The lovely people from Young’s brewery have been kind enough to share a great BBQ recipe with us that incorporates one of their range of Bitters.

The recipe is BBQ Spatchcocked Poussin and it not only tastes great but is also brilliantly easy to make. For those not familiar with how to spatchcock a chicken or poussin, we have done a handy spatchcock guide here.

To read more about Young’s range of bitters and where you can find your local supplier, visit their funky website.

Moving on, here is the recipe for BBQ Spatchcocked Poussin Recipe

Ingredients:
Serves 4

4 poussin (buy ready spatchcocked if preferred)

Marinade:
1 bottle Young’s Bitter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
3 tbsp clear honey
1 tsp paprika
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
2 star anise, crushed
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

Sauce:
3 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tsp soft brown sugar
1 tsp cornflour

To Prepare

place a poussin breast side down, on a board for raw meat use. Using poultry shears or strong kitchen scissors, cut along each side of the backbone and remove it. Either snip the wishbone with the shears, or push down on the wishbone to snap it. Snip of any excess bits of skin, the wing tips and any other ragged bits.

To keep them in shape insert wooden or short metal skewers through the bird, diagonally in a criss-cross shape. Place in a large glass or china dish.

For the marinade, pour the Young’s beer into a large jug, once it has settled, add the rest of the ingredients and whisk together. Pour half of the marinade over the poussin reserving the rest for the sauce. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Bring the poussin out of the fridge 1 hour before cooking. Pour the marinade into a pan, boil rapidly until reduced to about 100ml, this will be used to baste the poussin while cooking.

To finish the sauce, strain the reserved marinade into a clean pan, add the tomato ketchup and sugar, bring to the boil. Blend the cornflour with a little water, stir into the sauce and simmer to thicken.

Prepare the barbecue, lightly oil the rack and place the poussin bone side down first. Grill for 5 minutes, turning every 3-4 minutes and brushing with the baste. Time to cook through will depend on size of the birds and intensity of the heat from the barbecue, should be approximately 15-20 minutes. Test by inserting the point of a small knife. Transfer to a serving platter.

Reheat the sauce before serving.

Have you tried this recipe? If so, why not share your thoughts below?

Anyone who BBQ’s will know the importance of the “dips and chips” at the start. Weak people go for crudités (a range of chopped veg for dipping in sauces) but real BBQ’ers have to go for some serious crisps and nothing does the job better than Kettle Chips.

For us Kettle Chips are the Number One BBQ Crisp brand and we cannot recommend them enough… but enough of our love!

There is exciting news on the Kettle Chips front as they have enhanced a number of their existing flavours; Sweet Chilli, Sour Cream & Onion and Smoky Barbecue and also announced the launch of Sweet Red Pepper Salsa flavour that hit the shelves in mid April.

To help mark the launch of the new flavour of Kettle Chips the company has also come up a with a few cracking recipes for BBQ dips and we have been lucky enough to been sent them.

The first is Tomato and Red Pepper Dip

Ingredients:
1 Red Pepper
2 Plum Tomatoes
1 Small Red Onion
1 Red Chilli
Small Bunch of Chives
Pinch of Salt & Milled Black Pepper

How to make the Tomato & Red Pepper Dip

Rough cut the red onion and place in blender. De-seed the red chilli, rough cut and place in blender. Blend together till fine.

De-seed the red peppers, rough cut and add to blender. Quarter the plum tomatoes and add to blender. Blend altogether keeping the peppers and tomatoes fairly chunky.

Place into a small bowl, season with salt and milled black pepper, place in refrigerator.

When ready to serve snip a quantity of the chives into the mix, blend together.

Place in serving dish , snip a few pieces of chive on top, serve with a bowl of Sweet Red Pepper Salsa Kettle Chips.

Sour Cream and Sweet Chilli Dip:

Ingredients:
375g Jar of Pepperdew Sweet Peppers
2 Plum Tomatoes
2 Red Chillies
200g Sour Cream
200g Creme Fraiche
Salt & Milled Black Pepper

How to Make the Sour Cream and Chilli Dip:
De-seed the red chillies, rough cut. Quarter the plum tomatoes.

Drain the Pepperdew Sweet Peppers. Place the peppers, chillies and tomato in a blender and blend till fine. Place in a bowl, add the sour cream and crème fraiche and fold in together.

Season with salt and milled black pepper. Place in refrigerator.

Serve with a bowl of Sweet Red Pepper Salsa Kettle Chips.

