A Vegetarian Barbeque

It all started with my colleague, here in Canada office, Benedict mentioning to us that our Operations Manager, John is going to organise a family barbecue at our facility. Well, what am I to do? there is going to be a free lunch and I am going to starve!! I wondered could he not make it a pizza lunch or something else. But I realised later that barbecue is a sort of social event, and having a pizza lunch may not be able to simulate that environment.

A month passed and this barbeque never happened. One day while returning from a dinner, John was discussing about the barbecue. The problem with the whole issue is I never knew what a "family barbecue" really is and how it will be organsied. So risking at being laughed, at I asked him what the options he is going to give for vegetarians. It seemed he was equally puzzled but then said he will organise some vegetables and together we can try being creative.

The research

Finally the day was announced. It was going to be on 23rd July 2007. John wanted me to give the list of vegetables and items needed for vegetarian barbaque. So, I began researching. Oh!! researching is something I am sick of, given the vast information, internet throws up. Google threw up some 1000s of hits for "Vegetarian + barbaque" (and not to mention the three or four different spellings for barbaque and not withstanding the short form "BBQ"). Well! this is not going to help me.

So I resorted to Orkut, the Google's social networking portal. Given that a significant lot of Brahmin population is traveling abroad and must have at some point of their career come across barbaques in the West, this must be the right place. I posted my query in about some 5 Brahmin communities in Orkut. The responses were quite quick. A manager at another of our plant next street, too gave me ideas and links to FoodTv website, a famous cookery channel in Canada.

The list of ingredients

Based on the responses, and from a few websites, I started making the vegetable list - Potatoes, Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Green Onions, Green Peppers (Capsicum in American English), Sweet Corn, Eggplant (brinjal in American), Cabbages, Beans, & Tofu. Add to that items like oil, butter, pepper, lime, hot sauce, salt & sugar. I was particular that aluminum foil too should be provided so that the veggie items will not get mixed up with the meat.

Having done all the research, I developed got cold feet at the idea of making these items. I believed that in a bbq party the raw items will be placed on the table and each one has to go and make their items as per their taste. And how am i going to prevent somebody poking the meat with the cutleries I use for veggies and rendering me tool-less. It turned out that John himself is going to do all the cooking. So that solves most of the problems.

The day arrives

So the day came. To my surprise there were a couple of vegetarians from our office. Well, I had read about vegetarianism in the West, but this is the first time I got to see some vegetarians here. So I was not alone, after all. The vegetables that were purchased were potatoes, mushrooms, capsicum and bags of assorted cut veggies. Of course, we had all the usual spices and sauces.

The fire was started. John came with a large container of sauce. In no time Ben and John started dipping the chicken and beef ribs into the sauce. Thank God, I had brought some hot sauce from home.

Now the grand finale

The Grilled vegetables

John suggested cutting the potatoes in quarters and then spilling salt and pepper on it, wrap in an aluminium foil and keep it on a side of the grill allocated to the vegetarian items. He wanted me to put the mushrooms and long chopped capsicum in separate foil, and wrapped in a separate foil since potatoes take long time to cook.

Once these were done, I made one more round of mixed vegetables, this time soaked with lime.

Stuffed potatoes

Having put them on fire, I was thinking of other items. I recollected the potato recipe, (thanks to its explosive name) called Potato bomb by one Ms. Prabha in Orkut. But then these needed cheese and it was not on the list of ingredients. Then, something struck me. Instead of stuffing them with cheese i made a hollow in the potatoes and filled with a miture of lime, salt, pepper and sauce. These were wrapped again in the aluminium foils and put over the grill.

Capsicum Veggie Bombs

Hey, the capsicums were quite large and what if i stuffed its inside with the assorted vegetables (carrots, beans, radish, baby corn, red cabbage and onions), salt, pepper and then fill with hot sauce? This is what I call as the "Capsicum Veggie Bomb" I made four of them for the four vegetarians in the party. I made a mistake here. I should not have put too much hot sauce in it. The people here are cannot tolerate too hot and spicy. By the time I finished these bombs, I noticed that a few of our associates were watching me, letting my creativity go wild.

Veggie Burgers

And then there was this vegetarian patties for vegetarians to make Veg burgers.

Grilled Corn

There were some corn in the list. I took two of them for the other American vegetarians and did not add any spices and just grilled them. Took two of the other corns and spiced them up with lime and pepper and put them on the grill.

The lunch

And finally everyone sat down. The tables, three of them, was filled with meat and I wasn't sure where to put the vegetarian dishes. I assumed (another mistake) it is going to be a buffet type, so, as it is usually the practice in typical Indian restaurants, I kept the vegetarian items on the table at the end. Every one sat for lunch.

I began with a vegetable burger and some watermelon. The potatoes and the mixed vegetables were really yummy. I did not have garam masalas, but that did not make them less tasty. It was a new experience, indeed. Having done with them, I went for the capsicum bombs. They were wonderful. I had just one of those stuffed capsicum and my stomach was stuffed. I finished off with a slice of melon

Feedback.

The sad part perhaps due the fact that there lot of hot spices in the vegetarian dishes or perhaps because of the way I arranged the items assuming a buffet type lunch, the American vegetarian colleagues did not get to taste my preparations. One of my friends, who was a non-vegetarian, shied away, thinking that his tasting some of the items will reduce the food available to the vegetarians.

An Indian vegetarian collegue of mine too stayed away from all the grilled dishes, perhaps sensitive to the fact that it was cooked on the same grill as that of meat. But then why on earth did I put those aluminium foils? Perhaps, it could be because I prepared it!!!

Later, Benedict tasted one of the capsicum bombs and said it had come really well. Well, I am not a bad cook after all! Or rather I am an innovator :)