Top Tips for the Perfect Barbeque | Sous Vide Tools

Our Tips For The Best Ever Barbeque

As we enter barbeque season and celebrate National BBQ Week, many people across the UK will be cleaning the dust off their BBQs and cooking burgers, sausages, chicken skewers, halloumi, and many other culinary treats.

However, although there is nothing better than a succulent beef burger, sunshine and beer, every year BBQ enthusiasts fall victim to the most common food poisoning bug in Britain – “the barbeque bug”!

To help you, our Chef Director Chris Holland has brought together his favourite tips for every BBQ enthusiast, including best practice health and safety when cooking and how to deliver superior results:

sous-vide-burger

Health and Safety

It is no coincidence that the most common food poisoning bug in Britain is nicknamed the barbeque bug.

Campylobacter is usually contracted from undercooked poultry, shellfish and, a BBQ favourite, the burger! This can last up to a week and has severe symptoms. To ensure your guests don’t fall ill, follow these tips:

1. Use Hot Coals

Just as you would with the oven or hob, you need to allow coals to get hot before you start cooking food. This gives you more control over cooking time and lowers the risk of serving undercooked food.

When the coals are ready, they will be mostly an ash colour with a little red glow underneath.

2. Prevent Flames

Flames on the barbeque tend to burn the outside of the meat or fish, yet leave the centre cold and raw; likely to result in campylobacter or other types of food poisoning.

Flames are caused when too much air reaches the coals. To prevent this, I recommend cooking with the lid down and having a bottle of water with a spray lid in reach and ready to use to dampen them down.

3. Cook with a Sous Vide Machine

The sous vide cooking technique guarantees a safe BBQ as foods are properly cooked at precise temperatures and for the right length of time. By using a water bath and following correct cooking guidelines, your meat and fish will be cooked all the way through for safe and tender results.

Simply finish the food off on the BBQ to add a crust and moist finish.

Flavour

If you want to impress your guests, it’s important that you deliver delicious flavours and precise cooking. Here is how you can guarantee superior results:

1. Use Quality Ingredients

There is nothing worse than having to eat dry, tough and bland food, but by using high quality ingredients you are more likely to deliver on both flavour and texture!

For example, when cooking meat proteins, quality products will contain more fat and this will help with moisture retaining.

sous-vide-sticky-ribs

2. Use Wood Chips

It is always a good idea to use wood chips if you want to achieve an authentic and delicious smoky flavour.

This is a straightforward process that only requires wood chips, a flavoured liquid and (occasionally) a smoking gun.

When using wood chips on barbequed food, all you have to do is add the chips to the coals once hot.

To prepare the chips, it is essential that you moisten them with a liquid first. This not only helps them release a steady stream of flavour, but prevents quick burning. Apple juice is perfect for mesquite chips, or if you’re using whiskey chips, soak them in a little whiskey.

For example, you could use Bourbon wood chips to enhance the flavour of our Bourbon and Hickory Smoked Baby Back Ribs.

And you don’t have to limit wood chips to just the foods you are going to cook on the BBQ! Wood chips are perfect for adding a smoky flavour to meat and fish, and can also be used to enhance your side dishes. Check out how you can make a flavoursome smoked side dish with our Smoky Guacamole recipe.

sous-vide-guacamole

There are plenty of flavours, both coarse and fine, so just experiment and find your favourites! For example, if your BBQ isn’t complete without the accompaniment of BBQ Sauce, try Hickory Wood Chips for a subtle and sweet flavour.

View all of our wood chips.

3. Marinade for long enough

As well as transforming the flavour, marinades and rubs can help tenderise your food so that you can enjoy succulent results.

I recommend leaving the food to adopt the flavour for at least 3 hours, but if you can, leave it overnight for optimum flavour.

4. Use Sous Vide Techniques

Sous vide cooking methods and BBQs are a match made in heaven; you can perfect the balance of flavours, avoid dry meat, guarantee perfectly cooked food, and spend less time cooking and more time with friends and family.

The food can all be cooked in advance and popped back in the water bath to bring it back up to temperature on the day.

