoke the mayonnaise for a coleslaw dressing.
These three recipes make this traditional barbecue accompaniment true barbecue. I like to imagine that Ms. Simmons, the cookbook author, would have approved.
