Fancy barbecue in the rain

When I originally decided I wanted to have a barbecue, the forecast was much nicer. As soon as I’ve decided on something I’m going to cook, I tend to think about it a lot and formulate a plan. So when the weather looked fairly rubbish this weekend, I had planned too much to change my mind.

As well as this, my parents had given us a barbecue ages ago and I’ve been itching to use it. I put it all together this morning, and only had a few bits leftover when I’d finished!

Now there is no need for a barbecue to be like this, last time we had one we just had burgers, but I spent all today doing boring jobs and was ready to hang out in the kitchen for a while.  Plus, inspired by our trip to Turkey I had an urge to cook meat on sticks.

So the menu is: Halloumi kebabs, lamb and aubergine kebabs, tabbouleh, and watercress and carrot salad. Poncy, eh?

First, prep the lamb. Lamb is really expensive at the moment, my butcher actually apologised for the price! But like I said, my heart was set on it, and it was a one off. I made a little rub for the cubed lamb, with pepper, cumin, paprika, chilli flakes and salt, mushed up in a pestle and mortar. You don’t need loads of it.

Throw it in a freezer bag and put in the lamb. Tie the top and give it all a squidge round so all the lamb gets some of the coating. Leave this out of the fridge to get the flavour into the meat, for at least half an hour.

Next I made the halloumi kebabs by chopping into big chunks the cheese, some courgette and some peppers. I skewered all this with a little bit of basil on the cheese, than drizzled it with a bit of olive oil and black pepper.

The irony is, after spending a small fortune on the lamb, we both actually preferred the halloumi. I think that’s probably just because halloumi is absolutely amazing stuff.

Then I made the tabouleh (out of interest, how do you pronounce this, TAB-ouleh? Tab-OU-leh?) Cook bulgur wheat according to the packet instructions (I think it varies slightly depending on the packet)

I would normally say that life’s too short to peel tomatoes unless they’re going in a sauce so you really need to get rid of the skin. However, today I was quite happy listening to music and pottering in the kitchen, so I though I may as well. Slightly score the skin, then pour over boiling water. Leave it a few minutes, but no more or they’ll start cooking. Then run under cold water. The skin should come off really easily. Then pull out the stalks and the seeds and finely chop.  

Finely chop red onion, mint and parsley, then mix it all together with the cooled bulgur wheat. Add the juice of at LEAST half a lemon, a really good slosh of olive oil and some salt and pepper. 

Once the lambs been sitting in the rub for a while it’s good to go. Put it on some skewers with some big chunks of aubergine and rub a little oil on to help prevent it sticking.

The watercress salad is just loads of chopped up salad stuff with some grated carrot, and a quick balsamic dressing. (one part balsamic to two parts olive oil and a little salt and pepper). Ours had watercress, cucumber, celery, spring onion and a handful of mixed seeds. Because I’m a hippy.

I also threw some asparagus on there, because I find it completely impossible to see half price asparagus at this time of year without buying it. Just toss it in a little olive oil and salt and pepper, it only takes 5 – 10 minutes on the barbecue so put it on last.

Prep done! A couple of top tips for barbecuing I heard on Woman’s Hour the other day (so rock and roll):

- Make sure all the coals have gone grey and there are no flames.

- Make sure the meat is at room temperature; it stops it from being too tough when it gets the shock of going on the heat.

- Don’t turn things too much, as you risk losing a lot of the juices which keep the meat moist.

My own tip is just to work out how long things need so you put it on in the right order, and not play with it too much. Our new barbecue has a lid, which is really handy for more even cooking.

So for this I put the lamb on first. They don’t take that long, about 5 – 10 minutes on each side. Then the halloumi, and finally the asparagus.

Frankly, yum!