It's a gas

We've been meaning to buy gas for ages so that we could finally use the barbecue. I have been a tad confused as the the gas bottle buying process. In the UK you just buy a Calor Gas bottle - probably from B&Q - and take it back when it is empty and swap it for a full one. Here there are 2 systems at work. You can buy empty gas bottles from one shop & get them filled either at that shop or elsewhere or you can buy a full gas bottle on the return when empty principle. I eventually gave up trying to work out which was the better system and went with the simplest. I bought a full gas canister at the local shell garage ($80 for the container and the gas)

Once home I connected the gas to the barbie and hooray - it all worked. No explosions of any kind. I even followed the instructions and checked what kind of flame I had. It had to be a nice soft blue flame with yellow tips. Yellow is so in this season. Then I had to cure the cast iron grillplates. Now I have had several barbecues and have never done this. Which probably explains why all my previous grills have rusted. Again I followed the advice - coat the iron plates with canola oil and heat on low for 30 minutes. Only canola oil should be used on a bbq as it contains no salt and therefore won't cause the bbq to rust. Other oils are bad for bbq's....didn't know that either. Then, once heated (and cooled) the plates were washed in water with a soft brush and then recoated with oil.

Guess what - it all worked. Beautifully non stick grill plates. Cast iron is quite absorbent apparently and the oil soaks into the plates creating a teflon like coating. They must be reoiled after each cleaning. Good job canola is low cholestorol too.

So the first bbq meal was lamb cutlets, lamb sausage, grilled tomatoes, zucchini, asparagus and haloumi cheese.

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Barbecuing is always a fine line between salmonella and cremation. I hit that line and the food was good.