The essential kettle for tea around the campfire.
Lighting a fire for cooking takes outdoor food into a new dimension and is another element in the unpredictable adventure of eating al fresco. A picnic is artifice; a campfire is survival – or so we like to think. Barbecues lie somewhere in between, surrounded by glamour derived from North American influences and all the accessories that are deemed necessary. The combination of managing naked flames and the potential for collecting odd-shaped implements is remarkably appealing to people who might otherwise take no interest in cooking.
You don’t need to be camping in the sense of living outdoors to light a campfire – follow the example of previous generations and light one to heat one or two ingredients to go with the remaining meal. The smell of wood smoke, the crackle of the flames and the heat (especially if the day is on the chilly side) add another aspect to a meal outdoors. Barbecues are designed with the specific purpose of grilling food, although the heat can also be used for cooking all kinds of other things. I sometimes put pans of water on the grill for boiling eggs or other foods, and as long as heat control is not crucial, this works fine. Campfires, with careful management, produce a range of heat, from the blazing hot to the very slow, and, given suitable implements and containers, you can cook anything from grilled marshmallows to large and complex stews on them.
National Trust properties try, where possible, to encourage campfires or barbecues, but policy varies and often it is only permitted in particular areas at properties. Always ask staff at individual locations, check local signs and follow the Countryside Code, a guide to enjoying the countryside generally, in a manner that recognises the responsibilities and safety of visitors and inhabitants alike. It can be viewed at the Nature England website.
National Trust properties that encourage barbecues in areas provided include Studland (Dorset), Clumber Park (Nottinghamshire), Bossington (on the Holnicote Estate, Somerset) and Lyme Park (near Stockport, Cheshire). Lighting fires generally is often discouraged by landowners and campsites, however. There are problems with safety, the possibility of fire spreading to crops or other vegetation, and the potential for irritating other people with smoke. Some campsites have begun to provide fire pits. Rules relating to Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, National Parks, Ancient Monuments and Sites of Special Scientific Interest all have a bearing on the use of barbecues and especially campfires, as do the attitudes of individual landowners and their tenants. Take local advice.
Beaches provide some of the best outdoor venues for al fresco barbecues and campfires. They often have pieces of driftwood – and a fire needs fuel. Always make sure that the smoke generated will not irritate anyone else and that there are no fire risks close by, and also be sure to extinguish all the embers afterwards, by pouring water over them if necessary. If you insist on using a disposable barbecue, take the remains away and dispose of them properly. Anything that requires the digging of a pit, or special constructions for holding whole animals in place, is outside the scope of this book (delicious though clam bakes and hog roasts can be). Nor is this a manual of bushcraft or survival techniques. The ideas and recipes for cooking on a campfire are simple and rely on ingredients easily available from local shops, with some suggestions for a little modest foraging. It’s more important that the recipes are interesting, fun, and most of all, produce good food.
Everyone has tales of barbecue food from hell: sausages charred on the outside and raw in the middle, and chicken pink at the bone. The potential for food poisoning is real, and badly cooked food is unpleasant as well as dangerous. Take extra care over storing food. Cover dips and cold dishes with clingfilm, or put them in lidded boxes or bowls. Keep them in the fridge or a chilled cool box until needed, and keep them separate from uncooked food, especially meat and fish. Raw meat and fish should be stored in the fridge on lower shelves than salads or other prepared or cooked foods, or in separate cool box. Meat benefits from being given 20–30 minutes to reach room temperature before cooking, so remove it and allow it to stand, covered and out of the sun, for a short while when needed.
For cooking on a barbecue, it is important when cooking meat and fish to have hot enough coals – the white ash stage is crucial. Very hot coals will cook small pieces of food, such as fish, burgers, and steaks quickly, but some items, including sausages and especially larger pieces of meat, need longer cooking at a more gentle temperature. Get the fire started well in advance and allow plenty of time – more time than you think you need. Have a supply of dips and other nibbles for people to eat while things are cooking. Use a temperature probe to check the internal temperature of large pieces of meat, but the best way to discover if something is done is to cut it open. If it isn’t cooked, put it back to cook a bit more.
There is a lingering misapprehension, perhaps to do with the initial burst of heat, that barbecuing is a quick method of cooking. Although it is true that small items will cook in minutes, they would also do so in conventional grills as well. Intense heat from embers, whether in a barbecue or campfire, browns the exterior of food very quickly, but heat penetrates to the centre more slowly, so try to keep anything that needs a while to fully cook through away from the hottest part of the coals to a less intense part of the fire. Don’t worry that the food will lack the barbecue flavour – it will develop perfectly well over time. Be patient, allow plenty of time for cooking.
