INTRODUCTION
For me, everything tastes better cooked outdoors over fire...
Cooking outdoors shouldn't always be about huge slabs of meat. There is a really wonderful variety of tasty food that can be cooked over fire, all of which tastes the better for it. For me, barbecue and cooking outdoors should be tempting and exciting, whatever your food choices.
More and more people are choosing meat- free and plant-based lifestyles, and this book is an inspiration for you to pull together a real feast that will allow you to feel confident in wowing your friends and family, whatever their dietary needs.
All too often at barbecues, if anyone has any dietary requirements they end up with a pretty poor choice of foods, and there is often a real lack of imagination. Here I want to open the doors to what is possible and help you along your barbecue journey.
Here you will find a selection of meat, seafood, vegetarian and vegan options, with suitable alternatives and replacements, all equally delicious.
Barbecue has really taken off around the globe, and I'm keen for as many people as possible to discover how good food can really be when cooked over fire. On the pages that follow, I'll be giving techniques and inspiration to help you step up your outdoor cooking.
I'm hugely inspired by fire cooking techniques and food from around the globe and have been fortunate enough to have travelled and experienced many of these cooking methods first hand. I shared many of these in my previous books Food and Fire and Skewered, but there are still plenty more ideas to help you raise the bar further - and this book is full of them. Barbecue is a real journey for all involved, so enjoy the ride and you'll pick-up some new skills along the way.
Barbecue techniques
Learning to barbecue is something anyone can achieve, but there is always something new to try whatever your skill level, so be open to new techniques and ideas to expand your outdoor cooking repertoire. However, as you'll discover below, the basics of fire/heat control are very simple.
One thing that has changed over the last few years since my Food and Fire book, is how I teach the essential skills of heat control. I now use the most simple and effective analogy to make understanding heat control in a barbecue something anyone can achieve, no matter what type of barbecue.
Car analogy.
Barbecues come in all shapes and sizes, just like cars, and we can choose what barbecue is right for us by thinking in the same way as when we choose a car.
First is budget. It's no point looking at the most expensive of grills if our budget is more modest. How much space do you need? Do you have big parties with lots of family and friends? Or do you entertain on a smaller scale? If you cook year-round and regularly smoke big chunks of meat, you might want something insulated and more efficient. Or do you prefer something racy?
The great thing is there are grills to suit everyone, just the same as cars, whether you want something for a daily commute or just for pootling around on a Sunday.
For most people who are getting started on their journey into cooking with charcoal, a 57-cm/22-in. kettle barbecue is a good first purchase. You can do so much with one - and it's very efficient and easy to learn on, making it a perfect starter barbecue.
Then you move up to a barbecue with a bit more space. A traditional Japanese grill called a kamado is great for using all year-round and cooking for a crowd.
There are very clever barbecues that control the temperature from an app to make barbecuing easy.
There are also open grills and firepits, where you cook over the embers of a wood fire and which requires a higher skillset. Offset smokers that run on wood are renowned for cooking great food, but need constant attention.
What fuel to use?
I mostly use best-quality lumpwood charcoal to cook with. Use the best quality you can afford. Also, I love to cook over the embers of hardwoods, such as beech, oak, ash and silver birch, or fruitwoods, such as cherry (my favourite) or apple.
Those are my preferences, but feel free to cook on a grill that works for you - wonderfully tasty food can be cooked on gas or with wood-pellet grills.
Lighting the barbecue
There are three main ways to light a charcoal barbecue: using a natural wood wool firelighter; a chimney starter; or an electric charcoal starter.
Please don't use instant light charcoal, disposable barbecues (shudder), lighting gels or petroleum-based lighting products, as they will all taint the taste of your food.
Heat control
The car analogy continues... Like driving, you can control the temperature of a barbecue in the same way as you can control the speed of a car. You essentially have a brake and an accelerator pedal.
Firstly, I'd like you to think how much fuel (charcoal) you will need for the duration of your cook. Usually a couple of big handfuls of best-quality lumpwood charcoal is enough for all but the very longest of cooks.
I usually work on having coals banked up to one side and covering around one-third of the base of the grill, with no coals on the other two-thirds of the grill area. This is called two-zone cooking, and gives you a direct side over the coals and an indirect side with no coals underneath. This is the simplest and most controllable way to cook on a grill.
Like driving, you have put the right amount of fuel in for your journey (or cook). When you're ready to set off (start cooking) you need to light your coals. How many of the coals are lit will give you the first level of control on the temperature of your grill.
If half of the total coals in the two-zone setup are lit, this will give you a temperature of approximately 180-200°C/356-392°F when the lid is on. Lighting one-quarter to one-third of the coals will give you a temperature of approximately 140-160°C/284- 320°F. You will surprise yourself with just how little lit charcoal you need to give you a good cooking temperature when the lid is on, and just how long the coals will last.
Once the coals are lit and the lid is on, you get to tweak the barbecue temperature in the same way as driving your car. The vent on top of any lidded barbecue acts as a brake, trapping combustion gases and smoke when closed and slowing the coals down. The air inlet at the base of the barbecue acts as an accelerator pedal - the more air that can get to the coals, the hotter they become.
When I drive my car I speed-up slowly with the accelerator and then ease off as I get to the speed I want, using the brake only if I have to. I control the temperature of my barbecue in the same way, opening the air inlet until almost at the temperature I want, then gradually shutting it until just a small opening is left. Every barbecue is different, but using this technique will help you get a better feel for controlling the heat.
So when do you use the brake? At the end of the journey or if you feel out of control - maybe the wind picks up or some fat starts flaring up - if the air inlet is hardly open, a little brake applied (around half way closed) will help you get back in control. This technique obviously only works for barbecues with a lid.
In an open grill or firepit you can't control the airflow, so the amount of wood or charcoal added to the fire becomes the accelerator pedal.
This simple technique of barbecue heat control has helped many thousands of people understand what is going on when they adjust the vents on their barbecue. Try it.
Adding smoke
On all forms of barbecuing, from gas to charcoal, you can add an element of smoke to your food. This can often be a wonderful thing, but please bear in mind to use fruitwoods, hardwoods and nutwoods only. Go gently; one or two chunks or a small handful of chips is enough.
Hardwoods such as oak can be overpowering if used too much. Some people are more sensitive to smoke and can find it too much. Sometimes smoke can clash with other flavours, so be careful. I always add a chunk of cherry wood to whatever I'm smoking; I love the colour and sweet smoke it brings to the party. Mesquite. just no. Less is almost always more. Think subtle smoke for best flavour.
A word about flavour
I see flavours in cooking - not just barbecuing - as achieving balance. It's vital to avoid having one flavour overpowering the rest. You want them working together in harmony, and this is even more important in barbecued food.
Imagine a musical orchestra. it has its different sections of wind, strings and percussion. When they are all in harmony, the music is beautiful. If the drums are out of time, or the trombone is flat, that is all you will hear. If your barbecue food is out of balance, too sweet, smoky or salty, then it will throw everything out flavour-wise. A balanced flavour approach is worth striving for, so taste everything.
What other equipment do I need?
You don't need a huge amount of specialized kit, but the following things I see as pretty important in helping you on your barbecue journey:
A good butchers' boning knife and a chefs' knife.
A couple of good thermometers; an instant-read probe thermometer and a thermometer you can leave in the food with the barbecue lid on, such as a wired probe, or wireless probe such as Meater®.
Some solid heatproof tongs and a spatula.
A charcoal chimney starter.
Heatproof welding gloves.
This will be...
