Category Archives: BBQ Academy

Ask Rob: Rob’s 8 BBQ Essentials

Posted on by

With BBQ season now approaching, it’s time to think about what you’ll need to have the best BBQ possible. Whether that’s having enough burgers to flip or making sure your salad stays crisp, I have compiled a list of essentials to ensure your BBQs are a success this year!

A BBQ – It doesn’t matter what the shape or size is, a BBQ will give you a distinctive flavour compared to any other form of cooking. Disposable BBQ’s are fine to use as long as you stick to things that will cook quickly like burgers, steaks or sausages.

Rob’s top tip: make sure you place disposable BBQ on bricks, concrete or even bare earth (…in my student days I did manage to put a disposable BBQ on a flower bed that had wood chippings…and managed to set them on fire, oops!)

TOOLS – Long handled tongs and flippers are essential to avoid too much smoke inhalation and getting too hot.

HYGIENE – Make sure you have clean plates to put cooked meat onto. You want everyone to stay healthy so avoid putting cooked meat onto the plate you took it off when it was raw.

DRINKS – It’s thirsty work barbequing so make sure you are well supplied with your favourite tipple. Failing that, have a back-up plan and adopt the Australian BBQ shuffle. This is a phenomenon I noticed when living out in Australia; when the person playing with the items on the BBQ runs out of drink, they disappear off to get another one. The person closest to the BBQ takes over until they run out and so the BBQ shuffle was born!

OVER CATER – No one remembers there being too much food in a bad way, however if you run out and people are hungry you will hear about it for ages! To avoid wastage don’t plan your usual lunches for the rest of the week, use your leftovers.

CHICKEN – To cook chicken properly, cook it in the oven and then finish it off on the BBQ – it’s a sure fire way of cooking it through properly but still getting a great BBQ flavour.

SALAD – Don’t take your salad leaves out of the fridge until just before everything else is ready to serve, otherwise they will wilt. Also avoid putting your salad dressing on your leafy salad in advance as this will also cause the leaves to wilt and go soggy. Show off your lovely bottle of Newman’s Own beside the salad and let people help themselves!

SAUCES – You’ll need the top 3 classic accompaniments for your food – BBQ sauce, tomato ketchup and mayonnaise. But don’t be afraid to try something up and coming like chilli sauce or garlic mayonnaise.

Did You Know…?

About 75% of all American households own a barbecue grill, meaning there are over 79 million barbecues in the USA alone! That’s a whopping 1.4 billion bottles of BBQ sauce used every summer!

Christmas BBQ? It’s a bit early to talk about Christmas but did you know that 200,000 people in the UK had a BBQ at Christmas? For the more level-headed Brits, we know that 21% of us now have BBQs during the Spring, with a further 13% claiming to BBQ all-year round! We love to BBQ!

Get your sizzle on at the Newman’s Own Barbecue Academy

Posted on by

It’s the barbecue event that grill-groupies up and down the country have been waiting for – Grillstock 2011. And what better way to enjoy all the action at this year’s show while tucking into delicious barbecued food and salads created with the help of Newman’s Own marinades and dressings.

Visit the Newman’s Own Barbecue Academy at Grillstock 2011 and learn new skills and recipes so you can host the perfect barbecue. Find out how the Newman’s Own range adds the perfect touch to barbecued meat and veg, as well as oodles of flavour to side salads and pastas. Better still, there are no artificial preservatives, colourings or flavours.

The Sticky BBQ Marinades – Original, Honey or Hickory – taste wonderful smothered over steaks, pork ribs and chicken drumsticks, while the Creamy Cajun Marinade is great for spicing up chicken thighs and creating fiery kebabs. And new Smokin’ Hot Mesquite is set to get temperatures rising!

Simple but tasty side dishes can easily be created using Newman’s Own French, Italian & Balsamic dressings, which are delicious when drizzled over crispy salads or stirred into couscous. And the Light versions of these products will appeal to any calories counters in the crowd. The creamy Maple & Mustard and Ranch dressings also double up as tasty dips or can even be mixed through warm pasta.

Whatever your favourite meat, salad or pasta dish, Newman’s Own products are so versatile; you’ll be surprised at how well they work! Late Hollywood star Paul Newman wasn’t afraid to experiment with flavours, which is how he developed this world-class range.

