Lex Culinaria

Love is a big rare roast

Well, it is in our house anyway. Our valentines dinner consisted of a nice rare elk roast with a vodka, cranberry and orange reduction and caramelised onion mashed potatoes. The roast was beautifully tender, but with that nice tight texture that Elk has. This would make a nice change for the ole standard Sunday beef roast and would be sure to impress your guests without too much trouble. The sweet and tangy sauce goes beautifully with the gamey roast. I reckon it'd be pretty nice with any game meat or with a nice pork tenderloin.

To serve six you will need:

• 1.3 kg (3 lb) elk roast
• 180 ml (3/4 cup) vodka (set 1 tablespoon aside for finishing the sauce at the end)
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup orange juice
• zest of 1/2 orange
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups beef broth

Combine all ingredients in a large ziploc bag and allow to marinate in refrigerator for 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 500F.

Place roast on rack in bottom of a roasting pan. Pour marinade, including cranberries, in bottom of pan. Hold back some liquid if it looks like the level will come up too far to touch the bottom of the roast.

Place roast in oven. Cook at 500F for 25 minutes, reduce heat to 425F and roast until a meat thermometer inserted in the middle reads 138F. Remove roast from pan and tent with foil. Transfer pan juices to a saucepan and add all remaining marinade liquid. Use an immersion blender to blend in the cranberries. Bring liquid to a rolling boil and reduce until the flavour is strong enough. There will probably not be any need to thicken, but you can use another 1/3 cup stock or orange juice into which you've dissolved 2 teaspoons flour if tyou wish. Remove sauce from heat and stir through a tablespoon more vodka to finish.

Slice meat and serve with sauce over the top.

Five-Spice Braised Lamb and Bok Choy

Since about the beginning of September life has been totally out of control. Work has been crazy busy and then as soon as work starts to slow down I do too out of sheer exhaustion. I suppose being 5 months pregnant doesn't help. Now that I can actually eat again and spend time in my kitchen without feeling nauseated (torture for someone who loves to cook and eat as much as I do!) I really find I am stretched for time and energy.

I've taken to doing my own small-scale meal assembly on Sundays. I plan a menu for the week and assemble the ingredients for the main part of it. It might be chicken breasts that I marinate in lime, crushed coriander, honey and mustard (very tasty!) or a pot roast. Then  all i have to do make sure I put it out to thaw (or into the slow cooker) in the morning and when I come home in the in the evening I finish it off and prepare a salad and side. It cuts the "I can't be bothered cooking" way down and we actually manage to eat healthily 5 nights out of 5 (except the odd indiscretion). It's really been working well and isn't too much of a chore at all as it takes me only about an hour on Sundays to get the meals together and into the freezer.

This week, one of the meals I made was this slow-cooker lamb recipe which is dead easy to prepare and a twist on the usual Italian or French inspired wine or tomato-based braises that seems to predominate. You could prepare this ahead and freeze most of it, as I did, or you could just make it straight through. Either way, it's gorgeous, spicy and salty. Perfect over rice or just on its own and the lamb just melts in your mouth. This will serve 6 easily.

• 2.5 pounds stewing lamb
• 3 cups beef broth
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 3 inch by 2 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
• 5 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 Tablespoon Chinese 5-spice powder
• 3/4 cup Chinese rice wine (unsalted)
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• water to cover
• 8 bunches baby bok choy washed, trimmed and separated
• 16-20 medium mushrooms, thickly sliced (preferably mixed, but any kind will do)
• cornstarch to thicken
• more rice wine - about a half cup.

If you're making this ahead to pop in your slow cooker later in the week, put the first 9 ingredients in a large zippered freezer bag and freeze until needed. Otherwise, place all ingredients except bok choy and mushrooms, into the slow cooker and allow to cook for 6 to 8 hours. You can either saute the mushrooms and bok choy and make a bed out of them, or you can add them to the slow cooker towards the end of the cooking time - I'd say add the mushrooms with about 45 minutes left to go and the bok choy with about 15 minutes left.