Recipe Suggestions

To help you achieve BBQ greatness, here are some of our favourite recipes perfect for National BBQ Week:

sous-vide-corn-on-the-cob

Sous Vide is also a healthy cooking option as the process requires little oil or fat, making it ideal if you want a healthy alternative. For example, enjoy a simple salmon portion, sousvide pineapple with rum and star anise, or boned out chicken thighs.

We’d love to see how you celebrate National BBQ Week – make sure you tweet us your food pictures to @sousvidetools!

Post by Chris Holland

Our Chef Director Chris Holland worked as Head Chef at the prestigious Alderley Edge hotel before joining us. He has a passion for using the best produce and never compromises on quality. Author of our best selling book Sous Vide The Art of Precision Cooking, Chris is a expert on the sous vide technique.During the later part of my school days at Wardle High School Rochdale I always wanted to be a chef . I knew from the very start that my path to work was never going to be academic it was always going to be something practical and hands on.

As a young boy growing up I was inspired to cook with my Grandma who was and still is an inspiration to me . I have memories of helping make the cakes that she always had made for visitors and family alike . She made the most amazing cakes and I loved nothing more than eating the sweet raw cake batter straight from the bowl . We used to fight over who got to lick the bowl/spoon after the cakes were made. My grandma’s philosophy for cooking even on a shoe string budget was always to use fresh and seasonal ingredients either home grown or bought from the market.

School was somewhat of a drag for me as I was itching to learn to become a chef.

I started at Hopwood Hall college as a chef and instantly fell in love with it .To me it was the only real time I excelled in something and this inspired me to really get my head down and put in the hard work. College was the first time I really excelled in something and gave me the opportunity to laugh at the teachers who said I would never make something of my life!!!!

During the three years at college I also took on a part time position in a local hotel working the bar and restaurant first and then the kitchen. These were great days and gave me the opportunity to see how the industry ticks. I learnt a lot from those days both good and bad !! But I have to say I was itching to work only in the kitchen but it was a good insight into the catering world .

After completing college I moved away from Rochdale for a full time roll at one of Cheshire’s most talked about Hotel restaurants The Stanneylands Hotel. This was the school of hard knocks for me as I quickly realised that although excelling at college meant nothing in “The Real World”.

I loved every minute of the 18 hour days 6 days a week on minimum wage . Although difficult I feel that without this grounding I wouldn’t have achieved what I have today. After 18 months of hard graft I left Stanneylands and went with the Head chef to open a fine dining restaurant at Mere Golf and Country Club. The opportunity to work alongside Matthew Barrett was too good to turn down. I learnt so much from the ex-Ritz chef and working in a much slower paced role helped me develop a much better understanding of how to organise and run a kitchen. We were a very small team and teamwork was and still is the only way to go for me.

After 2 years at Mere I got the opportunity to go into The Alderley Edge Hotel as Junior Souschef. The Early days at the Edge were all about learning new styles of cuising which is invaluable in any role as a chef. I got the opportunity to grow and learn all aspects of every section which was inspiring . I was offered the opportunity at the age of 29 (2004) to take the role of head chef. For me this was when I really started to develop my own style of food.

After 9 years at the top winning Cheshire restaurant of the year , Chef of the Year and appearing on GBM amongst many highlights including cooking for many celebrities and famous people I decided to move on into development with Sousvidetools.

The main inspiration for this was to train and educate people . I always had a great passion for education but could never really see myself at a college . The job is super rewarding and I am proud to say we have become the leading light in sous-vide education in the UK . This is something I am very proud of . Food is my biggest passion and this is what keeps me interested the most . I love to travel and try out other countries cuisines. I am constantly inspired by ingredients and the pursuit of getting the best out of them without destroying their natural flavour .It is super important to me to continue to try and be at the forefront of the food scene this is what inspire me and the team to keep driving forward .

Technology is now widely used in the industry and I am super proud to say we have been a big part of spreading that message.

I am very lucky to be in the position I am and the drive to constantly improve our training and links to the next generation of young budding hospitality chefs.

TI feel that my experience over the last 25 years really enables me to get close and educate the “next generation” of chefs .

The industry which I love is really struggling to bring through new recruits and if I can help that process I will be immensely proud.

The food seen in the Uk has improved dramatically over the last ten years and I feel this will continue with the correct education. What happens next only fate will tell us...

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