How to Grill Asparagus

Forget cutting the bottoms off with a knife - that's a guessing game. Hold a spear at both ends and bend it. Wherever it snaps, that's where the tender part begins and the woody part ends. Your asparagus knows where it wants to break.

Rodney's words: those woody strands are bambooish, they get caught in your teeth, and they're yucky. Snap them off and toss them. You can save the ends for soup stock or just compost them.

Once every spear is snapped, drop them all into a mixing bowl. You want the bowl roomy enough that you can toss everything together without spears flying out.

Skip the blanching step you'll see in some recipes. Boiling water leaches out the water-soluble compounds in asparagus - the flavonoids and nutrients that give it its character. You're about to add oil and seasoning to this bowl, and the grill will do the rest.

Pour a generous drizzle of top-quality olive oil over the spears. This is where you do not want the cheap stuff - the oil is doing double duty as a flavor carrier and as the thing that makes the asparagus sizzle on the grates.

Toss with your hands so every spear gets a coat. You're aiming for glossy, not soaking wet. About 2 tablespoons for a pound of asparagus is the right ballpark.

Three pinches of kosher salt over the bowl. Then crack fresh black pepper over the top - pre-ground stuff has lost most of its punch by the time it hits the shaker. A peppermill makes a real difference here.

Don't be shy with seasoning. Asparagus has a grassy, slightly bitter edge that loves salt and pepper, and a lot of what you season at this stage is going to render off when the spears hit the hot grill anyway.

Take 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, lay the flat of your knife on top, and smack it with the heel of your hand. The cloves split open and release their oils without turning into a paste. Drop them into the bowl and give everything one more toss.

The garlic is going to be a nuance, not the headliner. As Rodney puts it, you want it cold and smashed so it perfumes the asparagus on the grill instead of burning into bitter little bits. The cloves come off the grill with the spears.

Get your grill ripping hot before the asparagus goes anywhere near it. Rodney is using a kamado-style ceramic egg grill in the video, but a charcoal kettle or a gas grill on high will both work. Hot and fast is the rule.

Lay the spears straight across the grates so they don't fall through. Put them right over the hottest part of the fire - the middle, where you can hear the oil sizzle and pop the moment the spears touch the metal. If they don't sizzle, the grill isn't hot enough yet.

Ninety seconds on the first side, then roll each spear a quarter turn and give it another 90 seconds. That's it. You're looking for grill marks and a little char - not a soft, mushy spear.

Pull them off when they still have snap. Asparagus keeps cooking for a minute on the platter, and there's nothing sadder than a spear that went from crisp to limp because you got distracted. Total time on the grill is roughly 3 minutes.