Barbecueing this summer

The summer months are just around the corner, here in the UK we've already had a taster of the hotter weather and many of us all over the world will be looking forward to hosting or attending a few garden parties with friends and family sharing a few beers and some laughs in the sun.

The staple of any summer party is the Barbecue, cooking outdoors with the basis of all cooking: An open flame! Barbecues are not just an al fresco grill you'll often find at parties that the barbecue is a social hotspot, normally the men gathering round giving their two cents on how the chef is coping with the heat and burger flipping.

Barbecueing came form the term "Barbecutorium" which is a dedicated area on a terrace or garden for the public viewing of food being cooked and grilled. It comes form the latin term Auditorium where an arrangement of seats form a semi-circular shape in a theatre, except in this case the theater is you rotating burgers and sausages and the chairs are plastic lawn furntiure!

The original type of barbecues were formed by cooking over burning wood, chances are if you still burn objects to fuel the fire you'll use coal instead, many supermarkets sell easy lighting bags of coals where you light the corner of the bag and within a few minutes you have a nice fire burning fire to cook on. By burning over a smokey fire many people think that this style makes barbecueing stand out among other more traditional cookign methods, meat tend to take on a a more smokey flavour and as long as you don't over do it you can acheive some brilliant natural flavours, just don't end up with a lump of charcoal instead of a sausage!

In restaurants that specialize in Barbecues or grills you may find that they have a much larger setup which may be a brick oven or more modern metals ones. Obviously a large restaurant can't have a series of small barbecues all burning away so these larger grills can provide hundreds of people with delicious food in a quick time frame.

Most modern barbecue chefs have recently moved to gas powered super barbecues, these are typically larger rectangular grills with less waiting times for the fire to die down and can have variable heats for different sections of the grilling surface. Whilst it's definately more convenient and gives you more space to work with like the restaurant ones mentioned previously many barbecue purists have dismissed gas powered grills.

Mal Coyle, whose book Gas Barbecues are a contradiction in terms. Getting back to Barbecue basics", Dorling Kindersley, 2005 states that gas barbecues are not barbecues at all, gas power is obviously more controllable and is more of an outdoor kitchen than cooking with the raw power of coal or wood. Some chefs are happier with the charring and heat from a gas fire than the direct heat of charcoal.

You may also be missing out on that signature barbecue taste with the smoke of a natural fire being what many people prefer, for the gas chefs with a penchant for the smokey flavour there is a device called a smoker which draws smoke from a separate fire past the meat and cooks it slowly, this would give the familiar taste which many american restaurants use.

As previously mentioned Barbecueing is mor ethan just cooking food, it's a social event, so much so that many people use the word instead of party, "I'm organising a barbecue, wanna come?" so obviously there's a fair bit of fun that goes on when someone hosts a barbecue. Peronsally I know I've been ot a few where it has rained and the chef just put up an umbrella and continued cooking!

The great thing about barbecueing is that you can have some fun with it, many chefs will wear a novelty apron to grill in these range from the classic "kiss the cook" to images of muscle-bound or bikini-clad aprons all help let the guests know that they're here to have some fun and this is by no means a formal dinner function!

For those looking to go the extra yard maybe you could look into getting a chefs hat? or chef whites? I recently had a fancy dress barbecue for my birthday and I couldn't have imagined a better way to enjoy a barbecue than for everyone to be in fancy dress. From the Blues brothers to Maximus form Gladiator!

Here's just a short list of suggestions of different ideas for cooking on the barbecue, be a bit more adventurous than bog standard burgers and simple sausages!

1. Try grilling the buns for your burgers, they'll stay more firm and not crumble under pressure of however many toppings you lash on your burger!
2. Never mind Burger King, make your own Bacon Cheeseburger and grill up some nice smoked bacon with a cheese slice on your burger.
3. Marinade your meat in a variety of sauces over night, there's plenty of interesting sauces such as Jim Beam Whiskey sauce! N0t one for the kids!

4. Cook vegetables on the grill too! Mushrooms, onions and red peppers taste amazing after being put on the BBQ!
5. Not all the food needs to be done on the BBQ, popular side dishes include rice, poatoes and nachos!
6. Paint chicken breasts or drumsticks with some sweet chilli sauce for an amazing glaze that's sweet and hot.
7. Cooking ribs individually can speed up the cooking time but leaves them open to burning, proceed with caution!
8. Boil some potatoes and chop them up into bite size chunks, stick them in the ovn for fifteen minutes with some oil and rosemary and garlic. give everyone a wooden skewer and you've got a hot little snakc whilst you're waiting for the meat to cook!
9. Using cheese slices to wrap around a sausage and putting it in a hotdog roll is a particular favorite of one of my friends!
10. A staple of the British breakfast: the Black Pudding, one of the biggest secrets in strange BBQ food that works!

So there you have it, a guide to barbecueing. Hopefully this summer you'll have great weather in your area and will have plenty of opportunities to try out some of the ideas I've mentioned or get to show off your funky apron!

If you have any other barbecue ideas then please leave me some suggestions in the comments box below, I'd love to hear about them! Thanks for checking this hub out and have a great summer!