Latest features Champion tips from Britain's barbecue man

Date Published:

14/07/2008

4Food caught up with British barbecue champion, Andy Annat, to find out his top tips for a tasty barbecue

So how do you become British barbecue champion?

I won a contest beating 5000 people and then I managed the Great Britain team for the world championships, which we were in last year in October. Now I have my own barbecue catering business, Blazing Barbecues, and I do consultancy work for barbecue manufacturers, Weber. We did Balmoral for the Queen's 80th.

But how did it all start? How do you get into barbecuing as a full time career?

I started off with my own butcher's shop, originally, seven years ago in Leeds and a lady once said to me: 'I've bought all this meat from you, all I need now is for somebody to cook it.' So I said, 'OK, let me do that.' And I did it and from that day I said to my wife, 'I'm going to make a business of this' - because I enjoyed it so much. So that's what I did. We range from events for 50 people up to 2000 - from back gardens to weddings.

So what makes a good barbecue? How can the humble back garden chef get it right?

Cooking low and slow rather than rushing it. Cook on a low temperature. If I'm cooking whole chickens then they take about an hour and a half, which is what they would take in a conventional oven, but the flavour and the moisture is out of this world. It's a different league.

The other thing I do is to spray the meat with natural apple juice as it's cooking with a spray gun. That'll help caramelise the meat, so if you're doing basic things like sausages or chicken, spray it with the apple juice, I use something like Capella, natural without concentrate, and the natural sugars in the apple juice help caramelise the meat. It keeps it moist so that you're adding moisture to it as you're cooking it.

I think one of the most important things, particularly in this country, is getting the right temperature. People see chicken and they think, 'is this cooked?'. What we do when we sell a barbecue is sell it with a little temperature probe to give the person cooking at home confidence while they are cooking. They can see the gauge and check they're cooking things at the right temperature. They're not having to put things in the oven to warm it up, that sort of thing.

One of the biggest secrets of cooking a barbecue is a good quality barbecue, preferable with a lid. You want to be able to put it on and relax, not be rushing around dealing with flare ups.

So there is a difference from the cheap disposable barbecues you can pick up from the all night garage?

A massive difference.

In terms of what goes on the barbecue, do we need to look past bangers and burgers?

Definitely. I'm running barbecue boot camp this weekend, which is my barbecue cooking class, and I'm teaching people how to cook - from a simple sausage to a whole joint of top side, a whole shoulder of pork, a whole lamb. We're even doing chocolate brownies because we can; with a good quality barbecue you can do anything.

Are you a marinade man?

Ooh yes, I'm working with a mustard marinade today that I've just made up for use on chicken but there are a lot of different types you can do. I think where people go wrong in this country is they buy a ready made marinade and they're not too sure what they've got. What they've often bought is a salt based marinade; it looks moist but it's made with sugar and salt so it's actually drying the meat out. If you cook that directly over coal it's going to dry out even more. It'll go hard and caramelise quickly and that's when you'll get meat that's cooked on the outside and raw in the middle.

If you used that same marinade but cooked it really slowly on a low heat it would taste delicious, but if you're cooking directly over the coals I would suggest you use an oil based marinade and that'll help baste the meat - it's like putting sun tan lotion on.

Do you have any particular recipe suggestions?

Thai marinades always work well - we do an oil based one with lemongrass, ginger and chilli which tastes delicious on chicken breasts. You don't even need a blender; just chop the ingredients and mix them together.
Fruits like limes and lemons taste great but you don't really want to leave it marinating for more than four hours because the citrus fruits will start scorching the meat.

Another marinade I like is a delicious redcurrant and port one I do on lamb with a handful of fresh mint.

What's the most important thing to remember if you want to avoid a dodgy tummy the next day?

Cross contamination is a big problem. You want to be using different utensils for raw and cooked meats and different chopping boards. We tend to use disposable rubber gloves that we can just take off after we've been dealing with the raw meat.

Another tip is to get the meat to room temperature before you start cooking it. Don't cook it straight from the fridge because when it's chilled all the way through it takes a long time to start warming up. Don't have it out opened - maybe have it in a cool box or wrapped up - and don't have it out the sun but maybe in the kitchen on the side. Get it up to room temperature and then start cooking.

It's your perfect barbecue - what are you eating?

I would have a barbecued rack of lamb with redcurrant and port glaze with barbecued Cajun sweet potato chips and some vivid green salad: just slightly blanched mange tout cucumber, green beans. To drink I'd probably have a glass of rosé or a nice pale ale, a Daleside Blonde, something nice and light.

Firing up the grill? Find fantastic barbecue recipes here.