* HOST: To most people, barbecue means plate bearing hunks of meat.

Today, we harness the flavor-boosting power of live fire to produce grilled fare that not only tastes great but is great for you, starting with a wood-grilled vegetable paella.

I think this looks pretty amazing.

Then, Vietnamese beef and rice noodle salad.

This is a riot of textures and flavors.

And finally, a mystery box challenge.

Whoa.

From the Pearlstone Campus in Reisterstown, Maryland, I'm Steven Raichlen and this is Project Fire .

* ANNOUNCER: Steven Raichlen's Project Fire is made possible by...

This is The Big Green Egg, where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at biggreenegg.com.

Fire Magic, combining style with the versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill, crafted in America for over 80 years... Green Mountain Grills, wood fired pellet grills... Blue Rhino...

Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

And by the following... * AMENIA: Hi, Steven.

I lean vegetarian, but my fianc� is a diehard carnivore.

I'd love to create a fantastic meal for him that is full of flavor, but is also healthy.

That's the bar, I'm trying to hit.

Can you help me?

STEVEN: Excellent question, Amenia.

True traditional barbecue is hardly the stuff of a healthy diet, but there's a vast repertoire of live-fire dishes that are high in flavor, low in fat, thrilling to grill, and decidedly healthy.

Today's show might surprise you.

Forget everything you think you know about paella: The correct way to cook it is on the stove or in the oven.

Well, actually, in paella's birthplace, Valencia, Spain, they cook it on an open campfire.

* The vegetables are limited only by your imagination.

I have zucchini, which I will cut in half lengthwise.

For the onion, cut it in wedges, and insert a toothpick through the wedge.

This helps it hold together during grilling.

Now, brush your vegetables with extra-virgin olive oil.

I have mini bell peppers, broccolini, Padr�n peppers, Padr�n peppers have a pleasing herbaceous flavor, fresh corn, and sugar snap peas skewered into rafts.

Season with coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and oil, salt, and pepper the other side.

* Okay, to cook the paella, I'm using a wood-burning grill.

I fueled it with hardwood logs.

Swing the grate over the fire, and as always, we start by brushing and oiling the grill grate.

Now, arrange the vegetables on the grill.

We'll start with the zucchini, then the onions, and then the corn, then the broccolini, the Padr�n peppers, and finally, the snap peas.

This is a little different than the traditional paella.

There, the vegetables would be cooked in the paella pan.

I prefer to grill them directly over a hot fire.

This caramelizes those natural plant sugars, making the vegetables sweet and smoky.

The zucchini are brown, so I'll take those off.

Then the broccolini, the Padr�n peppers, and then the mini bell peppers, sugar snap peas, the onions, and finally, the grilled corn.

And there are your grilled vegetables.

One of the defining flavors of paella is saffron.

It comes from the stigmas of a crocus that grows in Spain.

It takes 70,000 flowers to make one pound of saffron.

You soak it in warm water.

This activates the flavor.

Another defining characteristic of paella is the pan in which it's cooked.

It's a wide, shallow pan, and you both cook, and serve in it.

And this brings us to the third defining element of paella, the sofrito.

It's a mixture of onion, bell peppers, and garlic that you fry in extra-virgin olive oil.

So, drizzle the oil in the paella pan.

Ideally, you'll be using a Spanish extra-virgin olive oil.

Add your onion, diced bell pepper, and your garlic, and fry these in the olive oil.

Cook the sofrito ingredients over the hot fire until they begin to brown.

The traditional rice for paella is called "Bomba."

It's a short-grain rice that grows in the Valencia region.

And we'll stir it around.

You just want to fry it until the rice grains become shiny.

When the rice grains are translucent, add diced tomato, parsley, and your saffron.

Stir these ingredients together.

You can see the saffron is coloring the rice a distinctive golden color.

Next, add about a cup of dry white wine.

And once the wine boils, add vegetable stock.

And I'll add it gradually.

Every rice absorbs a different amount.

And then, stir the rice.

The cooking time for the rice is about 15 to 20 minutes and we'll add stock as needed to keep the rice moist.

