This lovely weather means that we are currently enjoying our 3rd BBQ in as many days and we have one planned for every day over this Easter period.
Sometimes it is good to step away from the experimenting with various BBQ recipes and just go for a nice and simple BBQ dish. So last night we went for the ever brilliant BBQ recipe of “Grilled Sirloin Steaks”.
You see, nothing exciting, not even steakmarinaded in coca cola, just wacked in a basket and grilled for a few mins either side.
The secret to great BBQ steaks when cooking in a basket is to place them with fat side facing out of the basket. This way, once the meat itslef is cooked, you can place the basket on the side (see the picture) and then crisp up the fat.
A simple BBQ recipe but man, it tastes good. Hope you enjoy it… tonight we are going even more back to basics with a basket for of bangers and burgers. Pics to follow!
Have a great Easter BBQ fans and don’t forget to take pics of your own BBQ’s and send them in.
The BBQ weather has officially started. Gone are the days of hunting round a damp garden on Easter Sunday for chocolate eggs. Well, actually, you can still do the egg hunting bit, makes it more fun. This Easter something very weird and wonderful has come to our attention at I Love My BBQ.
Thanks to DivaQ (find them on Twitter @DivaQBBQ) the ultimate recipe of madness for the BBQ has come to light. Read on if you’re a bacon and eggs kinda guy (or gal).
“Bacon and eggs? On the BBQ? That’s madness!” one may cry. However, stick with it because we are not talking about your average morning fry up. As you know, we here at I Love My BBQ like both a challenge and the more ‘out there’ recipes.
Once the egg hunting has finished on Sunday morning around midday you may be thinking “Sod the traditional Sunday roast, there’s a BBQ to be had here” (due to the incredible April weather we have been having). If however, you are fresh out of burgers and sausages simply take some of your crème eggs you so lovingly hunted down, take a pack of bacon and start wrapping the eggs (much like pigs in blankets only these are… eggs in blankets!) in said bacon.
Then whack ‘em on a tray and pop it on the barbie. Once partially cooked, dispose of the tray and grill directly on your trusty BBQ. For full information and handy pictures check out the DivaQ blog http://bit.ly/f8EXu7 Thank you guys for an inspiring and downright mental idea. We’re sure to be trying it this weekend.
Wow! A quick blog as we have just had chance to try the Jack Daniel’s BBQ Sauce and I could not wait to share our verdict!
It is ace… You may remember that we road-tested the Weber BBQ sauce and one of the major plus points was that it had a more original/home- made taste to it.
Well, the Jack Daniel’s BBQ Sauce also has this by the bucket load.
We had it over butterflied chicken and although we only had 20 mins or so marinade time, it did the job perfectly.
As you would expect from a Jack Daniels product, it has the famous kick to it, but nowhere near as harsh as the Bourbon (or is it Whisky?).
Available in packs of three large bottles from Amazon for just £13.35 you still have time to order some today and get it in time for the weekend, which we are reliably informed by the weather people is going to be another warm one.
At this rate, we will run out of BBQ Sauce’s to road-test, but so far, this one is neck and neck with the Weber BBQ Sauce and definitely one to try.
The previous weekend saw us going for an “away-day” BBQ at Cotswold Park and Beach. Being tasked with BBQ’ing comes with enough pressure when you do it on home turf, so doing it away from home adds extra pressure.
Remembering the essentials is pretty easy, i.e. Charcoal, Meat and some BBQ Tong’s but it is all the silly BBQ gadgets and gizmo’s that make a BBQ go smoothly, so here are the iLoveMyBBQ.com Top 5 Essential Gadgets, Tips and Recipes for away BBQ’s.
Top 5 Tips
- Make sure you take matches or a lighter. The Park and beach we went to last weekend did not sell matches or lighters for Health and Safety reasons. Mad I know… luckily (given our group are all none smokers) one of our friends had a blow torch in the back of his 4×4 (I don’t know why either, you will have to ask him).
- Take a BBQ Mitt (Weber, £9.70 Amazon). When using someone else’s BBQ or an industrial BBQ you never know how it will work or what will need moving at a crucial point. Having a BBQ Mitt nearby can prevent any nasty food burns and also enable you to “work the grill” a little easier.
