it comes to mixing the meat,“work it and move it around with your hand for about five minutes. Keep squeezing and moving [it] – what that does is the salt stretches the proteins in the meat, they kind of unravel and then they tie back up again, which means it becomes firmer. So you can shape your burgers nicely so they won’t fall apart when you put them on the grill.They stay nice and firm in shape.”
Don’t move the meat around constantly
It’s tempting to keep prodding, flipping and moving your food around the grill, but it will impact the cooking. “You’ve got to be very conscious of the heat source and where it’s coming and how hot it is,” Kerridge says. “There’s nothing wrong with leaving something on there, let it get that colour, let it get that texture, let it get that flavour – that comes from letting things stand still.”
Think globally
Barbecuing is a form of cookery that can really bring together flavours from around the world – on the same plate. “I think it’s one of those cooking styles that completely encapsulates global food.You don’t think twice about doing teriyaki-style chicken, followed by some kind of like Indian- inspired monkfish, followed by a Mexican-style beef,” says Kerridge.“Stick it on a plate in front of you with a very simple potato salad, and it all seems to work well.”
Try slow-cooking meat first
For people who are ready to stretch their legs with barbecuing and to make it a bit more ‘cheffy’, Kerridge suggests using your oven first, for a short rib of beef, for example.“It’s quite good to braise things and slow-cook them in the oven first, in a dry rub or marinate, then leave them to cool and reheat them on the smokiness of the barbecue – so you get the best of both worlds.“You get the safety of the oven first – a good way for beginners – and then get the finishing flavour that comes from a barbecue.You can do that by adding some wood chippings as well – that also gives an added flavour,” Kerridge says. “You don’t need it for long on the barbecue at the end just to get a bit smoky. [Just] long enough to impart and repeat and give flavour.You might cook something for five or six hours gently in an oven on a low temperature and reheat it on a barbecue for half an hour.”
Do green veg on the barbecue
“I’m a big fan of green veg [on the barbecue].Things like cabbages, brassicas are where you cut and you keep whole, or very simple things such as asparagus and courgettes, and you get a nice kind of char marking on them, and then take them off, and then dress them whilst they’re hot with a good pinch of salt and pepper and maybe some French dressing.” Dressing veg when it’s warm off the barbecue means that they “start to absorb the dressing and seasoning and flavours”. The BBQ Book by Tom Kerridge is published in hardback by Bloomsbury, priced £25. Photography by Cristian Barnett.
Try cooking directly onto coals
“You’ve got to ensure those coals are very, very hot.The temperature needs to be quite hot, so when [the food] goes on, it doesn’t stick too much. Things like bavette steak works really, really nicely on coals like that.‘Dirty cooking’ it’s called,” in the chef world, says Kerridge.
For fish, start with monkfish
“I do quite a lot of fish on the barbecue – that’s something that not a lot of people touch because they worry,” says Kerridge. A good ‘entry level’ into fish barbecue cookery is monkfish, he says,“which cooks very much like meat. It’s a firm texture, a muscular fish, so it cooks a bit like a fillet of beef.That works really nicely.” You can cook a piece of fish in a ‘fish cage’, he adds.“It means that you’re moving the fish cage, rather than fish that’s directly on the barbecue – so it doesn’t stick.”
Make your own burgers
“If you can mince the beef yourself, it’s amazing,” says Kerridge.“If you’re buying, don’t buy fatty mince, buy quite lean mince and then add fat to it. If you put bone marrow through it or some minced-up pork belly, that works really nicely.” Add a pinch of salt too, but try not to overcomplicate the flavour of the burger, he says.“Make the burger all about the meat and then add the flavours to it afterwards.When
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