Meanwhile, cut the corn into one-inch rounds.

Cut the zucchini into two-inch pieces.

Remove the toothpicks from the sugar snap peas.

Finally, remove the toothpicks from the onions.

* Come on back, give your paella a stir.

It's coming along beautifully, so I'll add chickpeas and some cherry tomatoes.

Stir these ingredients into the paella.

While, we're at it, some coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

I don't know about you, but I think this looks pretty amazing.

At this point, you stop stirring the paella.

You want the bottom to catch and brown.

The Spanish call that the "socarrat."

It's considered a delicacy.

So last step, return the grilled vegetables to the paella pan.

* So here's your grilled vegetable paella.

Wow.

And tradition calls for a sprinkling of parsley.

Okay, let's see how we did.

[spoon scapes the pan] The first thing I get here is the sheer beauty of this dish.

Look at the colors, the vegetables, the saffron rice.

Take a taste.

Mmm.

Oh, man.

The rice is cooked perfectly.

Just a little firmness to it.

Now, I'll grab a Padr�n pepper.

Mmm.

Sweet and smoky.

The corn you have to eat with your fingers.

Mmm.

This is simultaneously familiar and very different.

No shellfish, no rabbit, no chicken, just summer vegetables at their peak out of the garden, sweet and smoky.

This is barbecue health food at its best.

* [fire swooshes in] In many parts of Asia, barbecue means grilled beef paired with vibrant salads and condiments.

For example, bo bun.

Think of it as Vietnamese grilled beef salad and don't think of firing up your grill without trying it.

* I have here beef tenderloin, which is partially frozen.

Partially frozen makes it easier to slice.

Cut it across the grain into thin slices.

* Once your beef is sliced, arrange it in a baking dish on ice.

And now, for the marinade.

The marinade is an explosively flavorful paste of sugar for sweetness, garlic, and shallots for pungency, minced fresh ginger for heat, Thai chilies for more heat, and fragrant lemongrass.

Pound these ingredients to an aromatic paste.

I'm using a stone mortar.

You could puree these ingredients in a food processor, but the flavor would be different.

Somehow, smashing the ingredients with a mortar and pestle gives you the most developed flavor of all.

Next, add fish sauce, that umami-rich pickled anchovy sauce so popular in Southeast Asia.

Just sort of stir that in.

And then, an ingredient popular in Japan and Korea, sesame oil, a pinch of black pepper, and some freshly squeezed lime juice.

Okay, there is your marinade.

By the way, this is amazing not only on beef, but on pork, chicken, duck, seafood, even tofu.

Next, spoon the marinade over the beef.

Finally, sprinkle the beef with chopped fresh cilantro and sesame seeds.

Marinate the beef for one hour.

Meanwhile, I'll show you how to make the dressing.

It starts with freshly and finely grated ginger, then freshly and finely grated garlic.

And I like to grate the garlic on the microplane, so you get really tiny pieces of garlic in the dressing.

Next, add more fish sauce for that salty umami flavor, rice vinegar and freshly squeezed lime juice for acidity, honey for sweetness, chopped fresh cilantro for pungency, sesame seeds for crunch, and freshly ground black pepper for spice.

Whisk these ingredients together and there's your dressing.

To grill the beef, I'm working on a hibachi, the workhorse grill of Asia.

As always, we start by cleaning and oiling the grill grate.

Arrange your beef slices on the grate.

Oh, yeah.

* And once the beef is seared on the bottom, just lift it up and see.

And also, you see the little pool of blood pearling up one top.

Turn the beef slices.

And if you see your fire's a little warmer in one spot than the other, don't hesitate to switch the pieces around.

The idea is you want them to grill evenly.

While, the beef grills, here's the salad.

It starts with a mound of rice noodles, then we have julienned carrots, thinly sliced cucumbers, mung bean sprouts, fresh mint, fresh basil, thinly slivered peppers, Napa cabbage, hot chilies, and I'll spoon half the dressing over the salad.

Okay, then we'll take our beef off and lay it on top.

