Ooookay! We’ve all been there. The British barbecue. Charred supermarket sausages, raw burgers, soggy, processed buns, possibly some limp lettuce leaves and warm beer all consumed under a dripping umbrella.
Here’s just one alternative Portuguese version.
On the day before the event :-
1) Take sufficient olives that you preserved in brine last season and place in a dish filled with olive oil. Add a couple of cloves of chopped garlic and a diced chilli (seeds included) and leave in the fridge to marinate overnight.
2) Parboil a couple of peeled carrots, slice artistically and cover in red wine vinegar and chopped garlic. Leave in the fridge to marinate overnight.
3) Take one large leg of lamb – straight from the hoof (OZ style), or from your best local butcher. Bone it out, removing tendons and sinew and spatchcock it, butterflying the meat until it is less than an inch thick and about four times the area it was originally. Heat some olive oil gently and add the zest from a fresh lemon, lime or orange (anything citric will do) depending what looked best on your trees, and couple of garlic cloves mashed to a paste with lots of rock salt. Allow the oil to cool and pour it over the meat, making sure it is all well covered. N.B. Use an earthenware or glass dish for this, never, ever anything metal. Add several large sprigs of rosemary from the garden, cover and leave in the fridge to marinate overnight.
4) Make a lemon cheesecake for dessert. Leave in fridge overnight .
On the day, two hours prior to kick-off:-
1) Light the barbecue (we are talking at the very least here a free standing brick effort with a chimney, but even better a 45 gallon oil drum sawn in half lengthways and given a reinforced metal frame with legs and a welded mesh grill) using kindling and twigs, even though this is illegal in Portugal in the summer. Never, ever use petroleum-based artificial accelerants.
2) Once well alight, feed the glowing embers with copious quantities of locally-produced lumpwood charcoal and leave it to sort itself out.
3) Scale and gut (in that order) a decent sized wild salmon and place in a double-layered foil parcel. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper, a carton of coconut cream, a chopped chilli and a glass of white wine. Seal the parcel tightly at the edges leaving plenty of space around the fish.
4) Take several slices of local bread and cut out sufficient circles using a small dough cutter. (That’s not the right word. What do you call those serrated, circular nests of metal pie cutters with handles on top?) Anyway, brush with olive oil and toast. Slice tomato, and queijo fresco (goat or sheep cheese is best although mozzarella is an adequate substitite) and place a slice of cheese on the toast, topped with a slice of tomato and a pitted olive. Just before serving, dress with virgin olive oil, a little rock salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper.
5) Slice peeled, hard pears vertically into eighths, core and wrap each slice with a slice of presunto, aka proscuitto and arrange nicely.
6) Prepare salad of sliced tomato and sliced red onions dressed with olive oil, white wine vinegar and lots of freshly ground black pepper.
7) Scrub and slice lengthways lots of potatoes in their skins. Place in roasting tin and drizzle with olive oil and lots of rock salt.
8) With one hour to go, the guests arrive. Place the lamb on the barbecue and the potatoes in a hot oven. Serve the marinated olives, carrots, pears and cheesey thingies, plus large quantities of chilled red and white wines and bottles of lager.
9) With 30 minutes to go, turn the lamb over and place the salmon parcel on the barbecue to poach. Throw some stalks of rosemary and a few cloves of garlic into the tray of roasting potatoes.
10) When the lamb and salmon is perfectly cooked, serve immediately with all the other dishes.
11) After the main course, serve the cheesecake, some fresh figs with chilled yoghurt and honey, or even ice cream drizzled with liqueur of choice, a cheeseboard and a big pot of freshly brewed coffee.
Seemples!
OZ
Boadicea's Chariot 
Oh drool, Oz.
I will save this, but by the time I have planned it all, the weather will have changed and it will all go horribly pear-shaped.
I despair.
It’s already raining here…
sounds lovely though. Sigh.
Araminta – Look, here’s the really basic scenario, even in Blighty. You wake up to a beautiful summer morning and all well with the world. Nip down to the fishmongers and buy a shoal of fresh, plump sardines. Return home and light the barbecue as described above. Scale the fish, sprinkle with rock salt and grill for a couple of minutes each side. Serve on a slice of freshly cut loaf (no plate) to soak up all those lovely omega 3s accompanied by the tomato and onion salad. At the end, eat the bread. Now, isn’t that better than a semi-cooked Iceland sausage?
OZ
Okay since when do wolves cook their food? Or perhaps your aren’t really a wolf….hmmm?
Sounds great Oz, now all you have to do is teach the other brits how to do it properly.
My family coming from Greece know how to do a BBQ, get the coals going very early so when lunch time arrives it is red hot and then on go the fish or the half young goat or lamb. Can’t be beaten.
Washed down with lashings of decent Greek wine (yes they do have good wine, they just keep it away from the tourists who will drink any old muck as long as it is cheap).
To start with though a glass of ouzo to clean the palate (but only Plumari, the rest are dire)
Hey OZ,
“Ooookay! We’ve all been there. The British barbecue. Charred supermarket sausages, raw burgers, soggy, processed buns, possibly some limp lettuce leaves and warm beer all consumed under a dripping umbrella.”
I’ll put my hands up to the umbrella, hell I have even had to dig through 8ft of snow to ‘Barby Up’, but the rest of that stuff is nothing short of a criminal offence. Harumph.
If ever something gets overdone on my barby chum, its questionable that even the dog might get it. How very dare you?
On the spatchcock lamb recipe,, I prefer a tandoori marinade using natural yoghurt, mint, cumin, corriander, fresh chilli (lots), ginger and garlic. The juice of a few limes and leave it all in a bag in the fridge for at least a day and a half. It works with whole chicken too, but it takes a li’l while to de-bone a whole chicken.
