Open fire barbecue - talk to the hand!

Building a fire under a grill brings a whole new level of enjoyment to one of my favourite things - the barbecue. The kids especially enjoy busting sticks and scrunching newspaper.

The key of course is to wait for the flames to die down until they are gently waving over the coals, and spread the coals out evenly before adding the food.

Most barbecues, but especially open fire bbqs, will have hotter and cooler regions.

The easiest way to locate these is by holding the palm of your hand out, starting high and working low. If your hand gets uncomfortable within about 5 seconds about 6–8 centimetres from the hotplate, that’s good for steaks and veggies. If it takes longer, that’s good for sausages. And if it feels hot but not hurty, that’s where you send your cooked stuff to keep warm.

On our holiday on the NSW central coast, I had the kids kindling up which I chopped the veggies and cleaned the squid (fresh from the Wallace Lake co-op - super!) My eldest leaned over my shoulder and asked how I was going to cook the carrot - he saw a saucepan nearby and disapproved.

Preparing the vegetables

When I said I planned to steam them, he said “No Dad, we love them when they’re barbecued!” I tell myself I’m a selective pushover!

To my surprise, my Mum who was with us had never seen carrot cooked this way - and if you haven’t tried it, it works a treat! Unlike potato, you don’t have to par-boil it, just whack it on the plate until it begins to blacken in places, and turn it once like a steak.

The trick with barbecuing all veggies, is to oil the veggies, not the grill. Slice it all up, pop it in a plastic bag, pour in some oil, give it a shake, and you are ready to go!

Cleaning squid

Don’t be intimidated - it’s not so difficult. Hold the hood in one hand, reach in above where the tentacles are, and pull the two sections apart. The guts and ink sack will come out pretty easily. If the shorter tentacles are longer than about 4 centimetres, I keep them. The very long pair I discard, as they are gristly. You can either cut the tentacles away from beneath the beak or dig the beak out and keep the tentacles connect - this is probably best if you’re barbecuing.

For the hood, once you pull the wings off (they are also gristle and are discarded) the thin layer of skin comes off pretty easily. Then you simply slice across for calamari rings.

For barbecuing, the pieces need to be oiled in the same way as the veggies, and cooked hot until they just begin to blacken.

My family and I were very happy with our open fire mixed grill!

Pretty pollie chicken

It’s election day in Australia, and in honour of the rubber chicken sandwiches all politicians endure at fundraising barbecues, here is a super recipe for a tender, juicy, tasty bird. All you pollies out there, this is how your fundraisers can step up!

I had a bunch of friends over for Sunday barbecue a couple of weeks back, with queso blanco dip and paprika yogurt chicken the main features, along with barbecue fried haloumi, grilled octopus, and salads (salads contributed by my excellent guests!)

It’s always very gratifying when someone asks a “how did you?” question. In this instance: “How did you get the chicken so juicy?”

Well, here it is.

Recipe: Barbecue paprika yogurt chicken

Ingredients

1 chicken

Marinade

• 2 cloves garlic
• Juice .5 lemon
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon tahini
• 2 teaspoons smokey paprika
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons yogurt

Method

This can be done either with a butterflied chicken or with chicken pieces. For barbecues, I prefer cutting the chicken into pieces, giving me one less job at serving time.

For barbecuing and casserole, I tend to leave the breast bones on rather than fillet the breast.

Mix all the marinade ingredients in a mixing bowl. Then dip each chicken piece in one at a time, making sure each piece is thoroughly covered, then transfer chicken pieces to an oven dish, and cover.

Place in the fridge for at least 3 hours, but overnight is best.

About an hour before cooking, remove the chicken from the fridge to that it returns to room temperature.

Heat barbecue grill on high and preheat. The way you tell if it’s ready is to place your hand about 10 centimetres above the grill and, if it ouches after about 4 seconds, it’s ready. This is also a good way of mapping the hotter and cooler sections of your grill.

Now, here’s the secret! Preheat oven to 150°.

Before placing the chicken on the barbie, wipe of excess marinade with a paper towel. I sometimes forget, or am too lazy, to do this, but I always regret it, as the extra fat in the yogurt can make the chicken prone to flare-ups.