There’s another thing that makes Newman’s Own products so special – all profits go straight to charities around the world – including many in the UK. So far over $300 million has been donated making Newman’s Own Dressings and Marinades quite simply, generously delicious! Find the range in supermarkets nationwide.

Looking for some inspiration on the barbecue? Try this recipe for finger-licking Cajun Chicken Skewers:

Creamy Cajun Chicken Skewers with Cucumber in Ranch Dressing

As well as chicken, the Creamy Cajun marinade can also be used to glaze fish, lamb, vegetables or chunks of firm tofu.

Preparation time: 15 minutes (plus marinating)

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Serves: 4

Per serving: 294kcals, 10g fat, 1.7g saturated fat

Ingredients:

  • 4 boneless chicken breasts or 8 boneless chicken thighs, skinned and cubed
  • 1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into 2.5cm chunks
  • 24 pieces of pineapple, roughly the same size as the chicken cubes
  • 4 tablespoons Newman’s Own Creamy Cajun Marinade

To serve:

  • ½ cucumber, finely diced
  • 4 tablespoons Newman’s Own Ranch Dressing

Method:

  1. Put the chicken, pepper and pineapple in a bowl and pour over the Newman’s Own Creamy Cajun Marinade. Cover and leave in the fridge to marinate for several hours or overnight
  2. Thread the chicken, pepper and pineapple pieces alternately on to 8 skewers, place side by side on a foil-lined grill rack and spoon over any marinade left in the bowl.
  3. Grill under medium heat for about 10 minutes, turning the skewers occasionally and basting with the juices, until the chicken is cooked through.
  4. Mix the finely diced cucumber with the Newman’s Own Ranch Dressing and serve with the chicken skewers.

Tip: If using wooden skewers soak them for 30 minutes in cold water or cover the ends with small pieces of foil to stop them burning under the grill.

Slow Cooked Leg Of Lamb With Rosemary & Mustard Crust

Posted on by

Rosemary & Mustard Crusted Lamb Served

A rare free weekend at home meant I had the chance to roll out the Mac’s ProQ™ Excel 20 and give it the time it deserves with a lovely leg of lamb.

The Excel 20 is very versatile and in addition to being a grill and a smoker, it’s easy to replicate the cooking style of very expensive (and trendy) steam ovens which produce beautifully moist roasts of meat.

Here’s what I did…

  • Take a whole leg of lamb, gave it a good rinse and pat dry – mine weighed in around 2.8kgs.
  • With a sharp paring knife, stab the leg in several places and insert slivers of garlic so they sit in the meat.
  • Next a light coating of olive oil rubbed all over the leg, followed by a generous rub over with flaked sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
  • The rosemary wet rub is one standard supermarket pack of rosemary (just the leaves (but keep the stalks for later) finely chopped and then mixed with 2-3 tablespoons of wholegrain mustard smeared generously all over the leg.
  • I was looking for only a very subtle hint of smoke flavour so I set the Excel 20 up with a full load of charcoal that had turned white and added just one small lump of cherry to get it going followed by the rosemary stalks.

Rubbed and Ready

  • Fill the water bowl and sit over the coals so as the meat is slow-roasting, the steam is keeping it lovely and moist.
  • I wanted to cook at a slightly higher temperature than a normal smoking sessions so I kept all the bottom vents open – this leveled the temp out at around 280-300 degrees F and I kept it there for about 5 hrs

Lamb After 2 Hrs

  • After a couple of hours, the lamb was looking superb, but a prod around (confirmed by a meat thermometer) indicated the inside was still very rare so I topped up the water bowl, lid back on and left it for another 3 hrs.

5hrs In and Ready To Rest - Photo by Kayleigh Adams

  • Crucially, the leg was removed from the grill, loosely tented in tin foil and allowed to rest about 20 mins before slicing to allow the juices to redistribute.

Lamb Ready to Serve

With a starting weight of 2.8kgs, the leg comfortably fed 6 adults and a number of kids with generous portions, seconds and thirds for those that wanted it and enough leftover for lamb sarnies today. I served it up with a big bowl of roast potatoes, some salad and some fresh tomatoes. And a dish of fresh mint sauce of course.

In my view, this cooking method knocks the spots off oven-cooking lamb. My only initial concern was that too much moisture would mean the crust would fail to form properly, but as you can see from the photos – this was certainly NOT the case! The low temperature and slow roasting delivered superbly tender flesh whilst the steaming effect kept the whole joint moist and succulent with a superb crust.