Barbeque - most voted by our primeval ancestors

I was brought up on barbeque. My Dad would take me cross-country skiing miles and miles into the Sub-Arctic taiga where, after clearing up a little plot from 3-foot-thick snow we would make a camp fire and have home-made munches while waiting for the flame to calm down and the cinders to become white.

Lamb, reindeer, or sometimes even saiga or bear meat as well as whole tomatoes would have been marinated in vinegar, onions, and black pepper the day before. Pre-skewered by Mom, they would then slowly get cooked, becoming deliciously charred on the outside but remaining pink inside. The smoky and tangy aroma of Dad's barbeque is one of the most powerful memories of my childhood.



















Since then I have travelled around the world and seen other ways of cooking meat over charcoals: Japanese yakitori and Southern soul barbeque parties, Argentine parillada and Bavarian steckerlfisch, South African braai, Indian tandoori, Turkish fish grilled in vine leaves and Catalan charcoaled with parsley butter.

Best barbeques all around the world share the same secret. It is very simple yet too many people don't seem to understand it. All too often meat is yanked into raging fire only to end up as scorched bits of burnt animal protein. The Main BBQ Principle is so important it should be put to music and chanted as a mantra at dawn and sunset:

The coals must be white
With no flames in sight!

This mantra should also be in every beginner cook's textbook: chicken and rosemary, lamb and mint. These combinations are unbeatable. You can see both on the picture above.
Fish hardly needs any herbs or spices as they would overpower its delicate flavour, just some sea salt, coarsely ground black pepper and a sprinkle of lemon juice are more than enough. To make white-fleshed fish flavour more pronounced it can be soaked Japanese style in the mix of equal parts of sake, mirin and shoyu.

One more rule that can be emphasized enough: always pat dry whatever you barbecue. I use thick kitchen rolls for that. Wet meat yanked on hot coals ends up half-boiled instead  of deliciously sizzled.

Another fantastic way of grilling fish they know in Thailand. Thai fresh-water catfish is gutted, stuffed with  fresh lemon grass, rolled in sea salt and put on grill. It is served with a fiery dip of chopped chillies, crushed garlic and fish sauce.

The same dip is fantastic with Southern Thai grilled fresh-water prawn. They are done à pointe, so that the meat is just done but the buttery innards, called man goong in Thai, remain uncurdled. Delish!
These are great companions for barbecue (see the picture below):

• kurkuma rice
• Southern potato salad
• verdure alla griglia: grilled aubergines, zucchini, shiitake and red onions marinated in mix of olive oil, white wine vinegar, sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper
• grilled portobello mushrooms filled with sauce of crème fraîche, white wine, oyster sauce and, you guessed it, coarsely ground black pepper.