Barbecue Your Christmas Dinner

Every week through my work as Editorial Director for RAW Food & Drink PR I write and edit a double page spread for the food pages of the Western Morning News. It’s a great way of bringing stories to the attention of hundreds of thousands of people across the vast region in which we live.

Occasionally we even hit the front page… Here’s one of the latest offerings - and it’s a delicious one all to do with Christmas dinner…

As December continues many of us will be thinking ahead to Christmas and wondering what kind of festivities we’ll be enjoying this year. It is going to be different - that is for sure - especially for those of us who normally cater for a crowd. 

So I’ve been thinking about the festive season and talking to some of my friends and colleagues in the food industry - and I have decided that, minus the dozen or more people I normally cook for, I am going to manufacture a blast of midwinter sunshine. 

On a plate, anyway… In other words, I am going to have fun barbecuing my way right through the midwinter holiday period. And that will include cooking almost the entire Christmas dinner outdoors - come rain or come shine…

And why not? Most people who have some kind of barbecue nowadays will have one that has a lid, which means it’s only you who’s going to get wet in the rain - not the food. Indeed, more and more people are going the whole BBQ hog by owning a Japanese style kamado, which allows the home-chef to turn out slow-cooked wonders of the kind that would make any barbecue master proud - including a whole turkey.

For the past half dozen years, when cooking a bird the size of a small jumbo-jet, I have slow-cooked the big tough turkey legs on my kamado - and that has given me the opportunity to add a fabulous savoury smokiness to the flavour, thanks to my friends at the Devon-based company Hot Smoked. Indeed, one of their new wood-chip kits makes an ideal present for the person who loves cooking outdoors or over a live flame (www.hotsmoked.co.uk).

“Some meat can be a little bland, but hot-smoking really does increase the flavour considerably,” says Alyson Murray of Hot Smoked. “It’s easy to do - there’s no real mystery to it - you put some of our specialist wood-chips into a steel container or a double wrapping of foil (with a few holes - which help protects the wood chips so they don’t burn away too fast) and place it on the hot coals. 

“The lid on a kamado or any other type of good barbecue will help keep the smoke in and your food will quickly take on the subtle flavours dictated by the type of wood.”

I tend to use Hot Smoked’s whisky soaked oak chips, which produce such a fantastic flavour there’s always a queue for the brown leg meat of my turkey. Before I smoked the legs of our annual Christmas bird, the queue used to go straight for the breast meat, but not any longer. 

“There’s nothing like a winter barbecue to blow away the lockdown blues,” Devon based outdoor cooking expert Marcus Bawden told me this week. “Your favourite restaurant might be closed, but you can easily grill up a tasty steak, a warming chilli, Sunday barbecue roast or even your big festive feast - all cooked outdoors.”

Marcus teaches people to “barbecue better” at his specialist school, near Cullompton (www.ukbbqschool.com) and is an author of the best selling book Food and Fire and his next book Skewered will be out in April - and he told me: “Don’t lock yourself indoors this lockdown or at Christmas -  wrap up warm and get yourself cooking up a storm.

“I have been cooking my Christmas turkey on the barbecue for the last 10 years, and it's hard to beat for flavour when cooked in a Kamado Joe, you get a wonderfully crisp skin as a bonus.”

Talking of Kamado Joe (www.kamadojoe.co.uk) - the European marketing manager for the brand is also based in Devon - and Ben Forte commented: “What better way to please the crowd this Christmas than with a show-stopping BBQ’d turkey taking centre stage? Obviously I use a Kamado Joe and have done so for years. It is highly versatile. You really can cook anything on them - you can grill, bake, roast, sear, smoke - and it even works perfectly as a pizza oven or rotisserie.

“Then there’s the question of efficiency - the thick ceramic walls retain so much heat that you need to use less fuel to keep it hot.”

Ben’s quick-fire tips for cooking a successful turkey this Christmas are… “Cook to temperature not time. The meats needs to be 75C. Add a bacon weave. This helps the breast meat stay moist and you get a bonus bit of crispy bacon.

“Take your turkey out of the fridge half an hour before you start cooking - it’ll help prevent shrinkage. Cook the veg below the turkey so it catches all those juices as it cooks. Try adding a chunk of fruit wood, such as apple or cherry.”

Lastly, you might ask why I’ll be doing down the barbecue route this Christmas? Well, apart from adding the sunshine flavours normally associated with summer to my midwinter meals, it will be fun to experiment. 

I’ve also found an excellent supply of local charcoal here on Exmoor - the Avalon BBQ Charcoal product is as good as it gets - they don’t have a website so phone 01398 323590 or 07908 939645 if you wan’t some…

Normally, with 14 or 15 people to feed, I’d dare not experiment. This year my caution is going up in flames…

RECIPES

Ben Forte’s BBQ “Jingleburger” - a turkey and smokey bacon burger, with Brussel sprout slaw, oak-smoked cheddar, pancetta weave, cranberry sauce and topped with a pickle and pigs in blankets. 

•  Burger Ingredients

• 500g Turkey Thigh Mince

• 4 rashers of Smoked Bacon (finely diced)

• 1 Egg

• Bacon flavour crisps (I used popcorn crisps as they are gluten free) (crushed)

Brussel Slaw

• 250g Brussel Sprouts

• 2 Carrots

• 1 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

• 4 tbsp South Carolina BBQ Sauce

Other Bits

• Oak Smoked Cheddar

• 16 rashers of pancetta/streaky bacon

• Cranberry Sauce

• Pigs in blankets

• Pickles

• Brioche Buns

• 4 Wooden Skewers

Method

• Combine all burger ingredients together then shape using yours hand or a burger press

• Finely grate sprouts and carrots, combine in a bowl and add vinegar and BBQ Sauce

• For the bacon weaves I use 4 rashers of pancetta cut in half and stretched out. This makes them the perfect size for the burger

• Now smoke your burgers in your BBQ at around 225F until they reach an internal temp of 165F.

• Put bacon weaves onto foil and place in the BBQ until they are crispy - and BBQ pigs in blankets

• Put burgers onto a hot skillet and cook for a few minutes each side, then add cheese to the top and cover for about 1 minute to melt the cheese

Lastly build your Christmas burger layering the parts and securing the pig in blanket with the help of a skewer.

Hot Smoked’s Spatchcocked Duck 

Whole duck (Creedy Carver)

Olive oil

Garlic

Piri Piri spice rub

Whisky oak chips

Spatchcock the duck, score drumsticks, season with salt and pepper, then add a mix of olive oil and Piri Piri Spice plus thin garlic slices. Allow to reach room temperature. 

Meanwhile light your bbq or smoker and wait until it goes white hot and any open flame has subsided. Your target cooking temperature is 110 to 120 deg for 2 to 3 hours depending on the weight of the duck. 

Add a handful of whisky oak chips to a foil pouch or smoker box if using one and place on the greying embers. Place the duck on the grill rack, close the lid and leave to cook slowly. 

Remove from the smoker and crisp the skin under a grill (on a medium heat). 

Allow to rest before serving

Hot smoked BBQ chicken