Barbecued Prawns with Melon, Spinach and mint Salad

Well we also served these with quite a few other things but actually the best ones were as follows:

Skewer your prawns, either shelled or not. We found shelled and marinated in a mix of garlic, sesame oil, ginger, soy and honey was pretty good. Barbie.

Cube your 'rock melon' (I think it's honeydew in the UK), mix with baby spinach leaves and a small amount of fresh mint. No dressing necessary at all.

We also did a dip of garlic, olive oil, and basil. The mild flavours seemed to set off the prawns admirably. Recommend.

Also served with a side of roasted whole sweet potatoes, simply sliced lengthways when very done and buttered and seasoned. Then sliced into …. well, slices. We're not technical here.

Deliriously engaging dish. Palate-ticklingly tasty. Enjoy.

Citrus Pork with Barbecued Fruit and Veg

I thought I was following a recipe here but can't find it at all - must have been drunk at the time. Turned out pretty darn good so here it is.

Get a hunk of pork (suspect ours was some part of leg from the huge bone in there but don't actually know) and pressure-cook it generously with a fair deal of orange juice, some wine, seasoning, thyme and bay, and zest and flesh of an orange and a lemon. While that's doing, put some peeled, cubed and seasoned bits of sweet potato on the barbie and start them off. Also, peel and segment some apples, toss in lime juice, skewer, and sprinkle with sugar. When the time is right, put these on the barie too.

When the pork is cooked very nicely, remove the meat and set aside. Strain the remaining sauce through a sieve and proceed to boil down like there's no tomorrow. While you're doing this, trim the cooked pork of any excess skin/fat and put it  on the barbie together with the other stuff to crisp up nicley. Meanwhile, put in a load of pak choi in to boil (it only takes a short while).

Serve drizzled in the reduced sauce - it's really tangy and tasty.

Barbecue Chicken with Chermoula Rub

Turned out pretty darn tasty. Definitely recommend - very nice way to add some interest to our old friend the Chicken. (Cluck.) Now, the recipe I have says just to spatchcock the bird, marinate, and barbecue like that. We found (as is so often the case) that of course the breast cooked much faster than the brown meat - not aided by the fact that spatchcocking brings the breast in closest contact with the grill in the first place. So next time we'll be jointing it up and putting the brown meat on first, so that it all finishes at the same time (don't want to overcook the breast either, do we). What you'll need to do is:

• Get a chicken (free range, please, we're not into torturing birds, just eating them) and joint it up.
• Make the rub, of:

Fresh herbs: coriander, parsley, 3 cloves of garlic, chopped fresh ginger (plenty of all the herbs) and
Dried herbs: 1 tsp each of paprika, cumin powder, coriander powder, salt
Combine into a good rub with the juice of 1/2 a large lemon and good slosh of olive oil, and add chopped chili as well to taste (I put some in and Lara was fine, seems to blend in quite nicely).

• Ensure that the chicken and the rub become very intimately acquainted and cover them to consider matters together for at least an hour. We left it for about two hours while we went to the beach, seemed to work just fine.
• When you're ready, stick it on the barbie. We served this with rice but you can of course do as you please. I would however recommend the salsa we made to go with it, which was:

a base of finely diced tomato, green pepper and red onion, seasoned with salt, lime juice and olive oil - with the particular flavour of the day being fresh mint and sultanas. Went really nicely with the spicy chicken. Make plenty of it as everyone wants more!

Grilled sausages, squash and sweet potato with salsa

Pretty straightforward stuff but thought I'd whack it on as it's always nice. Looks sparse to say the least on the plate but actually turned out to be extremely filling.

You'll need:
Sausages, some butternut squash and some sweet potato, a bit of thyme, and stuff for the salsa.

• Peel the squash and the potato, season and dress with olive oil and some fresh thyme. Introduce to barbie.
• Slightly later, introduce the sausages to the barbie as well.
• Meanwhile, prep the salsa - I think this day it consisted of finely diced tomatoes, yellow peppers, scallions, a bit of fresh basil, and later I mixed in some chili just to spice things up (but left it out of Lara's).
• Serve.

Ocean Jackets with Random Linguini

Ocean Jackets are the most extrodinary looking creatures when they've got their heads on, but they're inevitably sold without heads or insides here are are also (very pleasantly) incredibly cheap. I believe that's because they're local and available year round. They've got fantastic meat, which I would personally value far above boring bream or much more expensive stuff like that. Anyway, they work very nicely foil-wrapped on the barbie, just slashed across, seasoned and sauced in chopped dill with a dash of white wine for company. Nothing else to it.

• Get your white fish, season it and slash it as above mentioned with finely chopped dill and parcel it up with some moisture to keep it going on its 15 minutes or so on the barbie / oven.
• Get some linguini going, you can add stuff like diced tomaties and some basil and olive oil once they're cooked to liven them up a little.
• I seved these with some snow peas, but you can do exactly what you want with them.
• Enjoy.