Once the meal is finished cooking, remove the meat and vegetables from the broth. Using a large wide-bottomed stir fry pan, reduce the cooking liquid until the flavour is strong enough for you. I reduced mine by half, but it will really depend on how much liquid evaporates from your slow cooker and whether you topped the liquid up at all during cooking. Use a bit more Chinese wine, into which you've stirred a few spoons full of cornstarch to thicken the sauce.

Place a heap of rice (if you are serving it with rice) into the bottom of a big soup plate. On top of that, make a nest of bok choy and mushrooms. place some lamb pieces on top of the vegetables and ladle over some of the sauce.

This also reheats well for lunch the next day!

Fish Dumplings in Lemon Garlic Broth

Yesterday, Cakes and I stopped at the Billingsgate Seafood Market for lunch (the best fish & chips this side of Melbourne) and I bought a gorgeous thick halibut fillet. I had a vague idea that I wanted to do a fish dumpling in broth, but wasn't quite sure what I intended exactly. For a recipe that, as I said to Cakes, I "pulled out of my ass", what resulted was a pretty stellar way to dress some fish up for a spectacular dinner. This one's going on my list of dinner party dishes.

If you're looking for something interesting to do with that really nice piece of fish you bought and you want something a little fancier than just plain grilled fish (even if it is crusted with sesame seeds). This is your dish. It's not too fancy though, and has great fresh, simple flavours. I used halibut, but it would work equally well with a other firm fleshed fish like tuna, swordfish or salmon.

Aside from perhaps the bok choy, if you've got a fairly well-stocked pantry, you should be able to knock together this tasty dish for a first course or a main, in not much more time than it would take to grill that fish. The broth is lemony and garlicky and the dumplings are really delicate and tender because I made them with the same dough as Chinese Jiaozi. The bok choy, soy sauce and sesame oil give it an Asian flavour. Make extra, because someone's bound to want seconds.

• 350 grams halibut fillet, skinned
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 inch piece fresh ginger root grated
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 1/4 cups white flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1 teaspoon butter, soft
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups water
• rind of 1 lemon
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon minced lemon grass
• 2 chopped green onions
• juice of 3 small or 2 large lemons (about 1/3 cup)
• 1 large bunch bok choy thinly sliced, both white and green parts
• 1 Tablespoon chopped cilantro
• soy sauce for drizzling
• sesame oil for drizzling

Chop the fish fillet into cubes about 3 cm or 4 cm square, you should end up with about 16 or 20 cubes. Toss the cubes into a Tupperware container with the soy sauce, garlic, ginger and sesame oil and allow to marinate for 30 minutes to 2 hours.

Sift the flour and salt together. Drop the teaspoon of butter on top of the flour and pour the boiling water over top. Mix the dough together swiftly - the best way to do this is to use a Kitchenaid or other stand mixer. Roll the dough into a ball, cover with flour and then waxed paper and allow to rest for 20 minutes.

While the dough is resting, combine the chicken stock, water, lemon peel, lemongrass, garlic and onion in a large soup pot. Leave the stock to simmer while you work with the dough.  Slice the bok choy and set aside.

After the dough has rested, use your fingers to pinch off small balls, about the size of a large kumquat or small apricot. Flour your work surface well and use your rolling pin to roll each ball out into a circle about 10 to 12 centimetres across. You should be able to make around 20 circles of dough. Flour each circle and stack them.

Bring the stock to a vigorous boil.

Drain the fish cubes. Place one cube in the centre of each circle. Use a pastry brush to dampen the exposed edge of the dough. Fold half of each circle over the fish cube to make a semi circle and pinch the edges of the dough together, pleating it as you go, rather than making a flat edge. Fold and please the dumplings one at a time and drop each one into the boiling stock before you move on to folding and pleating the next one. This will give the stock enough time to recover a full boil between each dumpling. After you have tossed the last dumpling into to pot, add the bok choy and cilantro, allow the pot to boil for 30 seconds more and then remove it from the heat and set aside. Let the pot rest for 5 to 8 minutes. Ladle about 2 cups pf the stock off into a small bowl and add the lemon juice to it.

