Try it out

Barbecuing

I SUPPOSE IT WAS

unsurprising that I was the only woman out of 14 attendees on the Weber Barbecue Essentials course. This primal method of cooking has been claimed by men over the years, drawn by its irresistible mixture of fire, slabs of meat and gadgets. So I was keen to wrestle back control of the embers and solve the mystery of how to cook on flames without reducing everything to ash.

Our tutor was butcher Kai Marsden, assisted by Morgan Thomas, below right, men who knew much about meat and how to cook it. During the four-hour session, we cooked (and ate) a menu including the expected (rib-eye steak, pork loin) and the surprising (mushroom risotto, pizza, grilled broccoli, chocolate fondue) as well as a Weber signature dish: beer-can chicken (a half-full can of beer is inserted into a chicken’s cavity on a poultry roaster before cooking in a lid-down barbecue, below right).

As various barbecues glowed and smoked, we learned that the quickest way to get a barbecue going is with a chimney starter, right; that you should always clean the grill when it is warm; and that there is little difference in flavour between meat cooked on gas and on charcoal. The most common mistake, Kai stressed, was not understanding heat and cooking too soon, ie, when the heat is too fierce. Slow and low is the way to go using a ‘lid-down’ or kettle barbecue. This means you can leave food to cook as you socialise. Points I shall smugly make, next time I elbow out of the way a man in a pinny prodding a sausage on leaping flames.