My husband’s family learnt the art of barbecuing when they lived on the island of Cyprus in the late 1960s. They have strong feelings about how the event should unfold: a blazing-hot afternoon, a leisurely pace, a series of morsels delivered at intervals from the hot coals, eaten with cabbage salad and interspersed with refreshing slices of orange, plus an overwhelming quantity of crisps and other salty snacks and copious amounts of wine or fizzy soft drinks.
No one has told the British weather about this, and we sometimes find ourselves rigging up temporary covers for the barbecue and then retreating indoors with plates and glasses. I prefer a selection of dips, crudités and barbecued vegetables to an abundance of crisps, and I like to offer a few alternatives to all the alcohol and sugary drinks sold in the name of quenching thirst.
Skordalia, Avocado Salsa and Sweet Pepper Relish are all good here. Select from the vegetable ideas below, and also have ready some really good sausages, or some marinated lamb chops or steaks (see Marinated Steaks for a suitable marinade) to put on the coals as the afternoon progresses. Make sure there is an ample supply of good bread.
Serves 4
2 large aubergines
1 garlic clove, crushed
a scant ½ teaspoon salt
juice of ½ lemon
50g light tahini
60ml light olive oil
chopped fresh parsley or mint leaves, to garnish
An aubergine-based recipe from the eastern Mediterranean, baba ganoush has a delicious slightly smoked flavour and is good as a dip, or as a side dish for barbecued vegetables or meat. I like the slight texture created by chopping the aubergine, but you can blitz it in a food processor if you prefer.
Cook the aubergines by grilling them over the barbecue or putting it directly over the flame of a gas hob. If using the latter, keep turning them, using tongs, until the skin is black and charred all over. (This makes a mess on the hob – put foil around the burner first if the idea bothers you. The aubergines can be cooked under a grill if there is no alternative, but a direct flame is better.)
Leave the aubergines to cool and pick the blackened skin off. Be careful, as they hold the heat from cooking for quite a long time, releasing very hot cooking juices from the middle. Once you have removed the skin, and the aubergines have cooled, squeeze the flesh over the sink to remove as much juice as possible.
Chop the flesh quite finely, then scrape it into a bowl and mix well with the garlic, salt, lemon juice and tahini. Add the olive oil and stir well again. Serve garnished with parsley.
Serves 4
1 lamb’s caul
500g minced beef
a small bunch of parsley, leaves chopped
1 generous teaspoon salt
ground black pepper
good bread and Greek Cabbage Salad (opposite), to serve
Simple but delicious, sheftali are a type of coarse sausage or kebab very popular in Cyprus. Lamb caul is essential – you will probably need to order this from a good traditional butcher. One caul should be ample for 4 sheftali, with a little bit left over.
Fill a large bowl with tepid water and put the caul in it. Unravel it gently so that you have a large sheet of transparent membrane with a lacy pattern of fat. Cut 4 roughly square pieces, each 15 × 15cm, avoiding any particularly fatty parts.
Mix the beef with the parsley, salt and pepper, then divide it into four portions. Roll up each portion in a piece of caul to give a neat, sausage-shaped parcel.
Cook over medium-hot charcoal, turning every few minutes. If the surface shows signs of overcooking, move aside to a gentler heat. The fat from the caul may drip onto the coals and ignite, so keep an eye on them. Sheftali need to be very well cooked: the caul fat melts and bastes the meat, and eventually the caul more or less disappears, at which point the sheftali should be done. This can take 30 miutes, maybe more. If in doubt, cut one open. It should be cooked all the way through. Serve with good bread and cabbage salad.
Serves 4–6, or more as part of a buffet
¼ hard white cabbage
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4–6 tablespoons olive oil, to taste
salt and coarsely ground black pepper
Simple and crunchy, this salad is a good accompaniment to burgers, steaks or sausages as well as sheftali.
Remove any tatty outer leaves and the hard central stem from the cabbage, then shred the remainder quite finely. Put in a serving bowl and dress with the lemon juice and oil, adding a little salt, and finish off with a scattering of black pepper.
Makes about 325g
40g fresh coriander leaves
zest of 2 limes
juice of 1 lime
250g salted butter, cut into pieces
3 green bird’s eye chillies, or to taste, deseeded and cut into small dice
This is good with vegetables such as sweet potato, sweetcorn and butternut squash, as well as seafood, fish and chicken.
Put the coriander, lime zest and juice into a blender and process briefly, then add the butter and blend well until well combined. Stir the chillies into the mixture and chill until needed, ideally overnight.
All around the Mediterranean, people cook vegetables over hot coals, either as ingredients as part of a dish or to eat to accompany a meal. Mixed kebabs of vegetable pieces might look pretty but they are often disappointing – they cook at different rates so that the courgettes will be overdone while the onions are still crunchy. It’s often better to cook them as separate items.
Asparagus Choose thick spears and snap off any very woody ends. Brush with oil and cook over medium/medium-low heat for 7–10 minutes until just tender, turning 2 or 3 times. Scatter with coarse salt before eating.