To finish the salad, a little more dressing over the beef and finally, sesame seeds for crunch, chopped toasted peanuts for crunch, and chopped fresh cilantro.

Let's see how we did.

So, I'll take some beef, noodles, fresh herbs, chilies, vegetables, and now, the payoff.

Mmm.

I love the Southeast Asian way of handling beef.

It's sweet, sour, nutty with the sesame seeds, aromatic, super tender, and that's just the beef.

Wait till you bring in the carrots, the noodles.

This is a riot of textures and flavors.

It's also incredibly healthy because you're enjoying the richness of beef with all of these fresh vegetables.

[fire swooshes in] * NORA SINGLEY: The mystery box segment is all about seeing Steven truly be inspired and spontaneous.

CHRIS LYNCH: You know, you have a secret ingredient that you spring on the candidate and they have to react quickly and come up with a dish that highlights that item.

NORA: So, the challenge here is to show that you can barbecue and you can grill in a healthy way, and that you don't always need to rely on the richer foods that we often grill in barbecue.

Okay.

CHRIS: I think this one's going to really throw him for a loop.

NORA: You think?

CHRIS: Yeah.

NORA: I think, he's going to look at it and have a really clear idea of what he wants to do.

CHRIS: Yeah.

I guess he can go in a lot of different directions.

NORA: A hundred percent.

CHRIS: Yeah.

NORA: This is one of those ingredients that is such a good foil for other flavors.

CHRIS: Empty canvas, if you will.

NORA: Precisely.

CHRIS: Fantastic.

Shall we cover it?

NORA: Let's do it.

CHRIS: All right.

STEVEN: It's time for the Project Fire mystery box.

In this box is an ingredient or set of ingredients.

I don't know what I'm going to find, but I'm sure excited to find out.

Whoa!

Tofu!

Okay.

Well, you got me on that one.

Happily, I like tofu.

I like grilled tofu and my wife and I eat grilled tofu almost once a week.

Let me go to the pantry and round out the ingredients.

NORA: I feel like he's going to do a barbecue rub and maybe make a really delicious barbecue sauce.

CHRIS: Steven will probably take the tofu and incorporate it into some kind of salad, something like that.

STEVEN: Okay.

Well, I've got tofu.

The obvious choice for me, would be to go in an Asian direction, but let's see.

I've got some pita bread, and my goodness, tahini.

I think I want to go in a Middle Eastern direction.

* And for spices, whoa, Aleppo pepper, absolutely.

Nigella, which are black onion seeds.

Got to have nigella.

You know what?

Even though it's not kind of part of what I'm thinking, the watermelon is calling to me.

[fire swooshes in] I'm going to make sort of a shawarma of tofu with Middle Eastern spices and I thought maybe we would start by pickling our own red onion, you know because in the Middle East, they love pickles to go with grilled food.

Great.

I'm just going to break the onions up.

All right.

Then, for pickling the onion, I've got rice wine vinegar and sea salt because you always need to balance the vinegar with salt.

And finally, in lieu of sugar, I have maple sugar, which has a very low glycemic index.

And I'll just toss these ingredients together.

Good.

Those are your pickled onions.

Next thing I want to do is, I want to make a rub for the tofu.

Start with onion powder, about a teaspoon, garlic powder, about a teaspoon, Aleppo pepper, which is a hot pepper originally from Syria, it's a little bit like an ancho chili in the United States.

And then, we have sweet paprika, maybe two teaspoons of that.

Turmeric, which is a spice used throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and ground cumin, that's very Middle Eastern.

And finally, coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

I always like to mix rubs with my fingers to break up any lumps that may be in the paprika.

For the tofu, I want to cut the tofu in half to make kind of what looks like tofu steaks, which will be great for grilling.

All right, there's your tofu.

Now, take the tofu and drizzle it with extra Virgin olive oil and brush the olive oil in so it coats evenly.

Sprinkle with half your Middle Eastern barbecue rub, drizzle with more extra-virgin olive oil, and season with the remaining Middle Eastern barbecue rub.