Place the chicken pieces on the grill, skin side down, with the wings on the cooler spots of the grill. Once on the grill for a few seconds, give the pieces a gentle shift, to keep them from sticking. Barbecue covered for about 5 minutes each side, turning once.

While the chicken is cooking, give your oven dish a thorough clean.

Once the chicken is done, place the pieces into the oven dish, cover, and pop it into the oven to finish off - about 15 minutes.

And there you have it, tender, juicy, tasty chicken (and rich juices in the dish) ready for the plates of happy guests!

May the sauce be with you

Kids love tomato sauce, and I’ve got no real problem with having a bottle from the supermarket in the fridge. The trouble is that supermarket sauces do contain a ridiculous amount of sugar, often including high-fructose corn syrup, which has a very intense sweetness produced through an equally intense manufacturing process. Isn’t sugar sweet enough for crying out loud?

So, with my kids away, it’s time to experiment. The aim is to have ketchup perfection by the time Spring, and another barbecue season, rolls around.

This is the recipe I tried for my first batch. It produced about 4–5 cups of good, tasty ketchup. As you can see, the colour is reddish brown, which is fine for me, but my boys will be expecting that nuclear red of commercial sauces. My hot, sweet chilli sauce from a previous post - Missing, making, and bringing the bling - is a very bright red, so next time I think I’ll include a roasted and peeled red capsicum. I will also try adding a granny smith apple for a smoother consistency.

Once I get the regular ketchup sorted, then I’ll turn to a slightly spicy barbecue sauce for my 11-year-old who likes a little more punch!

For this recipe, I used my slow cooker. Once I’d completed the saucepan and frying pan mixes, I popped it into the ceramic slow cooker insert, and refrigerated, covered. Just before going to bed, I pulled it out and placed it into the cooker, set it on low, and away we go!

Recipe - Ketchup

For the small saucepan

• .5 cup cider vinegar
• .5 cup vegetable stock
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (I like Lea & Perrins)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• .25 teaspoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 clove

For the frying pan

• 2 cans tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 onion
• 2 clove garlic

Method

In a small saucepan, heat the saucepan mixture, bringing to a boil, and stirring to dissolve the sugar and evenly distribute spice and mustard. Once this is achieved, turn off the heat.

Heat pan on medium, add oil, coarsely chopped onion and chopped garlic. Sauté for 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and tomato paste, stirring. Raise heat to bring to boil, simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off heat.
Tip the frying pan mixture into your slow cooker. Pour the saucepan mixture through a strainer into the slow cooker also.

Cook on low for 8–9 hours.

(You can just as well simmer in a larger saucepan for about 3 hours)

Let the mixture cool a little, the put through a blender or smooth-up with a bar-mix.

Place into sterilised containers and refrigerate. What you don't bottle, you can freeze for several months.

There! Who says bachelors can't be saucy?

Greek-to-Thai rebrand

On the weekend I popped over the river to Campsie and had my Chinese butcher butterfly a leg of lamb for yiros. But rather than go straight to a mini Greek feast (I didn’t have my kids last weekend), I turned my mind to what else I might do with marinated, medium rare, barbecued strips of lamb.

Re-enter the Bachelor Food principle of rebranding or, in this case, pre-branding!

In the recipe below, I pan fry a fillet of lamb. Last Sunday, I sliced from my freshly barbecued lamb prepared, the remainder of which was set aside for school and work lunches, and yiros dinners - including sliced onions, lemon juice and sumac - but that is another story.

For this recipe, strong, well-defined tastes are what you want. Use fresh herbs, not dried. For instance, I would normally use lemon grass, but had run out, so, instead of using dried lemon grass, I substituted chopped leaves from my lime tree.

