Set the world on fire

From low-and-slow barbecue to Brazilian steak, add international style to your grill this summer, writes Dan Stock

AMERICAN

“It’s not a new concept. There must be cave drawings somewhere with people cooking over fire! But it’s certainly popular,” says Jess Pryles, Melbourne-born, Texasbased founder of the Australian Barbecue Alliance and author of new barbecue cookbook Hardcore Carnivore.

Pryles (pictured above) says while southern barbecue is all about “low and slow” cooking and smoking, America also has a big backyard “cookout” culture.

“There’s a bigger focus on complete meals on the grill,” Pryles says. “Especially in summer it’s an outdoor kitchen. People do more creative dishes, side dishes — even desserts — all on the grill.”

Pryles has been travelling around the country for Australian Beef, meeting farmers and discovering new ways to cook that meat.

She says the most important piece of equipment for brilliant backyard barbies is an instantread meat thermometer.

“It doesn’t matter what cut you’re cooking, or what animal. It doesn’t matter what you’re cooking on, whether it’s gas or charcoal, or smoker, all this can change, but temperature will be constant,” she says.

Medium-rare steak, for instance, will have an internal temperature of 54-57C, while a well-done piece of meat will be 68C or higher.

For cooks who want to take the first steps towards low-andslow barbecuing, Pryles suggests configuring a charcoal kettle barbecue for smoking to experiment.

“And go to barbecue competitions — it’s a great way to see people, get involved and ask questions,” she says.

VIETNAMESE

Known as lo nuong tang, a Vietnamese barbecue is a conical clay vessel that holds burning charcoal, where food is cooked atop on a mesh grill.

Jerry Mai, who has just opened modern Vietnamese restaurant Annam in Melbourne’s CBD, says Vietnamese street vendors use these to grill various meats.

“Pork chop (suon nuong), beef betel leaf (bo la lot), Hanoi grilled pork noodles (bun cha), and chilli salt chicken (ga nuong muoi ot), are a few that you will find cooked on the street, which is one of the favourite ways that Vietnamese people like to eat,” she says. “The smoky flavours cannot be obtained in other ways of cooking.”

These grilled meats are usually accompanied by fresh herbs including coriander and mint, sour fruits and pickled vegetables, all used to cut through the charred flavours of the meat.

“Cooking whole beasts like suckling pig, lamb and legs of beef on larger home barbecues is how the Vietnamese community in Australia likes to interpret traditional cooking styles using local produce,” Mai says.

Marinating the meat is an important part of a Vietnamese barbecue, with Mai highlighting fish sauce, sugar, chilli, lemongrass, garlic and soy as “the pillars of Vietnamese cooking”.

“If you play around with these pillars, you can create your own marinade,” she says.

“Another way to bring a little of Vietnam to your barbecue is to use your hands to wrap things up to eat.”

THAI

Having worked in some of the best Thai kitchens here (Longrain, Chin Chin) and abroad (Bangkok’s Nahm), Sean Judd has spent a lot of his professional career cooking meat on sticks over coals.

The head chef of the new BKK restaurant in Windsor says chicken and pork are the most popular meats to get the Thai barbecue treatment, with smaller marinated and butterflied chickens usually grilled over medium heat, and pork (neck or shoulder) marinated and skewered. Beef, when it is used, is almost always cooked well done and heavily seasoned.

“One preparation involves grilling a steak until it’s almost dry before slicing, seasoned heavily with MSG and then beating it with a hammer until it breaks up,” he says.

To add some Thai style to a home barbecue, Judd suggests grilling steak (flank or hangar) over flames to your liking. Rest, slice and toss through a salad of coriander, mint, sliced shallots and chilli with a lime juice, fish sauce and sugar dressing.

“That’s nuer yang right there,” he says.

For a simple gai yang (grilled chicken), marinade, pound 4 coriander roots, a 3 cm piece of turmeric (peeled, sliced), 2 garlic cloves and 1 tbsp black peppercorns with a mortar and pestle until a paste forms. Add 80 g caster sugar, 40 ml fish sauce and 60 ml Thai soy sauce, and stir to combine until sugar is dissolved. Pour over 4 boneless chicken thighs and marinate for 3-4 hours (or overnight). Grill over medium-high heat.