For large hunks of meat, use a kettle barbecue or any barbecue with a lid that has a generous amount of space underneath. Arrange the coals so that they are not directly under the meat and put a foil tray in the space left. This catches drips and fat so that it doesn’t fall directly onto the coals and create too much smoke (some water can be added to the tray to prevent the drips drying out and burning).
Barbecued food, delicious as it is, benefits from sauces to help it go down. Make some flavoured butters or sauces such as pesto and Tapenade to eat with it and also have some mayonnaise (a good-quality version bought from a shop is fine if you don’t want to make it). Add a green salad dressed with oil and vinegar. For carbs, I prefer bread, but add in a potato salad or rice salad, or your favourite couscous, tabbouleh or pasta salad.
Safety and courtesy should always come first, especially if you are planning to make a fire on land not belonging to you. Campsites usually have rules about lighting fires, although some provide purpose-built fire pits or barbecue pits. Always find out what the rules are before lighting anything. Lighting will involve a certain amount of smoke, so think about the comfort of others who might be nearby.
Away from organised outdoor facilities, choose a site carefully, bearing in mind the wind speed and direction, and the nature of the surrounding vegetation. An open space with some bare ground (a beach, lake shore or riverbank, for example) offers good possibilities. Don’t light barbecues or fires in places where there is a lot of dry vegetation generally, or heather, peat and conifers, particularly plantations of pine, fir and the like. All these have the potential to literally go up in flames, and you do not want to be responsible for a forest fire. When you have finished with the barbecue or fire, make sure it is fully extinguished – the only sure way to do this is to pour water over the embers, as stated above.
The design of a barbecue makes a huge difference to the way it functions and how food cooks. A basic barbecue can be acquired for a few pounds (in the past I’ve even improvised one using a bit of terracotta land drain, some crumpled chicken wire and a small piece of metal grille).
Barbecues are available in a bewildering variety of sizes and designs. All have pros and cons, some of which are outlined below. This still leaves enormous choice. Strangely, there seems to be a shortage of the most useful shape – a rectangular trough often improvised by cutting an oil drum in half. The length allows for a hot end for quick cooking and starting things off, and a cooler end for slow cooking, finishing items, and keeping food warm. A lid is helpful, and should be high enough to accommodate a whole chicken or a larger joint of meat on large barbecues.
A newly lit campfire is a cheering sight; let it burn down before cooking begins.
Hibachis are small, shallow, tray-like barbecues, based on a Japanese design. They can be used in tiny spaces, and have two or three levels, but they only have space for relatively small items. They are useful in a restricted space and for cooking for small numbers, or for foods that need quick heat and a short cooking time, such as satay.
Bucket barbecues are the best choice if you want something portable, because these often have clip-on lids and carrying handles. They are easy to pack for a barbecue away from home, as part of a picnic or to take on a camping trip, and they can be used in small spaces. They are best for small items such as fish, steaks or sausages, or for cooking small amounts of something such as vegetables while a larger barbecue is being used for meat. Disadvantages include no choice of levels and difficulty in controlling the heat because of the restricted space, although coals could be moved between this and another suitable metal container using a pair of charcoal tongs.
Kettle barbecues come in many sizes, from that of a large bucket up to something that can accommodate an entire turkey. The largest allow enough space for keeping hot coals at one side, and sometimes have a rack for keeping food warm at a level well above the coals. Their domed lids make them good for big pieces of meat, whole chickens and long cooking, and the bigger ones provide large grilling areas, useful for cooking for bigger parties. They have the disadvantage that a bit of practise is needed to get the best out of them, and that the coals are sometimes relatively distant from the food.
As far as I’m concerned, barbecues are about grilling over charcoal (or the embers of a wood fire), which gives a great combination of heat and flavour. I acknowledge the existence of gas-fired barbecues, and I can see that they might be useful for large parties. I am ambivalent about briquettes, which give a sustained heat and have their uses for long cooking. And, on the subject of flavour, fire-lighters and lighting fluid give a chemical smell to fuel (although I admit that instant-lighting bags of charcoal work quite well).
The easiest method for lighting charcoal is to use a chimney starter. These are invaluable. They can take a batch of charcoal from a smouldering start to the white-ash stage in about 20 minutes, at which point the coals can be emptied into the barbecue proper to use almost immediately or to seed a fire with more charcoal if necessary. You simply put a couple of coils of newspaper (see below) into the base of the chimney starter and fill the top part with charcoal, then light the newspaper. If you’ve underestimated the amount of charcoal needed, or want to boost a low fire, simply light another batch of charcoal in the starter.
