In my experience, when it comes to outdoor cooking, simple barbecue ideas are the best!
We’ve already had one or two barbecues at Hall farm this year – and, weather permitting, plan to have a few over the course of the summer (fingers crossed).
We’ve got an old metal barbecue – a standard charcoal one, as I don’t consider myself ready for a new fangled gas one yet (I like to do it the proper, slightly messy way!)
I’m not sure if it’s by choice or not but I usually end up doing the bbq cooking wherever we go – even if we go to a friends house!
(Although this might say more about my social skills than my abilities as a barbecue cook!)
A few of my favourite things (to put on the Barbecue)
Unsurprisingly I like to keep things simple – mostly sticking with high quality sausages, burgers and free-range poultry.
I’ve mentioned some great Norfolk butchers in a previous post where you can get some excellent sausages and burgers for your barbecue.
Archers in Norwich in particular do a superb range of top quality burgers which are very reasonably priced if memory serves correctly.
If we’re doing chicken, drumsticks are everyone’s favourite and something that is hard to go wrong with.
I often start these off in the oven, transferring to the barbecue to brown off and give them a smoky barbecue taste without being too burnt.
If you’re not sure how to pre-cook your chicken for BBQ check out this article.
In one of my more adventurous moments I did some sliced turkey breasts in lemon and pepper marinade at my last barbecue which went down very nicely too!
What are the main things I look for in a barbecue recipe?
I’m not a huge recipe guy – I rely on barbecuing great quality products and avoiding incinerating them!
For anything outside of this – sauces, marinades, salads – I rely on family and friends to supply the goods.
My cousin, for example, makes a very good barbecue sauce which manages to be just the right side of too spicy (to avoid alienating the children).
Writing this post, however, has forced me into upping my game and researching a few barbecue related resources.
I’ve got some beautiful ribs of beef in the freezer which I’ll be barbecuing next time – this will be a bit of a learning exercise for me as I’ve never done ribs on a barbecue before.
In recognition of this I’ve done a bit of research and found this website covering all things barbecue! It includes an exciting looking recipe for ribs that you probably won’t want to miss.
In addition I’ve also found some great barbecue recipes on the BBC’s good food website and Jamie Oliver’s website – but any suggestions or advice you might have will be more than welcome!
Do you have any Barbecue cookery advice?
Do you have any Barbecue preparation or cooking tips that I haven’t mentioned?
If you do get in touch and let me know – you can do it on Facebook or Twitter too!