Barbeque Season & Cooking Tips

‹ Back to Blog

Let’s face it.  We rarely get a stretch of BBQ weather.  And if we plan a BBQ, well sods law normally prevails and of course it’s going to rain.  But what about this April?  We have had a month of blue skies and it’s been perfect BBQ weather. 

I love BBQ’d food.  Actually, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t.  There’s always a sense of chilled outness and summer about the BBQ, and better still, usually the lads will stump up to do it.  However, there are some people who just get it so wrong.  Black charred food is not barbequed food.  This is an important statement.  I have been to plenty of barbeques where burnt offerings are passed off as food.  Not only is this very bad for you indeed, it tastes terrible.  For the most part the problem lies with the Grill itself and not the host, if I’m being fair, lots of those ones you light up and hope for the best with become either get way too hot or not hot enough.  Either way this is going to make for bad food, see, you can’t control the heat, this is the main problem.  It’s a bit dangerous too, we’ve all seen the cheesy adds of Bill in the garden eating undercooked charred chicken and then clutching his belly later in the day, and unless you’ve actually been there, you can’t imagine the sympathy I have for Bill.

So there are a couple of simple rules when it comes to barbequing.  And I’ll list them in a bit.  However, I get to cook on the Viking outdoor grills, and this is the difference between driving my Honda Civic and someone else’s Porsche.   Each section of this grill is individually controllable using a knob, like the one you use on your oven.  When the lid is closed there’s even a heat thermostat on the outside to let you know when it’s time to start cooking.  Using this, there’s no excuse for bad BBQ food. 

Top Tips for Barbequing ......and go to the recipe section for top BBQ recipes.....

1.       Start cooking your meat on ‘high’, for most meats in any case, to sear them, then move the meat to an ‘indirect heat’ area or simply turn down the heat using the knob controls

2.       Brush the food with oil. I use Grapeseed Oil for most things, it’s flavourless, has a high flash point….which means it takes a lot of heat to turn it into a bad oil.  When the grill is hot, don’t brush the grill, or your brush will burn.  When it’s warming and clean you can rub oil soaked newspaper on the grill to make it non stick

3.       Don’t keep turning the food, this loses the juice.

4.       Purchase a meat probe/thermometer.  This takes the guess work out of wondering if the food is cooked enough (in the case of chicken) or cooked to the required taste (in the case of other meats)  See the table below for guidelines.

5.       Marinate food in advance, this will add depth of flavour to your food

6.       Season as you go.  Always keep some good quality sea salt and a black pepper mill by your side

7.       Try to avoid flare ups.  Move the food away from the flame to a less intense spot.

8.       Clean as you go.  Use a wire brush for this and if you don’t have one use a piece of crumpled up tin foil.  Food will stick to a dirty grate. 

9.       Tip for sticky sauces, esp satay.  Keep the sauce warm over a pot of water at the side of the grill.  Chargrill the chicken then dip the skewers into the sauce before serving.  Sauce and chicken taste great and grill not in a mess.

‹ Back to Blog