BBQ Blue - Australian barbecue, outdoor cooking, tips, recipes.

(grill)

This is barbecue at its best and most basic. It's inexpensive, very portable, gives a wonderful flavour to whatever is being cooked and is a very popular social activity that involves four or more players.

The first step is to consume at least one can of beer each while watching the flaming wood die down to coals. The first empty cans are then placed at each corner and topped with a wire mesh grill or solid cast iron plate.

Open another can each and by the time that one is finished, the barby will be ready for the snags, steak or fish fillets. Drink the third can while turning the food and waving a thong to keep the coals glowing. Use the fourth can to wash the food down along with the traditional white bread and tomato sauce (yes Virginia, even with the fish).

If a solid hot plate is being used it can be cleaned automatically by being splashed with a little of the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth beers. The cooled plate is rubbed with a bit of cooking oil then wrapped in a quality broadsheet newspaper (if you use a tabloid it will almost certainly taint the food) and finally flung in the back of the ute or wagon.

FOR: Extremely portable, cheap (if you don't include the beer), traditional flavour, tribal bonding stuff.

AGAINST: Not exactly instant heat - but that's the point of it all.

BEST AT: Grilling sausages, steaks and fish (wrap in foil for mesh). Cast iron versions are also ideal for bacon/egg/bread fry ups the morning after at a B&S ball (if rum and coke are consumed at the same time, its official title becomes 'the breakfast of champions').

PRICE RANGE: Cast iron barbecue plates can be purchased in hardware and camping shops from around $20 upwards.

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Mrs Blue - Don't you just love the macho blokey bullshit? The only excuse for recommending beer cans is the sheer number of braincells Blue has lost due to the booze. The fact is that some inks used in printing the outside of beer cans can include a few interesting heavy metals. They're designed to hold beer not be toasted underneath food. Use house bricks instead- your central nervous system will love you for it.

Mrs Blue - For those few readers who have enjoyed sheltered lives, a Bachelors and Spinsters Ball is a social gathering that usually takes place in rural communities. It uses the twin powerful lures of sex and booze (and not necessarily in that order) to attract young people from as far away as possible in a bid to boost the local gene pool.

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