Some summer sides
Suns out, barbecues are out, and good sides are essential
Hello again. Here’s that selection of sides I promised in Saturday’s post about barbecuing chicken.
Enjoy it, and see you again soon. Ed
BBQ extras
I actually think the best barbecues are simple, coherent meals that just happen to have been cooked outside over flames or on the hot bars of a gas powered grill. How about grilled quail, copious amounts of romesco sauce and a green salad, for example? (Potatoes of your choosing.)
BUT if you can’t quite break free from the temptation to go overboard, buy all the meat you can see and then make LOADS of side dishes for a help-yourself/buffet style, feast, then the following four part plan should help:
Prepare one to max three things that are (a) really easily assembled and (b) can sit without deteriorating while you tend to fire and/or friends (i.e. good versions of a green salad, tomato salad, shaved fennel or slaw etc).
Cook just one dish involving charred vegetables, easily assembled or finished while your centrepiece(s) are being flamed, and again, still good if no longer hot (anything involving peppers, courgettes, cauliflower, broccoli, brassica leaves, onions, sweet potatoes, green beans, asparagus and so on).
Add a carb (potato salad; roast mini potatoes; fries; lentils; beans from jars; quinoa/spelt/couscous etc). Ideally it’s not too involved a dish to put together.
And don’t forget a zippy, dippy thing that will bind a self-served plate of otherwise unconnected items (tsatsiki, a salsa or pesto, romesco, tahini, yoghurty whipped feta and so on).
Recipes and ideas for each of these categories are provided below.
Keep your eyes peeled for the basil oil and asparagus butter beans: it’s barely any effort, super adaptable (swap asparagus for courgettes, runner/helda beans, anything green, really), and a real winner.
A side note before we get to those sides
There are lots of new barbecue-focused cookbooks flying around at the moment. Melissa Thompson’s Fired Up one from new batch that you should definitely have a look at. Also Helen Graves’ Live Fire, which is not so new but very useful.
If you have a Big Green Egg or Kamado Jo, then James Whetlor’s Cooking on the Big Green Egg is good.
I would also make sure you’re following Meliz Berg on Instagram. Hasan Semay (aka Big Has), as well. Actually, Has has a back catalogue of YouTube videos too. Oh, Helen and Melissa are essential follows as well.
Prepared in advance
Salads, basically. One of those can (in fact, should) be a few green leaves. And then you can go in a number of different directions.
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