- Have a bottle of water nearby. This is an essential one for a number of reasons. 1, to immediately apply to any rogue burns you may endure. 2, To prevent any rogue sparks or bit of charcoal causing the nearby grassland or woods to catch alight. 3, it gets hot!
- Take a Kilner Jar with some Cajun Rub in it. Some away-day BBQ’s call on visitors and guest to bring their own meat. Whilst you should never be so rude as to just shake some of your rub onto their plain meat, you may want to encourage them to have a bit of extra flavour. BBQ’ing is about sharing remember
- Don’t forget a sharp knife. Now, I don’t really know the laws about driving around with a kitchen knife in yiour boot, but I am sure that if the police see the rest of your BBQ equipment they will apply a bit of common sense. A sharp kitchen knife is essential to make sure food is cooked and to (as funny as it sounds), cut up people’s strings of sausages! ps, a simple veg or pairing knife will do. Avoid the Crocodile Dundee knives!
Those are my Top 5 Essential Tips for BBQ Away Matches… why not share yours below in the comments section.
Another away-day BBQ today, that is two in two days. Today we were at Granny BS’s house and it was a great opportunity to test out one of the Weber range of BBQ Marinades.
We had the traditional Weber BBQ Marinade (£9.94 for 6 Amazon), a simple and easy BBQ Recipe that you simply pour over your meat, leave to marinade and then slap onto the grill.
We seem to always use the BBQ marinades over chicken but they also work really well over other cuts and varieties of meats such as Lamb chops, Pork Steaks, Beef steaks (Sirloin, fillet and rump etc).
I also thing the Weber BBQ Marinade works well when you brush it over seafood kebabs and, if a rogue veggie has snook in, you can smear it over their veggie kebabs as well.
Weber BBQ Sauce and Marinade
Marinades work best when you can leave them to flavour the meat overnight but we only had chance to give the Weber BBQ Sauce Marinade a couple of hours over our chicken breasts and being honest, you would not have noticed the difference had they been marinading for three days!
The flavour was spot on!
You kind of expect it to be perfect, it is Weber after all, but this really is spot on. In my mind it even beats the Paul Newman range of marinades. The trouble with some of the marinades is that they taste synthetic and a bit fake, but the Weber BBQ Sauce tastes authentic and original.
Easy BBQ Chicken Recipe
The Weber BBQ Marinade was not only a quick and easy BBQ Recipe it is one of those recipes you can prep in a couple of mins and leave to marinade whilst chatting with friends and still taste amazing.
Everyone loved the chicken and I suspect that had we not admitted that it was out of a jar I could have claimed it was home made! I totally would have as well…
So Friday is all about the BBQ Loving for me. Getting ready for firing up the BBQ, planning what animal is going to be gracing the grill and what salads will be made but not actually touched by my own fair lips.
We are off on an away-day BBQ this weekend at Cotswold Water Park with a load of friends and currently planning what to take with us. By The Way; Cotswold Water Park is great because they have full on BBQ hire service. For the Win!
Anyway, on our way over we are going to be picking up the meat for BBQ which leads me nicely on to my Friday loving… this week it goes to Over Farm Market in Gloucestershire.
For those of you reading this in far flung places this will mean very little, but for anyone Midlands or South West based, Over Farm Park is well worth a visit. Aside from the brilliant farm shop, amazing team working there (more of that in a sec) they also have an actual working farm where you can go and feed the animals (including a Buffalo).
If that isn’t enough to tempt you, when you consider that the Country’s most well respected County Magazine, Cotswold Life no less, has recently given it the Best Farm Shop Award then you should be racing to get there.
Going back to the shop, it stocks traditional fruit and veg (dull), some brilliant local ales, wines and cider (exciting) and my favourite; it has a brilliant meat counter (mega exciting!).
Pretty much all of the meat consumed by the iLoveMyBBQ.com tribe comes from Over Farm Market and having tried so much it is difficult to pick one thing out… but if I had to, their Chinese Marinade Pork Steaks are probably my favourite.