Recipe: Thai lamb larb (warm lamb salad)

Serves 2 as a main, 4 as an entree

Ingredients

• 300g lamb backstrap fillet
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• .5 cup chopped roasted, unsalted peanuts
• 2 cups shredded baby cos lettuce leaves
• 1 lebanese cucumber roughly chopped
• 1 thinly sliced red onion
• 2 thinly sliced radish
• 1 carrot julienne
• 2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves
• 375g rice noodles

Sauce

• .25 cups ground, dry fried rice
• 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 3 tablespoon fish sauce
• Juice 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar
• Chopped fresh herbs, about a teaspoon each: Kaffir lime leaves, mint (or lemon grass, shallots, coriander - whatever is fresh!)
• 2 birds eye chilies, chopped

Method

Heat rice in a dry frying pan, and cook until golden brown. Remove from pan and crush with a mortar and pestle.

Combine lettuce, onion, radish and carrot.

Place peanut oil, fish sauce and lemon juice in a small saucepan and heat, but don’t boil. Add sugar, crushed rice and chopped herbs and chili.

Heat peanut oil in a frying pan on medium-high heat. Fry lamb fillet two minutes on each side, then let rest at room temperature for 10 minutes. Slice into thin strips. The strips should be browned and slightly crispy on the outside, and lovely and pink, but not bloody, in the middle.

Place the lamb strips into the sauce.

Boil water in a saucepan and add noodles. Rice noodles cook very quickly, about two minutes should do it. Strain.

Arrange on plates or bowls: first noodles, then salad vegetables, then lamb strips, then sauce, and last garnish with crushed peanuts and chopped coriander leaves.

Is Yiros. Is Good!

I love a hamburger, I love a doner kebab. But nothing beats a yiros. And the fact that it’s so easy to make at home says it all. Simple ingredients, simply combined.

Pita bread is softer than lebanese bread, and much softer than lavash. This makes it perfect for warming on the grill without becoming brittle.

When ordering the lamb, I ask my butcher to debone and butterfly the leg. If done well, you get a single piece of lamb, one side with a layer of fat, one side lean, and of fairly even thickness. If that’s not what you get, find another butcher (or ask more explicitly next time, as I’ve often found that butchers and other artisans like being asked to show off their skills, rather than all day serving up standard cuts). Ask for the bones too, and place in your stock bag in your freezer.

But it's not so difficult, and kind of fun, to do it yourself, so I've included a youtube how-to video at the bottom of this post.

For a single meal for me and my boys (say 2 or 3 yiros each) this leaves enough tasty lamb for a couple lunches and another meal at least.

Recipe: Yiros

Ingredients

Lamb

• 1 leg of lamb, boned and butterflied
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 lemons, juiced

Yogurt sauce

• 1 cup Greek style yogurt
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 lemon juiced
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

Other accompaniments

• 3 tomatoes
• .5 iceberg lettuce
• 2 onions

Method

Lamb

Combine oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic and oregano.

Place lamb in a baking dish or similar, and rub marinade over the surface of the lamb, making sure the surface is well covered. Cover and refrigerate overnight or for 2 hours at least.

Yogurt sauce

The yogurt sauce can be done and kept overnight too, as the flavours develop over time.

Greek style yogurt is creamy and smooth. If using regular yogurt, it’s best to hang it overnight in cheese cloth. Even Greek yogurt can be strained in this way for an hour our two, which will give it more room to accommodate the lemon juice and retain its creamy consistency.

Crush garlic, and stir through yogurt with cumin.

Accompaniments

Finely slice tomatoes and lettuce Finely slice onions and soak in lemon juice

Pita bread

Heat your bbq plate (or frying pan) to medium heat. Brush pita bread with olive oil. Place oiled side onto cooking surface. When the underside is browned and ready, quickly bush the upside and flip. Do this one, two or three at a time depending on how big the cooking surface is, and keep warm.

Lamb continued

Bring BBQ grill to high heat and place lamb fat side down for five minutes. Turn and cook for another five. Drop heat to low for another five. Remove from heat and let rest, covered, for ten.

Assembly

Now it’s assembly time!

I like having squares of grease-proof paper (get it?) or white paper bags on hand, because the kids love it, and it feels normal.

Brush the pita bread with the garlic and yogurt sauce. Kids may prefer supermarket tomato or or bbq sauce, but if you add a little of the white stuff, they might not notice - and the journey has begun!

