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In your part of the world, when you get together with friends and family for some outdoor cooking, what food do you like to cook and how do you cook it?
Thanks!
PS : I'm asking here instead of in the food forum because I'd like a more "global" response.
PPS : The reason I'm asking is that I'm studying to become a culinary anthropologist/historian, with plans to eventually open a restaurant that features historical techniques of cooking with wood and charcoal from various cultures.
What I like about wood and charcoal cooking is that it's done in almost every culture in the world. All of our ancestors first cooked their meals using some form of wood-fired grill and clay, stone, or brick oven, and preserved their foods using woodsmoke (along with salt, sugar, and other techniques such as sausage-making).
I'm in Australia and gas barbeques are probably the more popular form of outdoor cooker now. There are the old Webers that use briquettes still kicking around but gas bbq would be the most common. Pizza ovens are also becoming quite popular too.
What Australians in general barbeque is a difficult question as it depends on their ethnic background and/or culinary expertise/daring. Can range from boring, greasy sausages to ... sky's the limit!
What do we personally barbeque? Pretty much everything. Any meats or seafood we barbeque is always marinated first. Lamb chops are our favourite. Lamb is a good price here as it's plentiful. Our favourite marinade is olive oil, garlic, lemon and oregano. Or olive oil, dijon mustard, garlic, lemon and rosemary.
We also love steak on the bbq. Chicken thighs. Not so much breast - prefer that pan-fried.
Kangaroo fillets are also good. But you have to love your meat rare as it goes tough as shoe leather. It's quite a healthy meat but many Australians are squeamish about eating their national symbol.
We have a wonderful variety of fish and seafood, so that goes on the barbie too.
There's a good range of sausages too. We like Italian sausages.
And veggies done on the barbie are delicious.
Pork - I prefer slow-cooked in the oven. But when I do ribs, I slow-cook them in the oven first, then barbeque them for about 5 minutes to get that smokey flavour.
Man, I wish I could eat lamb and mutton more often, but it's too expensive here because not many people eat it regularly. However, Sam's BBQ does a great barbecue mutton that they slow cook in the pit (smoker) for about twelve hours. Sam's is a very popular place with Austin musicians, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, who was a regular there. It's so loved by the locals that when it burned down a few years ago, a bunch of customers got together and rebuilt it for free.
I wonder if kangaroo would benefit from our low-and-slow barbecuing technique? It works wonders on beef brisket, a notoriously tough cut of meat. We smoke it for up to 15 hours at around 225F (107C), which gives the collagen and fat plenty of time to melt and lubricate the meat, while at the same time the smoke flavor has plenty of time to penetrate. Delicious!
Kangaroo fillets are also good. But you have to love your meat rare as it goes tough as shoe leather. It's quite a healthy meat but many Australians are squeamish about eating their national symbol.
What does Kangaroo taste like ? And don´t say chicken.
August in Portugal - sardines grilled over charcoal or wood.
That's really cool. Here in the US we usually only eat sardines that have been canned, but I like them. I first had them as a kid when I would go camping with my granddad. We would eat them with Ritz crackers. Very tasty!
BTW, I read an article recently that said the ocean ecology would benefit greatly if people learned to eat more prey fish like sardines rather than top-tier predator fish like tuna and swordfish.
@kerouc2: We *love* smoking sausages here! The old-timers refer to them as "hot guts"
I haven't had andoulette, but I made a lentil stew last week using Louisiana Cajun andouille sausage, tomatoes and fresh okra. The andouille gave it some good flavor.
Last edited by elcoyoteloco; 08-27-2010 at 07:44 AM..
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