So, there's your tofu and we'll let it marinate while, we prepare the tahini sauce.

We start with tahini, which is sesame seed paste.

Then, we'll add grated garlic.

And I'm really into grating the garlic with a microplane.

It gives you very fine pieces of garlic.

And then, a little freshly grated lemon zest, not traditional, but I like its brightness.

And then, we need fresh lemon juice.

Squeeze the juice into the tahini, and whisk the lemon juice, and sesame paste.

You'll see the mixture will thicken.

And then, I'll add a little water to thin it down to pourable consistency and I'll salt to taste.

And there's your tahini sauce right on the money.

Now, you always have fresh cucumber in a Middle Eastern sandwich.

I'm going to take a peel, going to rotate like this so I'll get nice striped slices.

So here are the sliced cucumbers.

And next, our scallions.

I'm going to cut the scallions sharply on the diagonal.

And then, last of all, hot red peppers because I like my food really spicy.

So this will be part of the garnish that goes on the pita sandwiches.

Oh, jeez, and I also got a watermelon didn't I?

So I think what we're going to do for the watermelon, we'll cut it first of all in half and then we'll cut this half into wedges.

I'll brush the watermelon slices with extra-virgin olive oil, then I'll sprinkle with nigella seeds.

Now, nigella is another popular seasoning in the Middle East.

They're actually black onion seeds.

So how on Earth, are you wondering, will all this go together?

Well, watch.

It's going to happen pretty quickly.

To grill all this, I'm using a kamado-style cooker.

I set up one side for direct grilling, one side for indirect grilling.

I'll clean the grill grate and oil it, as always.

Now, first, we'll grill the watermelon.

Next, I'll toast the pita bread.

Once the watermelons are browned on the bottom, we'll just give a little turn, and then I'll turn the pita's over once they start to toast.

So here's your grilled watermelon and here's your toasted pita.

Finally, the tofu.

Arrange the tofu on the grate.

I like to go slightly on the diagonal.

* Once the tofu is browned on the bottom, turn it over.

Beautiful.

All right, so these can come off.

* And here's your Middle-Eastern spiced grilled tofu.

Now, watch how it goes together.

We'll start with a slice of tofu, cut it into slivers, then take a pita bread and open it up like a pocket.

We'll then add a couple of slices of tofu, cucumber for crunch, a hot pepper slice for heat, maybe a little scallion, a pickled onion, pickle, and finally, some tahini sauce.

So there's your tofu pita sandwich.

We'll put that here and a slice of watermelon.

Let's see how we did.

Mmm.

Wow, so many layers of flavor.

The Middle-Eastern-spiced tofu, the crunchy pickled onion, the cucumber, the heat from the hot pepper, the creamy sesame tahini sauce, this is like whole Middle Eastern mezze platter in a single sandwich.

Let me try the watermelon.

Mmm.

That's really interesting.

The watermelon is succulent and crunchy, like fresh watermelon, but there's a kind of a caramelized smoke flavor and then those crunchy oniony bits of nigella seed.

This is amazing.

From Spain to Vietnam to the Middle East, it's a world of healthy barbecue.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time.

For recipes and more live-fire cooking, visit stevenraichlen.com.

You can also follow Steven Raichlen on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Steven's book, How to Grill Vegetables, and the classic, Project Smoke, can be ordered online at stevenraichlen.com, or call this phone number for ordering and customer service.

ANNOUNCER: Steven Raichlen's Project Fire is made possible by...

This is The Big Green Egg, where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at biggreenegg.com.

Fire Magic, combining style with the versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill, crafted in America for over 80 years... Green Mountain Grills, wood fired pellet grills... Blue Rhino...

Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

And by the following... STEVEN: Mm, mm, mm.

Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm.

This is such a great pantry table.

I wish I could use everything.

NORA: Well, I think, he definitely pulled off the tofu challenge.

He did a beautiful spice crust and grilled it, and it looked really meaty and delicious.

CHRIS: He really made it pop and made it shine, so I think, he did a great job with it.

NORA: And that dip was delicious.

I ate that for dinner.

Yeah.

* *