Use a slotted spoon to remove some bok choy and dumplings to each of four soup plates and then ladle over a bit of the reserved stock with lemon juice. Drizzle over a bit of soy sauce and a few drops of sesame oil.

Serves 4 as a main dish or 6 to 8 as a starter.

Spicy coffee bison roast

I haven't cooked a roast in my oven for well over 3 months now. It's not that I haven't cooked a roast, because I've done a fair few of them. It's that I've been cooking them on my rotisserie. I really must say, for a family that fights equally over the crusty ends as over the tender rare middle, the rotisserie is a thing of beauty.  It creates the most beautiful, caramelized, all-over-deep-brown crust. The coffee in the marinade deepens the brown even more. Funnily, you can really taste the coffee in this, but somehow, combined with the browned meat, it tastes really, really nice. It takes on kind of a smoky flavour.- maybe that's just the grilling! This marinade is great for tenderizing meat, but if you are using bison, remember to keep it on the rare side of things - there's not much that can be done with overcooked bison. You could use this marinade and method just as easily with beef.

• 1 cup very strong, good coffee (we only use Lavazza in our house)
• 1/2 onion, chopped finely
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3-4 pound bison standing rib roast

Chuck everything in a ziploc bag, expel the air and seal it well. Roll it around between your hands and shake it well. Leave it to marinate in the fridge for 3 or 4 hours. About 2 hours before you want to cook, take it out of the fridge and let it continue to marinate at room temperature. Cook on a rotisserie or in a very hot oven (400F) until a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part (away from the bone) reads 135 to 138. Allow to stand 10 minutes and then carve. Serve with roasted potatoes and corn salsa.

Teribbly Yummy Cajun-ish Sausages

The recipe title doesn't nearly do these sausages justice.

Last time I made sausages, I thought I'd done a pretty good job of it, but I wasn't sure.

Now I am sure. These sausages are amazing. We ate them with corn on the cob and absolutely nothing else. And Cakes made me promise to make more for his trip to Sundre this weekend. How can I say no?

These sausages are flavourful and juicy and just the right amount of spicy. if you don't have a sausage stuffer, you could make these into patties, or little log shapes. I wouldn't cook your patties or logs on the grill however as the meat mixture is not quite clingy enough to stay together and you'll probably end up with burnt meat bits under your grill.

Saugsage stuffer or not, these babies will be sure to impress at your next backyard supper. I bet you could smoke these too (if you're a smoking kind of cook) and they'd be great. They taste very much like a fresh (unsmoked) andouille and would be great in a jambalaya. The cajun seasoning recipe included is great as a rub for chicken breasts or in a jambalaya recipe. I usually make a few cups at a time and then use it in all sorts of stuff.

Yummy Cajun-ish sausages

• 150 grams (about 190 ml or 3/4 cup) thai glutinous rice
• 440 ml (1 + 3/4 cups) water
• 8 fat cloves garlic chopped fine
• 30 ml (2 Tablespoons) fresh thyme, minced
• 100 ml (6 -7 Tablespoons) cajun seasoning (see recipe below)
• 5 ml (1 teaspoon) cayenne pepper
• 30 ml (2 Tablespoons) kosher salt
• 5 ml (1 teaspoon) ground allspice
• 2 kilograms (4.5 pounds) ground meat (half pork and half beef - try not to use any leaner than 15% fat)
• 2 medium onions minced very fine
• hog casings

for the cajun seasoning

• 60 ml (1/4 cup) salt
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) paprika
• 80 ml (1/3 cup) garlic powder
• 45 ml (3 Tablespoons) white pepper
• 45 ml (3 Tablespoons) black pepper
• 60 ml (1/4 cup) onion powder
• 45 ml (3 Tablespoons) cayenne pepper
• 45 ml (3 Tablespoons) dried thyme
• 45 ml (3 Tablespoons) dried oregano

For the Cajun seasoning: Shake all the spices up in a plastic container. That's it.