I got a recipe from Weber the other day and I’m busting to try it. Excuse the spam, hell they think they invented BBQ. 😦
Of course, you could be civilised about the whole thing, retire into the air-conditioning and cook your food properly while entertaining a few well chosen dinner companions with a glass of something of your chouce, away from the heat and the smoke and the mosquitos/gnats.
Bugrit! choice.
Nothing wrong with the British Barbecue if done properly. Our last one involved sirloin steak (rare), corn on the cob, grilled onions and peppers and jacket potatoes done on the barbecue. The cook (me) was rewarded with a couple of cold Belgian beers while cooking and the nosh was washed down with a very good Argentinian Bonarda. Oh, and it was blazing hot sunshine.
OZ – I could read your BBQ account every morning through summer – the words alone will nourish and sustain me. What an enjoyable post!
Apologies to all for the late reply – it’s been an expensive and long, long day starting with picking up ten litres yet more paint for The Cave’s interior. Next, into town for lunch and then a two-hour-long session with the dentist for a scale and polish. All fangs now clean and gleaming and not a remnant of grilled goat in sight. Returned home via the vet’s to pick up €20 worth of Frontline. Fed and dosed Das Fürballen, changed into best Portugal shirt and headed back to The Bar to watch the match.
From there, frankly, it all went a bit downhill. Portugal lost 0-1 to our lithping Thpanith neighbours after which we all repaired to Snowy’s house (managed by owner of said jet-black cat and the chameleon). Large quantities of garlic bread were consumed along with much larger quantities of delicious, home-made lasagne, all washed down by unending jugs of red wine.
I have only just returned.
Rick – Of course wolves cook their food, sometimes. This is the twenty-first century after all. I cooked a leg of lamb kleftiko style (‘style’ as in not having a convenient bread oven) only last week and very tender and tasty it was. Sorry, but I have to draw the line at drinking Greek wines outside Greece.
Hiya Ferret – As someone who likes his steak at best ‘tartare’ or at worst waved briefly in the general direction of a candle, I have my doubts about your ‘well done’ assertion. A yoghurt and mint marinade is an absolute given for lamb, but I’m not sure a chicken benefits from being cooked with a tin of Bud shoved up its bottom. Indirect heat, my a*se! Either marinate and grill the thing in the proper manner or replace the Budweiser tin with thyme and a whole lemon and roast it in the oven.
Bravo – Have you no soul, man? The primeval hunt, red meat, blood and open flames. Does this not stir something deep inside the caveman within you. 🙂
FEEG – Nice combination, but you gave it all away with your final “Oh, and it was blazing sunshine.” Last year, it was on a Tuesday, wasn’t it?
PapaG – Always happy to oblige. 🙂
OZ
OZ, after 25 years of soldiering, the environment is something that I feel is best viewed from the interior of a tasteful dining room, heated or cooled nicely, according to season, over crisp, snowy white linen with a graceful and charming* companion of the opposite sex and a glass or two of something suitable served at the correct temperature. Or, something to be traversed as quickly and efficiently as possible while in transit from or to such a haven. I much prefer to remain as far as possible from the sweat, smoke and flying or creeping fauna that inhabit the ‘environment,’ tvm.
* No other criteria required, imho, it came to may attention that all of those mysterious creatures who have to sit to pee are both beautiful and sensuous.**
**Except Vicky Pollard. ***
*** And the ones from Liverpool who wear tracksuits.
Bugrit. My attention.
Bravo – “… all of those mysterious creatures who have to sit to pee are both beautiful and sensuous.”
Awwww! You old romantic, you. 😀
OZ
That’s me alright: A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou…
Moi ?????
OZ
OZ,
Who said ‘well done’ for steak? Lemme addem!
I prefer mine grilled in such a manner that a half decent vet could have it up and mooing.
Anything else is an insult to the donor.
As for the beer can chicken, the whole idea is that the beer permeates the meat creating a tender, juicy chuck. While the lemon and thyme are perfect partners, I am intrigued by the method. It must be easy, even Enus up there can do it.
Ferret – Apologies. I completely misread your #5 first time around and glad to hear you also demand your slice of cow red and runny. I don’t have one of those poncey Weber jobbies, but, purely in the interests of clinical research and the furtherance of good barbecue practice you understand, I’m going out right now to grab a chicken, insert requisite can of beer and roast it in the oven. The theory seems fine and I’ll let you know how it goes.
And seeing as how you’re forcing me to be in the village at this early hour, I might just call in at the mercado and pick up some quiveringly fresh fish for the lunchtime grill.
OZ
OZ,
Don’t forget a good cajun dry rub. 🙂
OZ, whichever thou is current – but only of the sdtp flavour.
Ferret – Back from the market and the chicken has just gone into the oven. Watch this space.
OZ
Bravo
🙂
OZ
I am all pink furry ears OZ. 🙂
FEEG – Nice combination, but you gave it all away with your final “Oh, and it was blazing sunshine.” Last year, it was on a Tuesday, wasn’t it.
Not this year. Many more sunny days like we have had recently and the Warmists will be claiming they were correct after all.
Ferret – Dunno about being all pink furry ears, but you might need your little pink, bloodshot eyes to see the results, once I have worked out how to post images in a comment here, that is. Fourteen minutes cooking time left.
Feeg -Ah, it’s warm in summertime. Those global warming chappies must have been right all along. How could I ever have doubted them? 😀
OZ
OZ,
S’easy.
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Seemples.
Ferret – New post posted.
http://bearsy.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/for-ferret-beer-can-chicken/
Job jobbed 🙂
OZ