For more information visit www.kettlechips.co.uk

We have tried this simple to make BBQ recipe few times now, adding a few bits here and there and I think it is now at the stage where I we are ready to unleash it upon the world.

Lamb is a big favourite of ours, we usually get a leg, rolled, with the bone removed from our local butcher in Huntley. Incidentally, his butchers shop has been around since the 1600’s, amazing! We roll it out, add the herb crust and then pop it in a big rack for cooking on the BBQ.

Here is the step by step guide to making Herb Crusted BBQ Lamb for 4 people

Ingredients:

1.8kg Boneless, Leg of Lamb
Pot of breadcrumbs or if making own, 6/7 slices of bread
1 good handful of Coriander - chopped
7 or 8 sprigs of chives - chopped
2 sprigs of rosemary - chopped
1 x tsp cayenne pepper
2 x Onions - finely chopped
2 Glugs of Dry White Wine

Step By Step Recipe guide to Herb Crusted BBQ Lamb
1. Make your breadcrumbs or pour your pot of breadcrumbs into a large glass mixing bowl
2. Add all the herbs and onions and mix
3. Pour in your wine and mix again
4. Unroll your lamb and place it into a roasting tin
5. Press the breadcrumb mix hard into the lamb
6. Turn the lamb over and repeat
7. Leave to stand (optional)
8. Place in the BBQ Basket, or if not using one, on the grill, on a medium heat
9. Turn every 15 mins and cook for about 1hr and 10mins, or until it is cooked to your liking
10. Tuck in!

NOTE, with regards to how to set up your coals, we use a kettle BBQ that acts like an oven. My preference is to put the coals on one side of the grill only so I have a high heat and medium heat section. I tend to seal meat on the high heat and then cook it for the remaining time on the medium heat section to prevent charring!

Did you try this recipe? Let us know how you got on using the comments section below or send a picture of your own BBQ to hello@iLoveMyBBQ.com

This is an adaptation of a recipe a friend introduced me to last year using traditional cooking methods that we have finally been able to try on our own kettle BBQ.

This a really easy BBQ recipe and once again, it gives you a dish that not only tastes nice but also looks good, especially if you serve it on a a bed of salad leaves and alongside something like cous-cous.

It is best to use cooking baskets to cook these on the grill as you can more easily turn the thinly sliced salmon.

Tikka Masala BBQ Salmon Recipe - Ingredients for 4 People;
4 x Salmon fillets
1 jar tikka masala paste (we use Patak’s)
Bag of mixed salad
Flavoured cous cous
4 x Naan Bread

Step by Step Guide to BBQ Tikka Masala Salmon
1. Slice each fillet into three, length ways. This is a bit tricky, make sure you use a sharp knife
2. Smear 1/2 tbsp of the tikka masala paste onto each of the salmon fillets, make sure you do both side (1/2 tbsp each side!)
3. Leave to marinate for a few hours
4. About 5 mins before you are ready to BBQ your Barbecue Salmon Recipe, wrap the Naans in separate tin-foil parcels and place on the grill (we splash water on ours first to keep them soft and nice)
5. Place the Salmon in the BBQ Basket on a medium heat and cook for around 2 mins per side.
6. Serve on top of a bed of the salad leaves

These can be quite spicy and are best served with a nice chilled lager. At the minute we are loving Victoria Bitter (better known as VB) which is £24.00 from Majestic Wines.

Tried this recipe? What did you think? Post your comments about this or your own BBQ recipe below.

We have been making Garlic Bread on our BBQ now for years but I only realised this weekend that we don’t have our recipe on here, so here goes.

This Barbecue Recipe is for four people.

Ingredients:

1 x Baguette (ready baked)
3 x cloves of garlic (2 if you have a meeting the next day)
Handful of parsley, finely chopped
175g of butter (marge does not work so well with this recipe)
1 x deseeded, finely chopped red chilli (optional, for an extra kick)
Tin foil to wrap the baguette

Step by step recipe guide to making Garlic Bread on the BBQ:

1. Soften the bread (15secs in microwave should do the trick)
2. Add all the other ingredients to the butter and mix together well
3. Slice your baguette taking care not to cut all the way through
4. Use a butter knife to smear the butter between the slices, really go to town and use all the butter
5. Wrap the baguette in tin foil
6. Place onto a medium to hot grill and leave for 15 minutes - make sure the bread is hot throughout and the butter has melted
7. Tuck in!

This is a simple barbecue recipe we have been looking forward to trying out on the BBQ all winter. It has just the right amount of tang to become a real BBQ Recipe classic.