For the sausages: Cook rice in water until the water is all absorbed and rice is moist and sticky  -I usually do this by putting the rice and water in a pot and bringing it to a boil. Once the rice is boiling I turn the heat down to minimum and put the lid on for 14 minutes.

Transfer the cooked rice into a bowl and refrigerate it for 30 minutes to cool. Combine all the ingredients (except casings) in a big steel bowl. Use your hands to mix thoroughly, squishing the filling through your fingers repeatedly until it's sticky and well combined. Refrigerate for at least 8 hours to allow flavours to blend. Shape into patties or logs with damp hands, or stuff into casings.

Cook outside and make your neighbours jealous with the smell!

Fresh tomato and cheese phyllo pizza

From May to October the theme that dominates most of the cooking and eating in our household is fresh. Supper tonight was no exception. The last thing I want to do on a gorgeous light summer night is spend hours in a hot kitchen, wasting valuable daylight and outdoor time. I want something fresh and fast and tasty and whatever it is will probably incorporate some produce from my garden, especially tomatoes. If it's too early for my own tomatoes - then tomatoes from the local farmers' market.

This is a great light and fresh tasting pizza. Because it uses phyllo dough, you eliminate a lot of farting around with making dough and waiting for it to rise. Also, because it's less doughy, it is a lighter meal - not so heavy on those carbs that keep us going all winter but just make you lethargic during the heat of summer.

Using phyllo also cuts way down on the prep time. I made this pizza and got it into the oven in less than 10 minutes.

Makes one small, approximately 8 by 14 inch rectangular pizza which should serve 3 or 4

• 6 sheets phyllo
• spray on olive oil
• 1 cup ricotta
• 3 tablespoons fresh chopped dill
• 5 cloves garlic crushed and minced
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon good sea salt
• 2 or 3 large firm ripe tomatoes, sliced into nice thick (1/2 - 3/4 cm) slices
• 1/2 cup good quality feta, crumbled

Spray a thin layer of olive oil onto the surface of a 9 X 14 inch cake pan. You can also use a small cookie sheet or a pizza pan if you prefer. Lay one sheet of phyllo on the pan with the edges hanging over the edge of the pan. Spray that sheet of dough lightly with oil. Top with another sheet of phyllo and spray it as well. repeat until you've used all the sheets up and the bottom of the pan is covered in 6 layers of dough. If your phyllo sheets are smaller and don't cover the pan totally, you'll need to use more than six. try to make sure you overlap the seams and try to stagger the seams as between layers.

Press dough firmly into corners of the pan. You can either trim the overhanging dough level with the edges of the pan or you can fold each edge under.

Preheat oven to 400F.

In a medium sized bowl, mix ricotta, dill (reserve a small portion for the top of the pizza, garlic, salt and pepper. Use a large spoon to spread the cheese mixture evenly over the base of the dough.

Top the ricotta mixture with tomato slices. Top the tomato slices with crumbeld feta and remaining dill.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until the pizza lookews cooked and the feta cheese is browned on top. If the feta is not as brown as you'd like, use strips of tim foil to cover the edges of the dough and put the pizza under the broiler for a couple of minutes. Serve with a simple green salad with lemon dressing.

Lemon and Garlic Roasted Pheasant

I finally managed to get to the 104 Street market last saturday instead of the Starthcona Market. There's less selection, but also less people, and you can still get great produce straight from the people who grow it. The other huge bonus is the game bird stall run by "Dirt Willy". I've been wondering about cooking pheasant for some time now, and Cakes and I have occasionally talked about getting hunting licenses (for game birds, not deer or anything cute), so when I saw the pheasants for sale I decided to jump in without checking the price. Which is good. because I'f I'd known that a 3 pound bird was going to cost me almost $30, I probably wouldn't have bought it! As it was, I was in shock when the man told me the price and absentmindedly forked over the money and went home with the bird.

