Cumberland Barbecue

hot coals

July 24th, 2012

Finally the monsoons abated and the sun came out. Forgive the dramatics, but it’s half way through summer and it’s rained nearly every day! Having been shopping for summer food, I set light to some lump wood charcoal and called Audrey.

I always line the barbecue with aluminium foil, this stops the heat escaping from the base  and reflects it upwards. It really does make it hotter.

cumberlands

I bought 6 Cumberland style sausages from the butcher – these have been my favourite barbecue sausages for some time, they taste good cooked on charcoal and are huge (about 8 inches long). What you see on the barbecue above is a butcher’s half dozen – 7 sausages… We ate them with Encona West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce.

potato salad

I made up an egg and potato salad with about a pound of new potatoes (from Perry Court Farm) and 2 chopped free range eggs (also from the farmers’ market). I mixed up the mayonnaise from scratch in a food processor, but you could whisk it by hand.

Mayonaise recipe:

1 piece of garlic
a pinch of salt
2 free range egg yolks
1 teaspoon of grain mustard (Moutarde de Meaux)
1 teaspoon of sherry vinegar
200 ml extra virgin olive oil
the juice of 1 lemon
a pinch of ground black pepper

Put the garlic, salt and egg yolks into a food processor. Once they start to thicken, add the mustard and vinegar, then drizzle the oil slowly in through the top. Don’t over process this or it will become very thick. Squeeze in the lemon and the black pepper at the end – this only needs a brief whizz to mix it through. Combine with the chopped egg and previously cooked and cooled potatoes – chill for a an hour or two before serving. You will find that real mayonnaise tastes very different to the kind you buy in shops – do add more lemon, vinegar or seasoning to suit your taste.

vegetable skewers

Next on the barbecue came vegetable skewers of courgette, mushroom, onion and red pepper drizzled with olive oil. I did mean to include some delicious Perry Court cherry tomatoes, but forgot. Soak wooden skewers in water for a few hours before barbecuing – this stops them burning.

steak

Just as it was getting dark, we flash barbecued some delicious rump steak (also from Theobalds).

During the evening, the food was washed down with Tempranillo Rosado (Spanish rosé wine) and on our retreat to the kitchen we drank a bottle of Audrey’s home made Elderflower Champagne.