Easy peasy

Excellent result from the barbecue this evening. Definitely the best yet. Up to now I have been following the guidance from my Weber manual but it turns out that there's a few things they suggested that just don't seem to work.

So I now have made a mental note of what I did and I'm gonna stick with the basic steps here.

Step 1. Talk to people who know what they are doing and ask them for some tips. Thanks to everyone who gave me tips. Some of the clear winning tips include using a meat thermometer (need to go to a hardware store for that.. might not to go Atlantic though) but that will have to wait until next time. Another great tip was pressing down the middle of the burgers to make the middle a little thinner. This worked out really well. Another idea was to use an onion soup as a marinade. Definitely gonna try that one.

Step 2. Get some good burgers. Hey these are my steps so if I want to stick with beef burgers I will. I got some nice big fat ones in Blackrock yesterday. While I was there I bumped into one of my old bosses. It was one of those strange moments where I wasn't sure if we both should pretend we don't see each other. But we didn't do that.

Burgers are shown below before I got near them.

This time I didn't marinade them, or anything fancy at all. A bit of a press in the middle and on they went. Now I had lit the grill maybe 30 minutes before and it was damn hot. I mean really hot. Excellent. That's where I went wrong before. I kept opening the blooming lid to check if it was hot and poking it like men do. That was a mistake so now I light the thing and walk away for a half hour. Lid on and no touching.

My was there smoke. Loads of it as soon as I put these lads on the grill. The whole garden was clouded in tasty smoke. Mmmmmmm.


Step 3. Get your other good stuff ready. Mmmmm. Cheese. Yep slices of cheese does it for me and my clan. And of course you have to have some salad to ease the guilt I guess.

Burger buns, or bundys as we call them over here, are a must. We like the ones with the sesame seeds though god alone knows why this is important.

Step 4. Get the drinks in. The wife and I are working our way (over an extended period of time mind you) through our stash of wine bottles and today we enjoyed a very nice French red.

I am no wine expert but you could tell this wine was from France at the first sip. Full of taste and serious. Nice.


Step 5. Get out there and check the burgers are not still raw or burnt. They were just grand. 5 to 6 minutes a side and they were ready to be introduced to my teeth. The picture below was after the first 5 minutes before I flipped them. You could see the juice in the little depression I made in the middle of the burgers. These burgers were really juicy when they were done. Lush!


Step 6. Stick burgers in a bun with whatever stuff you can cram into your mouth and devour with gusto. Keep a napkin or rag handy in case you drool or juices slip out of your burger. Wash the whole lot down with a large glass of red.

Trés bien fait!

Lovely stuff. Now if we can get a few more decent days of sunshine I'll try something more adventurous than burgers.

If you've had any luck with anything else, you know some kind of exotic way of cooking chicken on the barbecue that even a barbecue novice like me could follow then be sure to fire some ideas my way.

If you've been grilling tonight too hope it's been fun for you also.