Glazed 'monkfish' skewers with udon noodles

Well I've never seen monkfish on sale here so really any firm white fish. On special offer today at our local was hake, so we used that and may I say they were delicious. I didn't even bother to cube them, just sort of cut and trimmed the fillets into equal-thickness slabs about half a fillet wide (important to get them the same thickness when you're barbecuing or they don't cook properly), and skewered them. Saves them falling apart later. Anyway once you've laid hands on your 'firm white fish' what you've got to do is:

• Skewer the fish (as above mentioned) nicely for the barby / grill.
• Make a basting sauce of 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp tomato puree, Juice of 1 lime, 1 tbsps clear honey, 1/2 tsp (teaspoon, just in case you get carried away with the tablespoons, it's powerful stuff) nam pla, 1/2 tsp chili oil (actually I didn't have any and just dropped in a little Tabasco, works a treat), and some fresh chopped coriander - as much as you like I guess. Lather it onto the fish and grill at an appropriate time.
• For the noodles, boil/steam up your udon noodles with pak choi added appropriately (the noodles will generally cook in about 10 minutes, the pak choi in about 5). Serve the fish atop finished noodles.

n.b. There was a lot of the marinade left when we did this, so I gave it a good little sizzling in a pan and poured on top. Well worth it, lots of flavour there.

This was a good little dish, very tasty but mild and I think some interesting textures there, a little different and quite appealing to a wide palate, I'd imagine. We'll certainly be having it again!

Lamb deliciousness in Pittas (vaguely Middle-Eastern)

Sorry there's no pic for this but we ate it before I could whip the camera out. Anyway not really a thing of beauty but damn fine.

First:

• Marinate your fantastic Australian Lamb Slabs (still haven't actually read what it calls them on the packet) in copious lemon juice, fresh chopped mint, seasoning and supposedly harissa but I didn't put it in for Child reasons. If you can't get fantastic Australian Lamb Slabs do your best with whatever flat cut of lamb you have.
• Prepare some rocket and if you will some other salad leaves. (That means washing). (Vaguely).
• Open a packet of Pitta breads to hand, just in case you get too drunk later to lay hands on them.
• Make sure you've opened the tub of tasty hummous and laid it out somewhere to hand.

Then:

• Locate your husband and get him to fire your barbecue up. (ooh er). The Lamb Slabs will then miraculously appear cooked in about 10 minutes. In the meantime, lay the table and pour some more drinks.
• Get the pittas grilled up too, and combine the lamb, pittas, salad leaves and some hummous in an extremely messy and delicious envelope ensemble.

Now do you understand why there were no pics?

Chicken Peanuts (Satay Chicken with Oriental-ish Rice Noodles)

Bit of a cheat really, as I only used a packet of satay marinade. However, I believe these are readily available world-wide so:

First:

• Marinade your chicken-chunks in satay sauce (mine said two hours - what does yours say? I ignored mine and marinaded for about ten minutes, it was great).
• Prep up some sliced peppers, mange tout, fine-sticked ginger, whatever you feel like putting in with your rice noodles. Probably don't make it more complicated than a couple of veg).
• My recipe said some lemon zest and some scallions as well - they go in after you've fried up anything you want to fry.

Then:

• Skewer your chicken chunks and barbecue / grill.
• Prep your rice noodles - mine said 2 minutes' soak in water and and don't expect yours will be much different.
• Fry up any of the veg you want to.
• Drain your rice noodles, add to the veg, add the scallions and lemon, pour on some soy sauce/peanut oil, and add some nuts - preferably dry salted peanuts in this case, I'd guess. Arrange on a plate.
• Put the ready chicken on top. Serve. I find alcohol usually helps as an accompaniment.

N.B. - This is the very-tame-version for those with children not accustomed to anything hot. Naturally, chili flakes/slices etc would certainly not go amiss in this. However, as our circumstances differ, I just served it with a bottle of chili sauce on the side. Works wonders.

Seared Squid with Citrus and Mango Salad

Prepare:

• A mango, peeled and sliced.
• Squid tubes (about 1 largish one per person, depending on how hungry you are) - sliced down the side and into halves, then criss-crossed
• A mix of 1 tsp Nam Pla, 1 tbs soy sauce, juice 1/2 lime, and plenty of chopped fresh coriander
• 1/2 a red onion, finely diced.
• Some salad leaves of your choice.

Then:

• Gently fry the onion and once it's soft add it to the fish sauce mix.
• Arrange the salad leaves (no need to dress) (the salad that is - the rest is your choice) and the mango on plates.
• Fry the squid rapidly on a high heat (or barbecue) - take off heat as soon as it curls up. Should be no more than 3 minutes max. Don't cram them, fry or grill in batches if necessary.
• Return all the squid to the pan, add the fish sauce mix and stir. Take off the heat at once and arrange over the plated salad, pouring over the pan juices. Serve with wedges of lime.

You wouldn't believe how filling this is, and no carbs to speak of! Lovely, recommended.