Now I can say I've tasted pheasant and I know I like it just fine. Not enough to pay $10 a pound for it, but give me some reasonably priced (or better yet, free!) pheasants and I'd be more than happy to repeat the experience.

Pheasant meat is a lot denser than chicken. My roast chickens generally have a mouthwatering, meltingly soft flesh, so the density of this meat came as a huge surprise to me. Not unpleasant, but a surprise nonetheless. It's not overly gamey tasting either. There's very little fat on the bird, which presents its own problems, but because the skin was so thin, it got very crispy all over and didn't have that disspointing flabby skin towards the sides and bottom that you usually get on a roast chook.

The flavour combo I used - lemon & garlic - worked beautifully with this bird. Also critical is the brining. I imagine the meat would have been much denser and less tender but for the brine. If you happen to get your hands on a pheasant, give this a go. Otherwise, it'd work beautifully for a chicken or game hens as well.

• 1 - 3 lb Pheasant, cleaned
• 1.5 litre (6 cups) water
• 2 Tablespoons good quality sea salt
• rind of 1/2 lemon in biggish pieces
• 2 cloves garlic smashed
• 1/3 cup soft butter
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• rind of 1/2 lemon minced fine
• 2 cloves garlic minced fine
• 1 lemon in quarters
• 1 cup white wine
• canola spray oil

Pop the pheasant into a large ziploc bag with the water, salt, large rind pieces and smashed garlic. Seal well and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Preheat overn to 425F

Drain pheasant and pat dry. use your hand to loosen the skin from the pheasant's breast. mix together soft butter, honey, minced garlic and minced lemon. Using your hands, transfer the butter mixture to the breast under the loosened skin. Pull the skin back over to cover and use your fingers to gently spread the butter under the skin evenly.

Place the lemon quarters up the chicken's bum. Chuck an extra clove of garlic up there too if you like. Tie the chook's legs together with cooking twine. Pop the chook on a rack inside a roasting pan. Spray oil lightly over the surface of the whole chicken. Roast in oven for 15 minutes at 425 and then reduce the heat to 350F. Roast for 30 minute more until doen (juices should run clear when you pierce the bird in the thick flesh where the thigh joins the body). Don't rely on the old "wiggle the drumstick test" as the dense pheasant flesh will not wiggle as loosely as a chicken's.

Remove from oven and tent with foil. Deglaze the roasting pan with wine. Reduce the jus to approximately 1/3 cup and serve with the sliced pheasant.

This serves up beautifully with a simple salad of greens, toasted pecans, apple slices, dried cranberries, goats cheese and a lemon dressing.

Cheater's Duck Confit

When the urge to make duck confit came upon me, the first thing I did was check what Larousse had to say on the matter. Well, okay, that's a lie. The first thing I did was bemoan the fact that, of all the urges I could possibly have, the urge to make duck confit was about the dumbest urge a person could have. Why can't I have normal urges like for a pint of Ben & Jerry's from the corner store? That'd be a hell of a lot less work.

Truthfully, it wasn't so much of an urge as it was a necessary evil. You see, I have in my possession a really great recipe that calls for duck confit, and which I intend to make tomorrow, so I needed to make the confit in advance, because, where the hell can you buy duck confit? Having read a heap of recipes, including that found in Larousse, I now know why. 1) it calls for ungodly amounts of fat; 2) the ungodly amount of fat for which it calls is duck fat. Where the hell do you find 4 cups of duck fat? This is where I decided to take matters into my very own hands and cheat at the game of confit. Because I reckon that most of the people who read Lex Culinaria (that's you!) would have about as much of an idea (and inclination) as I have as regards the procurement of 4 cups of duck fat. Which is to say, none.

Why should confit be kept for only those who have on hand 4 cups of duck fat? It should not, I say. Certainly not when lard can so easily be found on the shelves of your average grocery store.

So here we have it, Cheaters Confit.

