flaming good

Sue Lawrence lights the fires and chucks another shrimp on the barbie.

Do you know, I used to hate barbecues. It was the inevitability factor. You knew there would be chops, ribs and sausages with rice and pasta salad. The males, armed with barbecue tongs and unmanly aprons, would drink copious amounts of beer while sharing tales of derring-do on the golf course and stabbing either the raw or the burnt meat in front of them. The females drank far too much wine while impatiently waiting. Because, no matter how well planned the great Scottish barbecue was, we never seemed to get it quite right. All too often the barbecue recipes were way too complicated which is why the meat ended up burnt or dangerously raw inside. Also, the accompaniments were dull and boring, the fire was never lit in time, the rain stayed away until just before the first shrimp was being thrown on the Barbie then a downpour ensued.

Thankfully, we have moved on. With more experience and better equipment, the doomed Scottish barbie is a thing of the past. You can virtually cook anything on barbecues, especially if you have an all-singing, all-dancing model. I recently barbecued a whole fillet of beef (about 1.2 kilos). It was marinated in olive oil for one hour, seared on a high heat for 10 minutes then wrapped in foil and cooked over a lower heat for 30 minutes.

After 10 minutes' resting, it cut into beautifully tender slices. A whole chicken can be cooked in the same way, but for longer, until the juices run clear.

Prawns, langoustines and scrubbed mussels can be placed dir...

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• By : Sue Lawrence
• In : Food
• Issue : 52
• Page : 42
• Words : 971