Aubergines Put whole aubergines over a high heat and use tongs to turn them until they are soft. The skin will char, which is fine. They can produce a lot of fluid in the process – this is scalding hot and drips onto the coals. Use tongs to lift them to one side and allow them to drain onto the ground. When they are soft all the way through allow them to cool to tepid, then peel off the skin, remove the stem end and use the flesh in Baba Ganoush or add to Barbecue Ratatouille.
Butternut squash Peel, deseed and cut into 1.5cm cubes. Boil until just tender. Drain and toss in a little oil and lemon juice with a pinch of salt. Thread on kebab skewers with a small bay leaf between each piece and grill on the barbecue for 2 minutes a side or until cooked through. Thin slices cut from a chorizo sausage also go well in between the cubes of squash. Good with Lime, Chilli and Coriander Butter.
Courgettes Cut large courgettes diagonally into 1cm slices and smaller ones in half lengthways. Toss them in oil and lemon juice, then grill on the barbecue over a medium heat, turning once or twice until tender. Serve as part of a vegetable selection to accompany meat or fish, or use in Courgette Salad or Barbecue Ratatouille.
Mushrooms Use large flat mushrooms. Marinate with lemon juice and chopped herbs such as thyme and rosemary, then brush with olive oil and put them, gill-side up, over a fairly high heat. Turn after 3 minutes and cook until they are tender. Button mushrooms can be treated the same way, but thread them onto skewers before grilling.
Onions Peel small onions or shallots, then push them onto skewers and brush with oil. Grill on the barbecue for 10 minutes over medium-hot coals. Eat with grilled meat or in Barbecue Ratatouille
Tomatoes Thread small tomatoes onto skewers, or put larger ones directly on the barbecue grill. Turn frequently – they cook fast. Eat with grilled meat or fish, with Ravigote Butter or in Barbecue Ratatouille.
Peppers Put whole peppers over high heat and grill them on the barbecue until the skins begin to blacken and split. Keep turning them with tongs so that all the sides are done. Cool to tepid, then peel off the skins and remove the cores and seeds. Eat as part of a mixed vegetable selection, or use red peppers prepared this way in Sweet Pepper Relish or Barbecue Ratatouille.
Potatoes These reheat well on barbecues. Cook new potatoes whole in boiling water until they are just tender, then drain and leave to cool. Cut them in half and marinate them in 2 tablespoons olive oil with the zest of ½ lemon and a little chopped fresh rosemary (they can be left for up to 48 hours in this, as long as they are kept cool). Thread onto skewers, brush with the oil remaining in the bowl, and grill on the barbecue until the cut surfaces are golden brown. Larger potatoes can be cooked the same way, but cut them into thick slices after boiling and put them directly onto the grill.
Sweetcorn Brush the corn cobs, without husks, with oil and put directly onto the barbecue grill. Keep turning until the kernels have developed golden-brown spots. Eat with butter, salt and smoked paprika, or Lime, Chilli and Coriander Butter. Cooking sweetcorn with the husks.
Sweet potatoes Peel and cut into 1.5cm cubes, then boil gently until just tender. Drain and marinate in 1 tablespoon oil, 1 tablespoon vinegar, a little salt and a pinch of chilli powder. Thread onto skewers alternated with some cubes of halloumi cheese and grill on the barbecue for 2 minutes on each side.
Serves 4–6
1 aubergine
1 medium-large courgette, cut into 1cm horizontal slices
2 red peppers
4 large tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 small onions, roughly chopped
1 small garlic bulb, cloves roughly chopped
salt
Barbecued vegetables make a delicious version of this Mediterranean classic, giving it an underlying slightly smoky flavour. Serve with plainly grilled meat – from sausages to steaks – and use good bread to mop it up, or cook some couscous or pasta separately to serve with it. The quantities of vegetables given here are approximate and depend to some extent on what’s available, but aim for roughly even proportions of everything except garlic. The final step of mixing in a frying pan isn’t essential – the onion and garlic can be oiled and cooked on the barbecue with everything else – but it helps the flavours to combine.
Using medium-hot coals, grill the aubergine, courgette, peppers and tomatoes over charcoal as described. When cool enough to handle, remove the skins from the aubergine and tomatoes, and the skins and seeds from the peppers.
Heat the oil gently in a large frying pan over the barbecue. Fry the onions and garlic gently until soft. Dice the aubergine, cut the courgette into smaller strips, cut the pepper flesh into strips and cut the tomatoes into eighths. Add the barbecued vegetables to the pan. Stir well and cook gently for 5 minutes. Add salt to taste. Serve hot, warm or cold.
Alternatively, you can barbecue the whole onion and garlic in their skins, then remove the skins after cooking. Roughly chop the onion, garlic and all the vegetables as above, then drop them into a bowl, sprinkle with salt and drizzle with oil while they are still warm, mix well and serve.