Us BBQ Grillers, we are under a heap of pressure! Getting the food ready, getting it cooked, knowing when it is cooked and making sure everyone gets fed without a trace of food-poisoning.
I thought I would answer the age old BBQ Question of
“When do I know when my BBQ Meat is cooked” be it BBQ Chicken, BBQ Sausages, BBQ Burgers, or even BBQ Steak.
So here is a little guide, nothing definitive so don’t be trying to sue me if things still go wrong
BBQ Chicken
If a chicken breast or alike, there is a good chance that it will have some form of marinade on it that will stop you being able to see if the juice coming out of it are running clear (sign of being cooked), so I usually cheat and cut into the thickest end of the chicken breast to see if it is pink or white inside. If white, it is ready! I keep the one I have cut into for myself so no one can see my sneaky handy work.
If a whole chicken or alike the chances are you will not have put a marinade on it so you can simply prick with a fork once the cooking time has elapsed and if the juice runs clear it is usually a sign that it is cooked.
Remember, you cannot eat raw or pink chicken!
BBQ Burgers
Some burgers are ok to eat with a teency bit of pink inside, especially if they are made from steak mince or alike. The better the quality of the mince the more chance there is that you can (once again) prick them with a fork and if the juice runs clear, they are done.
The teency bit of pink only works with steak/beef mince though remember.
BBQ Sausages
These can be a real pain in the bottom! I always find that the better quality pork sausages take a bit longer because of the higher meat content. I pretty much always end up cutting the end of one in half to look inside and make sure there are no pink bits left. Once again, I keep the one I have cut open for myself so that no one can see I have cheated.
BBQ Steak
Similar to burgers, prick with a fork and if the juice is clear, they are done. Remember though, some people like steaks to be rare so check first. If you see blood starting to rise to the top of the steak when cooking, that is usually a sign that they are medium and nearly done.
We have an OXO BBQ Set on offer for one lucky winner, all you have to do is share your own BBQ tip or recipe in the comments section of this blog post. Could it be any easier?
BBQ’ing is all about sharing recipes and I make no secret of the fact that we have hundreds of books that we use to get ideas and inspiration from.
With this in mind, here are my favourite, Top 5 BBQ Books…
1. Blistering Barbecues (£12.71 Amazon)
By Kate Weatherell, Nigel Tunnicliff and Time Reeves. I love love love this book. This is the book that introduced me to BBQ Pizza’s! The people behind this book have their own Pro BBQ Cooking Company.
Adam Perry and part of the Richard and Judy 2007 Book Club. A really interesting, back to basics BBQ book. As you can guess, it is 25 classic BBQ recipes.
A brilliant book that you would not initially realise is a BBQ book. I absolutely love it and it is packed with unusual, but traditional, American BBQ recipes.
So here we go, our take on the Gas v Charcoal BBQ Debate and which is best. You will never get me to switch to Gas from Charcoal but I can see why some BBQ fans do love a Gas barbecue.
Here are my Top 5 Pros and Cons on Gas v Charcoal BBQ’s..
Gas BBQ Pros
1. Quick to heat up and get going
2. Easy to clean
3. Don’t have to keep buying coal
4. Can keep the BBQ at a consistent temperature
5. Easier to cater for large families or get togethers
Gas BBQ Cons
1. Not as good a flavour as charcoal
2. Gas can work out expensive
3. Typically uglier designs
4. Cannot cook pizza’s on them (need high temp)
5. They are basically just the same as cooking the food indoors!
A Selection of my Favourite Gas BBQ’s are in the Amazon Widget Below
Charcoal BBQ Pros
1. Much more flavour
2. Can do more adventurous recipes on charcoal BBQ’s (pizza, beer can up the bum chicken)
3. Can position the coals as you require (hot spots, indirect BBQ cooking recipes)
4. Designs are much prettier (Kettle Charcoal BBQ’s!)
5. Smell much nicer and you can use woodchips etc
Charcoal BBQ Cons
1. Messy
2. Tougher to clean
3. Hard to control temperature
4. Far more potential for eye brow removal
5. Seem to age/break more quickly than Charcoal BBQ’s
A Selection of my Favourite Charcoal BBQ’s are in the Amazon Widget Below