BRAZILIAN

Luke Simmons became so enamoured of the barbecues he had in Brazil — and missed them so much on his return to Australia — he started a company (buybrazilianbbq.com.au) importing the portable coal barbecue carts that can be used to cook anywhere: in the park, on the beach, on the street corner.

“If the AFL Grand Final at the MCG was played in Brazil, then you could imagine Brunton Avenue blocked off before the game and dotted with fans congregating in groups around portable Brazilian barbecues billowing with delicious-smelling smoke,” Simmons says. “There would also be 1970s-style eskies full of beer, trumpeters playing team songs, and fire crackers regularly going off — but that’s another thing!”

Simmons says a Brazilianstyle barbecue is always a relaxed affair.

“Having a barbecue (or churrasco) is a magical thing in Brazil. In comparison to rapidfire American/Australian-style gas barbecues, the meat is slow cooked, which means that there’s much more of a relaxed vibe and it gives everyone ample time to sit down and have a good chat,” he says. “What typically happens in Brazil is that everyone brings along a different cut of meat, some drinks, and everything is pooled together and shared by the group. I loved this part of Brazilian culture.”

Simmons says the most popular meat to cook on a Brazilian barbecue is picanha — known here as sirloin cap, with the external fat “definitely left on” during the cooking process. Other meats usually cooked include big-flavoured sausages, chicken wings, legs and hearts.

“Garlic bread is generally served as a starter and salad is strictly optional.”

Simmons says the Brazilian garlic bread is particularly impressive, with a paste of butter, olive, parmesan and garlic smeared onto the bread, which is then wrapped in foil and cooked over the coals.

FILIPINO

“A typical Filipino barbecue looks like a great party; there is always a lot of people involved and there’s always a lot of food, like a lot,” says Ross Magnaye, head chef of Rice Paper Sister in the CBD. “Some Filipino barbecue gatherings can be grand, or it could be as simple as having a couple of chicken skewer sticks alongside the road with your mates, sipping San Miguel beer.”

Marinating the meat plays a big part in Filipino barbecuing, which Magnaye says varies across the country.

“In Manila or the north, the barbecue is typically savoury, sour and super delicious; in the south like Davao City, it’s a bit sweeter and a thicker sauce, and it’s my favourite.”

To make Magnaye’s Davaostyle marinade: mix 100 ml olive

oil, 100 ml cola/sprite, 100 ml banana ketchup (a Filipino condiment of mashed banana, sugar, vinegar and spices) and 100 ml oyster sauce with 100 g brown sugar, 80 g fresh garlic, 30 g fresh ginger, 1 lemongrass stalk (smashed) and a handful of Kaffir lime leaves. Use to marinate 1 kg boneless chicken thighs (skin on) for two days.

To cook: grill on a hot barbecue for 2 mins each side and then finish in a hot oven for 10 mins (or on the grill but off the flames). “Japan has potentially the strongest grilling culture in the world,” says Sam Stafford, who is putting a Japanese binchotan grill to good use at North Melbourne’s Clever Polly wine bar. “It’s fundamentally different from other barbecue cultures, focused on cooking with higher temperatures for shorter periods of time.”

Yakitori — Japanese skewered chicken — is the most popular form of grilling, with small pieces of chicken (thigh, breast, giblets, wings, hearts) cooked over coals.

Stafford says, for the Japanese yakitori chef, charcoal is more important than the grill, with binchotan — a Japanese charcoal — favoured as it’s denser than other charcoal and thus burns longer, and is smokeless, so the food’s flavours remain pure.

Add Japanese style to your barbecue by using binchotan (available at Japanese retailers/ grocers) in a Weber or other charcoal drum-style grill.

The usual accompaniment to yakitori is a sauce called tare (pronounced “tareh”), which can be made by reducing a mixture of equal parts brown sugar, soy sauce and chicken stock (traditionally it’s made from drippings from the grill mixed with sugar and soy). JAPANESE