10 essential BBQ tips

i. don’t cook cold meat
If you’re only going to change one thing about your BBQ habits, make sure you always bring your meat back to room temperature before cooking. The biggest struggle with cooking on the barbie is to get the heat from the outside of your steak into the middle without burning the surface to a cinder. The warmer things are in the middle before it goes onto the fire, the easier it is to win the battle.

ii. preheat properly
If you’re going to get a good crust on your food and that lovely BBQ flavour, you need your barbie to be hot before you start cooking. This also helps if you’ve been a bit slack in the cleaning department.

iii. thin is in
The thinner your meat, the less far the heat has to travel to cook the middle, so the easier it is to get the inside right without burning the outside. I like to start with steaks about 1cm (1/2 in) thick then push them out with my hands to about 1/2cm (1/4in). This mechanical action also tenderises the meat and increases the surface area for more BBQ flavour.

If you really must have 2 inch thick steaks, think about starting them on the barbie to sear and get the flavour and then finishing them in the oven.

iv. don’t poke & prod
It takes time for your caramelised BBQ crust to develop and this won’t happen if you’re continually flipping your steaks or burgers. Only turn once or twice. And definitely don’t squash everything down as this forces the juices to run out and leaves you with sad dry meat. Sausages are also best left alone – piercing the skins dries them out.

v. don’t fuel the fire with fat
I used to pour the marinade over my meat on the grill and wonder why the flames flared up and turned everything to charcoal. It took me a while but I finally figured it out. Now I make sure my meat is well drained of excess marinade or I cook it on the hot plate. For fatty meat like chops it’s best to either trim or cook them on the hotplate and finish them off on the grill.

vi. remember food hygiene
It’s funny how the outdoors can make some people forget the basics. Always put your cooked food on a clean plate or chopping board and never add marinade that was used for raw meat to cooked meat. Simple.

vii. rest
I recently saw a website comparing meat that had been barbequed and then rested for varying amounts of time. The ‘unrested’ sample had juices running out everywhere whereas the sample that had sat for a while before being cut looked lovely and juicy on the inside without any juices on the plate. It’s all about letting the muscle fibres relax and take back the juices after the intensity of the heat.

viii. clean your BBQ
I am completely guilty of being lazy when it comes to cleaning and my poor BBQ shows the results with rusted out grill bars and a very skankey hotplate. I used to subscribe to the theory that if you just left the BBQ to burn off any food scraps for a few minutes after cooking then you don’t need to clean.

ix. earn the right to be BBQ queen (or king)
If there’s one thing that drives me crazy about BBQ culture it’s when people who wouldn’t be seen dead in the kitchen think they have the divine right to commandeer the barbie. BBQing = cooking people. If you can’t make a salad, or a sauce you certainly shouldn’t be put in charge of the waguy beef. Earn your stripes.

x. expand your BBQ repetoire
Be creative and try other things rather than steak, burger and sausages!!