Slice the lamb into thin slices and add, along with sliced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, and onions.

Roll ’em. Eat ’em. Is yiros. Is yum!

How to butterfly a leg of lamb

Barbecue baked sardines with thyme and ginger

They will always be Greek to me - Σαρδέλες.

Sardines (Sartheles in Greek - also known as pilchards) are the seafood bargain of the century. They are a schooling fish, sustainably managed, and taste great. You can generally buy them for less than $10 a kilo. They are quick to clean and gut. And did I mention? They taste great!

Ingredients

• 8 sardines (or 3–4 per person)

• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• 1 lemon juiced
• 1 lemon grated zest
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 sprig thyme plus 2 for garnish
• 4 dried chilli

Method

• Clean the sardines and place in a bowl or tray
• Place one sprig of thyme in the cavity of each sardine
• Mix the rest of the ingredients (except the last sprigs of thyme and the dried chilli) in a bowl
• Pour mixture over sardines
• Add chilli and extra thyme
• Cover and place in refrigerator for 2 hours

Now, to cook, you can use your oven if you like, preheated to 200˚, but I use my barbecue.

Preheat your barbecue with all burners on and the hood down. While the barbecue is warming, take a roasting pan and coat it with olive oil. Place your sardines on the tray, and pour over the marinade juices.

We are using the convection method here, so turn off once side of the barbecue burners, and place your tray on the side that is turned off. Place the hood down, and cook for 20 minutes.

Serve with fresh tomatoes, homemade hummus, and Lebanese bread. I get my Leb bread from Baalbek on Canterbury Road because they make a wholemeal variety which is not heavy and stodgy as this can sometimes be.

A note on the grating of ginger

Nothing beats a bamboo ginger grater. You lay it down flat, and scrub the peeled ginger back and forth over it. No barked knuckles, and no waste, as you just give the grater a couple of taps and the chopping board, and all the ginger comes out nicely from between the grooves.

Barbecue salad!

A beautiful summer morning. 20˚ now, 30˚ later. Fire up the barbecue for a late lunch.

This includes a moral dilemma. I reserve the grill for meat and the plate for veggies out of courtesy to my veggie friends - but this time I want to cook bacon on the plate. WHAT CAN I DO?

I take out a baking tray and give a good dose of olive oil. This will sit on one side of the BBQ plate, leaving the other side to crisp up the bread.

Recipe: Barbecue salad with crispy bread, bacon, and 2-minute egg

Ingredients

• Double handful English spinach
• 1 ripe tomato
• 1 rasher bacon
• 1 piece Lebanese bread
• 2 eggs
• 8 Calamata olives
• several sprigs basil and parsley

Method

Heat BBQ, placing oiled baking tray on the hot plate.

Place eggs in a saucepan of cold water. Bring to a steady boil, turn heat down to a gentle boil, and cook for 2 minutes. Place eggs in a bowl and refrigerate.

Using tongs, dip the piece of Lebanese bread into the oil, then place on the hot plate. About a minute each side. Remove to a plate.

Slice tomato in half, and place cut-side down on the tray. Lay out rasher of bacon on the tray. Cover with BBD hood. Turn each after 3–5 minutes.

Place tomato and bacon in the fridge with your eggs.

[Now it is time to get on with your morning. Go shopping, go for a cycle, take the kids to the pool, whatever]

Peel the eggs and slice them. They should be soft in the middle, but not runny.

Break off bits of the Lebanese bread and distribute evenly around a salad bowl. Toss in torn spinach leaves.

Cut tomato and bacon into small pieces, and add to bowl. Add olives. Garnish with basil and parsley.
I didn’t use a dressing on this, because I figured the tomato juices would do the job. And they did!

BBQ rules part 2

The star of the show has to be that beautiful, flaming grill and the rich, smokey flavours (and that cute guy with the tongs and apron).
But to take the pressure off, and to allow for inclement weather, it’s good to have one main dish out of the oven.
Here is a BBQ chicken roast which makes the most of the BBQ occasion, while giving you some breathing space to spread your awesome cuteness around.