As ever, we start with the ingredients and then go through the step by step guide. Our ingredients are catering for 4 people.

1.25kg of boneless leg of Lamb

For the Marinate:
2 x 400g canned tomatoes
1 x onion, chopped
2 x cloves of garlic, finely sliced
2 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp Worcester sauce
1/2 tsp of Tabasco sauce
1 x stick of celery
4 tbsp brown sugar

Step By Step Guide to Making Sweet Tomato BBQ Lamb

1. Place all of your ingredients into a saucepan (apart from the Lamb), stir and bring to the boil
2. Leave to simmer on a low heat for 45 minutes
3. Leave to cool
4. Either in a blender, or by pressing with the back of a serving spoon, blend the sauce
5. Pour over the Lamb and leave to marinate ideally overnight, or for at least 1hr

Cook over a medium to hot grill for approx 1hr & 45mins to 2hrs.

Tuck in and enjoy…

NOTE: for recipes that need a longer cooking time like this you will need to top up your coals half way through to make sure they are keeping the meat at the right cooking temperature.

To make this more simple, you will need a Kettle Charcoal Starter. You can light your bag of charcoal in one of these about 10-15 mins before you need the charcoal and then just pour the hot and ready coal onto your BBQ.

We have had some cracking BBQ recipe and BBQ tips and tricks sent in over the none BBQ season so I thought it would be a great idea to share them with everyone…

Thanks to everyone who sent in their suggestions:

S Whittington suggested this for a great BBQ Burger Recipe:
When making homemade burgers after you have added all the ingredients before making them into patties mix it all up with lots of tomato Sauce to hold them together,the taste is awesome!

Toniq suggested this for a great BBQ Pork Chops Recipe:
Be adventureous! Don’t forget to experiment! We often do Pork chops cubed with aubergine, courgette, pepper chuks, onions on soaked skewers, we alternate between, honey, mustard with cheese marinade to sweet chilli marinade!!! We accompany with some stuffed chiili pork rice peppers which are finished off on the barbie!

Natalie suggested the following Sweet potato BBQ Recipe idea:
Put some sweet potatoes wrapped in foil in the coals while you are cooking your meat - they go really well with ribs, steak and gammon and only take about 20 to 30 minutes.

Mr Crump suggested the following BBQ Cooking Tip for a great BBQ smell:
If you tie a bunch of herbs such as rosemary, sage, mint, on the outside of your BBQ as it warms up it gives off a lovely aroma.

Joolsy suggested a great Pork BBQ Recipe Tip:
Rub your pork with some garlic infused oil beforehand [ed - short and too the point!]

Bella had this brilliant Pork and Apple Stuffing Kebabs BBQ Recipe
The best way to have pork is to make pork and apple stuffing kebabs, just marinate the pork in 1/2pint of cider with 2tablespoons of honey for at least a hour {over night is better for flavour}make stuffing as per the pkt and leave to cool.
When ready for the bbq slice 4 apples and 4onions both cut into quarters {cut out core} and then roll stuffing in to balls, then arrange on a skewer {if using wooden ones the soak in water a hour before hand to stop it burning}.
Arrange pork apple stuffing and onion on the skewer{you can also add mushrooms or peppers} and then bbq for 15/20 mins turning often.
Theses are yummy yummy

Sarah suggested this nice sounding BBQ Pork Recipe idea:
I love marinating pork overnight in apple juice before bbq-ing - makes it sooo tender!

Ami had this tip for cooking BBQ Ribs
Never ever boil ribs first. Everyone always tells you that and effectively you’re making a broth, taking out all the flavour from the ribs!!
What you really want to do is sort of roast the meat. BBQ is a low heat method of roasting, and by dry roasting will concentrate the great flavors of the meat. Grill them slowly and lowly!

Kelly had this veggie BBQ Recipe idea:
I marinate Quorn with lemon, tandoori paste and yogurt and the BBQ and bbq a roti or Chapati, I do the same for my husband with chicken, it’s really tasty and much healthier than a takeaway.

We have had hundreds and hundreds of tips like these so please keep them coming and we will do another batch of BBQ recipe tips, tricks, recipes and BBQ advice shortly.

What are your thoughts? Why not post a comment below?

Now this may a bit basic for some of you more experience BBQ grillers but I found a really funky basic cookery course that I wanted to give a little plug to.

One of the things that has really helped me get to grips with some of the more tricky BBQ recipes is the fact that I did a basica catering course and trained for several months under a really awesome grill chef.