Pine cones, egg boxes and newspaper are also invaluable fire-starting materials. Very dry, resinous pine cones may not need much beyond a match to get them started, especially if you have some dry pine needles to act as tinder (but see the safety notes above, and be very cautious indeed about starting fires anywhere near conifers). Three or four cones jammed into the base of a chimney starter will help it burn up well.
Some people sneer in a bushcraft kind of way at using newspaper to start barbecues and campfires, but if the aim is to cook food rather than demonstrate your knowledge of survival techniques, then why not? Start at a corner and roll a sheet into a long, reasonably tight roll, then tie the roll in a loose knot. Make several of these and tuck them down among the kindling or coals then set light to a couple of ends. If you have some pine cones handy, put one in the middle of each knot.
Alternatively, use an egg box. Put a lump of charcoal or a pine cone in each depression, close the top and bury it in the kindling or charcoal. Set light to one corner. And, when using matches, try to make sure you have extra-long cook’s matches, then strike two together – doing this makes them less likely to get blown out by a puff of wind. Never use a barbecue indoors or in an enclosed space.
Once the charcoal is lit and the initial smoke has died down, the coals need to burn until they are uniformly covered with white ash. This is essential. Keep an eye on them to make sure that they burn evenly and, especially in the early stages, that they don’t go out. They can be gently moved with tongs to help distribute the fire evenly, but don’t fiddle with them too much. Once the white-ash stage is reached, spread the charcoal to provide a suitable area for grilling over. Initially they should contain a lot of heat and will char things very fast, so it might be an advantage to have fewer coals – and therefore a cooler area – at one side of the barbecue.
If the coals seem to cool off, then it’s useful to have a device known in my household as a wafter: something with which to fan the coals. A flexible round rush place mat works very well. Held halfway down using both hands and played vigorously over the coals, it can revive a sluggish fire in a surprisingly short time or induce a burst of heat to help brown the exterior of a slightly pallid piece of meat. Should a drip of fat land on the coals and ignite, a single, sharp flap towards you with the wafter is usually enough to blow out the flame.
Many of the general observations about the practicalities of picnic food apply here too, especially if you’re going to take a barbecue out for the day or on a camping trip, but there are some things that are specific to cooking over embers.
Use wire baskets to hold fragile foods and tongs to turn things. Brush items likely to dry out, such as very lean meat with oil or melted butter before and during cooking; some marinades can be used to brush items during cooking as well, but if raw meat or fish has been marinating in the mixture, only use this at the start of cooking. Alternatively, brush with a favourite barbecue sauce, or sprinkle the cooked side of meats with seasoning mixtures of herbs, spices and salt. The general advice is not to salt meat until the end of cooking, although I don’t always follow this. Mediterranean cultures add extra flavour to meat and fish by adding rosemary branches or fennel stems to the coals, to create aromatic smoke.
• Long-handled charcoal tongs and a poker or rake for moving hot coals around.
• Foil trays for catching drips under large, long-cooked foods.
• Tongs for turning pieces of food and moving them to hotter or cooler spots.
• Gauntlets and other oven cloths for protecting your hands from the heat.
• Brushes for adding oil or marinades. Pastry brushes can be used, or, for brushing food during cooking, make a bundle of herb sprigs – thyme, marjoram and rosemary – then tie it to a stick and use this instead.
• Washable metal or plastic trays for holding raw ingredients, and attractive ones for handing round nibbles and drinks.
• Different types of skewer: metal ones with a flat section for kebabs; double ones like giant hairpins for pieces of vegetable; small wooden ones for satay and other little delicacies (soak wooden ones for 30 minutes before using).
• Wire baskets for holding fragile food, especially fish, or for cooking batches of sausages, burgers or kofta.
• A digital probe thermometer – helpful for checking the internal temperature of poultry.
• Zip-type bags for marinating meat, especially if cooking away from home, and for holding batters and dry mixes when camping.
• Extra space – try to arrange some table space near to the barbecue.
• Lots of kitchen paper for wiping greasy fingers and generally mopping up.
• A wire brush for cleaning off the barbecue grill in between batches of food and after cooking.
Most of all, any barbecue chef needs a willing helper. There is always a point when another pair of hands is useful, or someone needs to be taking care of the food on the grill while you heat something else, pour drinks or greet guests.
