Picnic with a barbecue

An informal and popular
way of entertaining

It’s much easier to get together with friends too, because everyone wants to be outside, chilling out in the warm weather (isn’t English a funny language?!) and catch up.

Having a BBQ party in the garden or taking a portable one along on a picnic, does tend to make the preparation a little easier because most of the cooking can be done while you’re lounging around outside.

The back garden is a favourite spot and the equipment is easy to put together. A few bricks and some unwanted oven grill racks will do the trick, although most of us these days go for the convenience of buying a ready-made one.

There are so many varieties of ready-made ones available and we’ve always found that the cheapest are often just as good as the top-of-the-range ones. They just have fewer “extras” – which, more often than not, you don’t use anyway.

We prefer to pay around £20 and it normally lasts a few seasons before we forget to put it away and it becomes a bit of a rust heap!

For picnic outings we’ve tended to use disposable ones, available from petrol stations and supermarkets in the summer. However, the Picnic Shop has just started to offer a nice selection of portable ones.

I Want One of Those has also got two fabulous portable barbecues. One folds up flat like a wafer thin mint (well almost!) and is a mere £19.95. A marvellous contraption!

I bought my daughter and her boyfriend the other one, which packs away into a hold-all so that they can take it camping. Even with a next-day UK delivery charge (its a little more to the USA) it only cost me £30 and they love it!

They also have a brilliant invention for £24.99, called a Grilliput. If you want to barbecue away from home, just pop this tiny thing in your back pocket and you're sorted! See it here.

Of course I’m talking about cooking over charcoal. You may prefer to use gas. However, my experience of the gas kind has not been good. I much prefer the more primitive experience of grilling over embers.

I appreciate that you can achieve some char-grilled smokiness with gas, but charcoal still seems to give a more intense, smoky and appetising aroma both to the food and the surrounding air. No good if you’re hiking of course – you don’t want to have to carry bags of charcoal in your backpack. You'll have to find sticks instead!

Light the barbecue a good half hour before you intend to start cooking so that you grill over hot, glowing embers and not flames. If the odd flame does spring up, because of fat from the food or excess marinade, then a plastic spray bottle (one you use for spraying plants for example) will help extinguish the flames.

Use a firelighter or two among the charcoal or sprinkle lighting gel over it and allow it to soak in well before lighting. Then wait for the flames to die down and don’t start to cook too soon or the embers will be too hot and your food will burn. You should be able to hold your hand just above them for about 5 seconds.

Some friends gave us a good tip last year – line the bottom of the BBQ with a double sheet of aluminium foil before putting in the charcoal. This may speed up the lighting process and it also makes it much easier to clean out the thing at the end of the meal!

Cooking utensils should be as long-handled as possible and have some thick oven gloves to hand as well. Keep a bucket of water handy in case of accidents and damp down the cinders when you've finished cooking.

The aroma of barbequed food, and the smoke wafting through the air, stimulates the taste buds. With a glass of wine or a long cool drink, the fat shiny sausages or hamburgers taste so much better when eaten outside.

The traditional grilled foods such as those sausages,hamburgers and chicken drumsticks will always remain al fresco favourites. However, with a little additional effort many imaginative and unusual dishes can be created.

I will continue to add suggestions for picnic food and salads, sauces and healthy dips to accompany the main courses, so please add this site to your favourites, or RSS Feed (see how under nav bar). Thanks.

You might find some BBQ bargains now at our auction!

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