Confit was originally used as a method of preservation. Goose or duck was simmered in its own fat and then sealed in a crock with enough fat to cover it completely. Kind of the same idea as the layer of melted butter on top of pate or the layer of paraffin over jams. Because the meat was soaked in salt and cooked in fat, it was pretty darn flavourful and very tender. So, keeping with the tradition of salting and cooking in fat, I've really adapted the recipe to use an alternate source of fat, and also to be done in the oven, although you could do yours on the stove top.

Cheaters Confit

(makes about 1.5 cups of shredded meat)

• 2 duck legs
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme (or 1 Tablespoon fresh)
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary
• 1 bay leaf, crushed
• 250ml (1 cup) melted lard (use the kind that's packaged for baking)
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) good quality canola oil

Combine the herbs and salt. Rub the salt mixture into the duck legs. Place the duck legs in a large Ziploc baggie, place in fridge and let marinate for 24 hours.

Remove duck from bag, rinse and pat dry.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Place duck in the bottom of a very small baking dish. The dish should be just big enough to hold the duck in a single layer, skin side up, covering the bottom completely. Cover with the lard and oil.  The fat should just cover the top. If it doesn't quite cover, pour in a bit more oil until it does. Put duck in oven and reduce the hwat to  200F. Bake, uncovered at 210F for 1 hour 45 minutes. Turn the oven off and let cool inside oven for a further 30 minutes.

Remove duck from oven. Pour off oil. Allow the meat to cool and then shred it. If you are going to keep the confit for a while, press the meat into a small glass or porcelain container and then cover with a layer of the melted fat. If you're going to use the meat straight away, don't bother with this step. In any event, keep the fat for roasting potatoes with!

Once you've made your confit ...what do you do with it? You could try:

Confit, pear and pecan salad

Duck confit Rilettes

Shredded confit duck and noodle salad

...or watch Lex Culinaria later in the week for a great recipe courtesy of Patrick Turcot, Executive Chef at the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald.

The Summer Barbque Challenge Round-up

We all know what a huge proponent I am of the importance of sharing great meals with friends and family. The sort of meal I enjoy sharing most often happens out of doors, on a sunny weekend afternoon and doesn’t generally involve heating up the kitchen or folding napkins into perfect thirds.

Though I’ve had both near and total disasters in the kitchen preparing for regular dinner parties, I’ve never had the experience with a BBQ. There’s something magical about the ease and joviality that go hand in hand with the BBQ. No one’s worrying about the right fork and it’s totally acceptable to be so enamoured of what you’re eating that you end up with sauce on your chin. I guess that’s why I love barbeques so much… they really are the essence of what a shared meal should be -  enjoyment of great food, and lively company (especially when there’s good beer and wine!) - without the fussiness and formality that sometimes comes packaged up with more formal meals.

My most vivid childhood memories of eating a complete meal (as opposed to a particular food item or the preparation of food) are of summer suppers eaten outside with my parents and sister on the patio of the house I grew up in. We had a patio table with an umbrella that had a very hip (for the late 70s) brown and blue stripe on it. That was at the time long before patio furniture became plastic. Our table was a shiny powder-coated white metal. The meals were never really fancy – salad from the garden, baked potatoes – maybe done in foil with sliced onions, butter and a touch of honey – and steaks from the barbeque. I loved those meals. Heat would kick me under the table, or torture me by obliquely revealing to my parents some secret I’d confided earlier and which I was mortified to hear her repeat. After supper, we’d get Popsicles from the freezer. Those meals were lively and happy and exciting in a way that meals eaten inside never quite were.

Maybe it’s because the winters here can seem so long, but I really feel like I have in the past been much more adventurous with my indoor cookery than the outdoor variety. I felt stuck in a BBQ rut really, serving the same old standbys time after time. I swore to myself that this year would be different – I’d cook outside more, and I’d cook better and more adventurous things. So I issued the Summer Barbeque Challenge. I thought it would be a great resource to have a little online cache of great outdoor recipes to inspire our shared backyard meals all summer. So here we are…

The Summer BBQ Challenge has certainly turned out to be an international event with recipes from all corners of the globe all of which are amazing alternatives to the same-old-same-old that happens all too often around my own barbeque. After some initial confusion over what in fact I meant by “barbeque” the entries rolled in. 