When thinking about how this site can help people I thought it would be a good idea to try and find some funky basic cooking courses, not necessarily about BBQ’ing, but some of the general things you should know about food prep and recipes etc.

My favourite, and the UK’s best gift experience site, IntoTheBlue.co.uk has a load of cooking courses worth trying out but the Cooking for Fun Course in Suffolk looks a real bargain and a great laugh.

Here is the write up from the site:

These Cooking for Fun courses take place in a renowned cookery school in Hadleigh, near the Essex border of Suffolk and you’ll be learning from the owner and chef, Mark David.

Mark David has exceptionally wide experience, including hotel and outside catering and corporate events. He spent three years as an Egon Ronay inspector and a further year as restaurant manager at Robert Carrier’s acclaimed Hintlesham Hall hotel. He now runs his own cookery school and is a regular author and broadcaster on all matters culinary. His light-hearted, unpretentious approach has earned the description of being a cross between Tommy Cooper and Geoff Capes - but of course with much greater cooking skills than both those two characters combined!

At just £149.00 it represents a reallygood day.

Well, what a year it has been, not only in terms of awareness of this blog and its phenomenal and unexpected growth but also personally for Cairo and I.

2009 was a massive year for us personally that included getting married in early 09 (about time!) and also having our first child, Mini-Barr towards the end of the year - hopefully this explains why iLoveMyBBQ.com went so quiet towards the end of the year!

In terms of this site 2009 was huge. During the peak BBQ months we struggled to cope with the amount of traffic, questions from BBQ fans and companies getting in touch to ask us to review their products. The site featured in several national newspapers and magazines (website of the day in The Times being a notable highlight) and we were asked to give our opinion on various new BBQ gadgets by a few TV and news shows! Wow…

The two things that really made us both really sit up and take notice were; one, the fact we were asked about potentially selling the site on two seperate occasions and two, when we ran a competition towards the end of the last BBQ season we had hundreds and hundreds of entries - more than we could have ever imagined!  This tells us we must be doing something right.

So, here we are in early 2010 (very early!) and we are planning new ideas and recipes and BBQ related gadget stories for the site. As ever, if you have any ideas or suggestions, please let us know.

Thanks for everyone’s support in 2009 and we look forward to an action packed 2010 of BBQ’ing.

Andy & Jilly (AKA Cairo)

Ok BBQ Fans, time to put away the Brolly, dust off the BBQ and get ready to start your grills as the lying weather people reckon this weekend could be a hot one.

What a horrid few weeks it has been, weather wise, we have had no BBQ’s at all and it has been killing me.

As an extra incentive to get your BBQ’s going the lovely people at the worlds best makers of BBQ equipment and sauces, Weber, have been in touch to give us a competition for you guys.

To celebrate the launch of Weber’s new range of BBQ sauces we’re giving away a BBQ-Tastic prize! Weber is offering one lucky reader the perfect BBQ kit, which includes a Weber Smokey Joe Gold BBQ, an essential BBQ tools kit as well as the entire range of Weber’s NEW BBQ sauces.

Here is what you need to do to Enter:

To be in for the chance of winning this superb Weber BBQ prize, just email your funniest BBQ related picture to hello@iLoveMyBBQ.com - closing date will be midnight on Monday 20th August 2009. You can enter as often as you like, but they have to be your pics and we reserve the right to use your pictures on the blog. This aint like Blue Peter and we won’t accept posted photo’s, and we won’t send them back if you do post any (probably cos the dog will eat them before we actually get to see them).

The Weber sauces are a great range for BBQ fans and with three NEW Weber BBQ Sauces in the range - there’s something for everyone, whatever your taste! Firstly, Weber ORIGINAL BBQ Sauce – an authentic BBQ sauce with a light, zesty flavour, it works perfectly as a marinade. Secondly, Weber HOT ‘N’ SPICY BBQ Sauce – not for the faint hearted, this hot sauce has depth to its flavour and is guaranteed to spice up any BBQ dish! And last but not least, the new Weber BBQ Relish – a hearty tomato based relish, the perfect accompaniment to a homemade burger! So after spending hours cooking on the fire, there’ll be no risk of spoiling your culinary genius with inferior condiments!

Weber BBQ sauces are available from Waitrose, Tesco and Asda supermarkets.

A quick note from the writers/owners of iLoveMyBBQ.com to thank the team at Weber for providing the prizes!

For full T&C’s email hello@iLoveMyBBQ.com