BBQ MADE EASY

Everyone loves a BBQ but it can be a little daunting knowing how to go about it. Worry no more! Follow our step-by-step guide to safe cooking with fire and enjoy these super-simple recipes with friends and family.

HOW TO LIGHT A BBQ

1. Set up in an open space 
Fire up your barbecue in an open space, clear of fences or trees. It’s a good idea to have a fire xtinguisher or a bucket of water nearby as well, and keep kids and pets well away. Use long-handled tongs and proper barbecue equipment with insulated handles, or you may burn yourself.

2. Buy good-quality charcoal 
Look for good-quality, sustainably produced charcoal – a type made from coppiced wood or one that’s approved by the Forestry Commission. This lights easily, burns better and won’t taint the flavour of the food, unlike charcoals containing accelerants.

3. Use a chimney starter 
You can light the coals inside one of these tubular starters, just with a few sheets of newspaper. They will quickly catch and glow. Also, the chimney protects the coals (and you) from flying sparks on a windy day. Once the coals are ready, you can easily tip them into the barbecue.

4. If you don’t have a chimney, stack your charcoal 
Put balls of newspaper, wood shavings or wool amongst the coals. Light and allow the flames to catch, get going and die down again. You need ashen coals to cook on – flames will only burn food. When a few coals are lit, the rest will catch on their own, so don’t hurry them along by adding more firelighters. If the heat is starting to fade too quickly, add coals to the outside of the barbecue and leave them to flame up and die down before cooking over them.

5. Know whether you need direct or indirect heat before you start to cook. 
How you arrange your coals will give you diferent heat zones and more control over your barbecue.

6. Know when the coals are ready 
Undercooking or burning food is not a risk worth taking. Observe the coals.
Black or grey with flames: Not ready yet. Step away, have a beer and relax.
Glowing white hot with red centres: Blow very gently on them to check that they are glowing. Ready for direct heat.
Ashy white but still very hot: Ready for indirect heat or cooking in the coals.

7. Use a thermometer
Test the temperature of food to help prevent barbecue disasters. We like Thermapens (thermapen.co.uk), which have a probe that folds away neatly and safely for storage in your cutlery drawer.

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I. DIRECT HEAT
If you think of a barbecue as a hob, lighting an even layer of coal is the equivalent of cooking everything on the highest heat in the hottest pan.Although this directmethod might be fine for thin cuts ofmeat that cook quickly (like burgers and thin-cut steaks), it will cremate anything that needs more time to cook through.

II. INDIRECT HEAT
Push the coals to one side of the barbecue, making the other side a source of indirect heat for low and slow cooking. This also enables you to cook on one half and keep food warm on the other. You can do this with a kettle barbecue, as shown. Alternatively, nestle an old roasting tin in a stack of coals, then cook on a grill over the tin, covered by the lid. The heat circulates giving you a hot-moked/spit-roast efect, ideal for larger joints,meat on the bone and delicate fish fillets.Where the coals are stacked, you have direct heat for quickly browning food.

III. A LITTLE OF EACH
By sloping the coals youget a gradient of heat from searing hot to a temperature perfect for gentle sizzling. This is useful when barbecuing for a crowd–moving food around the grill to prevent it from burning as you work on cooking the next batch on the fully stacked end.

By Lulu Grimes in "BBC Good Food Magazine",UK, August 2018,excerpt p. 36. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.