Stephanie, my favourite Happy Sorceress brings us a tasty looking Lamb & Persian Rice Kibbeh and in doing so has unwittingly created for the barbeque one of my favourite Middle Eastern Dishes. Funny, without her, I’d never have thought of doing kibbeh on the barbeque. Thanks Stephanie!

McAuliflower of Brownie Points brought a tasty treat for vegetarians and meat lovers alike! Her Teriayki Grilled Tempeh that looks amazing. She did hers in a grill pan, but I reckon it’s going to get a workout on my wood fire pit grill this summer. This is one recipe that's stood the test of time...McAuliflower's brought this with her from her college days!

Helen of Beyond Salmon brought us two fantastic entries. First she provided great instructions on how to properly grill fish. I for one, have never really attempted to grill fish before because I was always worried about temperature control and the possibility of the fish sticking to the grill or breaking up and disappearing into the flames! With Helen’s great step-by-step instructions, I think I can finally conquer my fear.

Helen also made a great salad, with grilled ingredients. I don’t have much to say about Helen’s Grilled Asparagus, Tomato and Feta Salad, because I’m too busy drooling. I love grilled asparagus. I love tomatoes. I love feta. Yum.

Sandra of Un Tocco Di Zenzaro gave us the only non-English entry. Sandra, who lives in Turin, Italy made some chicken skewers that sound wonderfully yummy, no matter what the language! Her chicken skewers recipe – done both in Spanish and in Italian, would make a great addition to any summer barbeque.

Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once is from my very favourite city in the whole wide, wide world: Melbourne. When we lived in Melbourne, Cakes and I would barbeque our supper at least 5 nights out of 7 over the summer. I can remember some Saturdays when we’d barbeque both our lunch and our supper!  Getting away from the focus on the meat is Haalo’s potato skewers recipe, which is a fab alternative to plain potatoes in foil. I could practically smell the garlic and roast potato smell looking at that photo!

Kat of Kat on Thyme made an extremely adventurous Triple Sec and Vanilla Brined Pork Tenderloin with a Rhubarb Fruit Compote spanning two posts. This is definitely on my to-try list as I’ve become a great fan of brining meat ever since reading Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking. Plus, I’ve got some nice fresh rhubarb sitting on the counter……

Zorra of 1 x umruehren bitte also stepped away from the meats! The one Barbeque meal food that I almost always end up buying is the bread. That will probably change now that I’ve seen how soft and yummy looking Zorra’s home made pita bread looks. I can just imagine wrapping up a nice hot browned bit of lamb or sausage straight off the grill in one of those pitas.

Gabriella True of My Life as a Reluctant Housewife brings us the only desert entry with her amazing-looking grilled pineapple with caramel sauce. Yum. I really would like to experiment more with grilled sweet foods and this looks like a great place to start!

Craig’s & Lois Notes from the Cape sent in a fantastic recipe for melted camembert on a baguette. I can’t even bear to look at the picture because I am afraid the drool might short out my keyboard and then where would we be? No roundup. I think I’d probably be tempted to also grill the baguette too, but that’s just me and my new barbeque motto - no food should be left ungrilled! Seriously. Melted cheese? Too good.