Recipe: Barbecue chicken roast with rice

Ingredients

1 chicken cut into 8 pieces (see this post for method)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 red onion, diced
Chopped herbs: parsley, oregano, thyme, basil
1 bay leaf
2 cups long-grain rice
1.5 cup all purpose tomato salsa
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Method

Preheat BBQ grill. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Place chicken skin down on the grill and cook for 2 minutes each side, or until skin is golden and grill marks show. Pre
Transfer to bowl, cover, and let rest for 10 minutes.

In a casserole dish heated to medium, add olive oil and onion and sauté for 5 minutes. Add juices from the covered chicken pieces. Add chopped herbs. Add tomato salsa, bring the mixture to a gentle boil.

Stir in rice. Stir in stock. Place chicken pieces with the nicest looking side facing up. Season with salt and pepper. Roast, uncovered for 30 minutes, or until rice is soft.

A slightly different version, on a bed of silver beet and rice, tomato salsa on top

Comments

You can either do this several hours before your guests arrive, or pop the chicken on with the haloumi starters and, while your guests are enjoying their entrée nibbles, your chicken is underway and about ready by the time the snags and steaks go on.
This is also a very good stand-alone Sunday evening meal, with lots of left-over school lunch potential.
This week, I made a very pleasant solo laksa with the shredded chicken from my Sunday BBQ roast.

BBQ rules

It’s BBQ season! My very first major purchase in my bachelor mk 2 life - even before a decent bed, which I took delivery of last week - was a good, four-burner, wok-burner on-the-side, barbecue.

Last weekend was a children and parents BBQ. Tomorrow is school buddies only (and not a child in sight).

With any luck my blue tongue lizard will make a reappearance in the garden bed tomorrow, as it was such a hit with the kids last Sunday.

Here are the respective menus.

BBQ menu 1 - adults and kids

Nibbles

• Eggplant and yogurt dip (from the local Turkish place)
• Queso blanco cheese
• Turkish bread

Mains

• Chicken and rice casserole
• Marinated pork ribs
• BBQ veggies

Afters

• Smoothies (banana and strawberry)

BBQ menu 2 - adults

Nibbles

• BBQ Haloumi
• Dips
• Turkish bread

Mains

• Lamb skewers - paprika and yogurt marinade
• Cajun chicken and rice
• Veggies

Afters

• Scorched fruit and ice cream

BBQ rules?

What’s that black stuff?

Firstly, the idea that it’s ok for barbecues to be filthy is just plain wrong. A wire brush and a vegetable oil cloth rubdown is essential before and after each use.

For cleaning implements, you can pay extra for BBQ style wire brushes and poly scrubbers - but you pay half for the same (or better) thing if you go to a decent harware shop. It’s basically painting and tiling cleaning tools you want.

Hood up or down?

Down! If your bbq has a hood, it must be down (closed) during most of the cooking, to take advantage of the full, smoky flavours that the bbq is all about.

Preheat!

For any bbq, the temperature needs to be at optimal cooking level before the food goes on. I preheat my gas bbq for 20 minutes before a single slice is sizzled.

Handling meat?

The basic rules are1. Flip the steaks once2. Don’t poke the sausages

For a steak, medium rare, follow the two-minute rule. Place steak on the grill for 2 minutes, turn 90 degrees, leave for two minutes. Flip. Two minutes later, turn 90 degrees. Two minutes later, remove to a covered dish and let rest for at least two minutes. The juices in the dish are now the ultimate BBQ sauce.

For sausages, the important thing to realise is that they aren’t steaks - full on heat will create problems. Get to know you BBQs hot and cooler spots (the all have them, despite the advertising claims) and your steaks go hot and your sausages go medium. Don’t poke. Flip once.

Where your steaks don’t want to go, your sausages do. It’s a beautiful thing.

What about veggies?

Barbecued vegetables (and fruit) is delicious. I use the grill for meat and seafood, and the plate exclusively for non-meat - haloumi cheese, vegetables and fruit. I think it is good manners to vegetarian friends for them to know that their meal is genuinely meat free. It just keep things simple.

Guilty secret? You can’t do eggs on the slotted grill. I use the plate for this. Sorry…