Everyone need as good Barbeque sauce recipe or two in their repertoire. I’m glad I can add Dave’s world famous BBQ basting sauce from Robert at White Trash BBQ to mine. I find the selection of sauces at the store most perplexing. I get tired just contemplating reading the labels on 200 different sauce bottles to find one that I like. I’d much rather just make my own. I’m gonna put this one together with Helen’s fish-grilling instructions…

Intrepid Torontonian Ruth, of Once Upon a Feast, came up with a whole barbeque meal menu including grilled asparagus, cedar plank salmon, quinoa tabouleh, chickpea & couscous salad and blueberry mint granita. Wow. Now I have one whole barbeque party planned out and I’m not even tired! Those granitas sound great, and I’ve always wanted to do cedar planked salmon……

Kevin of Seriously Good is clearly making this his sausage year as well. In that vein he made us some super tasty looking Romanian sausage called Mititei, which I imagine is Romanian for “seriously good-looking sausages”. They’re user friendly too. You don’t need a sausage stuffer for these babies, as they are skinless.

My favourite Edmonton author/shopping enthusiast and all-round blog-girl, Jena of Naked Bootleg, added to the international flavour of the challenge by producing Korean barbequed chicken and beef with loads of garlic. She complements this with home made Sunomono, which is an absolute favourite of mine – I’ve never even though about making it myself before, but now that Jena’s brought this recipe to my attention, you can bet I will!

Blogless Erica sent us two really tasty entries from her online cookbook (why don’t I have one of these?). Her Sweet & Sour Broccoli Coleslaw looks like a great twist on an old barbeque favourite and the amazing sounding  Wheatberry & Roasted Beet Salad is right up my alley – I love roasted beets in a salad!

My favourite Southerner, William of Never Trust a Skinny Chef, throws it back in Rachel Ray’s face with a five-hour smoked chicken chilli. Could Rachel even stand to do a dish that took more than 30 mintues? We’re guessing not. After all, she’s probably too skinny to stand and cook for that long. She'd probably feel all faint and have to lie down. William smoked his own chicken folks. That’s dedication.

Robert from Al Forno wades into the backyard cooking fray with a great post on the history of barbeque sauces and the regional sauces of the American barbeque belt.  He serves up a great recipe for an old fashioned all-American barbeque technique that sounds amazing and which will certainly find a place in my repertoire.

And lastly, my own entry… Grilled Char Sui Beef Bundles

Fitzroy will be making his selection of the winner of the Summer BBQ Challenge later in the week when his mum manages to buy a new printer cartridge! Also, he's feeling a little out of sorts owing to the fact that he recently ate a bee. This necessitated a terrifying trip to the vet (actually, probably more terrifying for me and Cakes than for poor old Fitzy). I'd like to make sure he's in top form before setting him to such a difficult task!

Grilled Char Sui Beef Bundles

In order to get out of my barbeque rut, I decided to try grilling something I would normally cook using another method. This dish is actually something I've made before as an appetizer or finger food for cocktail parties - only I usually broil them in a pan in the oven. They do just as well on the barbeque though. You can change them up a little by using pork or lamb, or even chicken instead of beef, and by altering the fillings - you could use bean sprouts, slices of portobello, snow peas..... They're far easier to make than you'd think. The meat cooks quite quickly owing to the paper thin cut, while the vegetables cook just enough to remain crisp-tender.

Grilled Char Sui Beef Bundles

serves 4

• 5cm/2in fresh root ginger, peeled
• 1 large garlic clove, crushed
• 3 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 6 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp palm sugar (or light brown sugar)
• 2 tsp five-spice powder
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp Chinese rice wine
• 400 g very thinly sliced beef (or pork)
• 1 each of large red, yellow and orange capsicums (bell peppers), try to select peppers that are long as opposed to fat.
• 1 bundle green onions, the longest ones you can find.

Mix sauce ingredients. Marinate meat slices in sauce for 1 to 4 hours.
Cut capsicum into ½ centimetre thick spears the long way. Cut the curtved end from each spear. Set aside.

Cut white ends from green onions and blanch them in boiling water for about 1 minute, until they soften, but are not mushy.

Select a few spears of capsicum and line them up together on top of one slice of meat. Roll the meat up into a tight cigar around the capsicum. Tie the roll tightly shut using a piece of blanched green onion.

Brush with any left over marinade and grill.  The thin meat will cook quickly leaving the vegetables crisp tender.