BBQ Blowout

My sister is getting married in October. In America, which is a little inconvenient for most of her friends and relatives. So we had an engagement party in this country for anyone unable / unwilling to travel all the way to San Francisco. I ended up volunteering to prepare all the food, and with 45 people coming it was by far the largest crowd I've ever cooked for.

A formal sit-down meal for that many people would been completely out of my comfort zone, but a barbecue seemed manageable. I've grilled for around 20 people before, so it wasn't a massive step up. Although charcoal is always my first choice we went with a hired gas BBQ. The large cooking surface and sustained heat made a lot of sense for that many people. The last thing I wanted to do was constantly having to re-stoke the coals and wait for them to come up to temperature. So this was the cooking beast we ended up with:




Positives: the gas kept the grill hot for several hours and the vast cooking surface was a bonus.
Negatives: no charcoal flavour; hard to control temperature (surprisingly); only narrow slits on the steel surface, so food steams and fries more than it grills.
Still, on balance probably the right choice for the occasion.

We ordered the meat from Scottish mail-order supplier Donald Russell, after having them recommended by friends. Have to say it was great quality and didn't cost too much. I'll definitely be using them again in the future.

We got three boned legs of lamb, which I marinaded in chillies, onions, garlic and Moroccan spices. Here they are looking like one massive lump of meat with a Weber meat thermometer to make sure they cooked until they were crusty on the outside and nicely pink on the inside.



Next came some Chicken Satay skewers, marinated in garlic, ginger, coconut milk, soy, sugar and turmeric (served with my patented Satay sauce). We also ordered a whole load of Donald Russell steak burgers and sausages.



Then there were the salads, which were (mostly) made the night before:

Pea, baby broadbean, spring onion and mint
Chargrilled sweet peppers
Greek Salad
Carrot, cabbage and apple coleslaw
Mixed beans with lemon zest and parsley
Mixed leaves with shredded beetroot

Plus 6kg of roasted new potatoes, which we forgot to put out and left in the oven until everyone left and we suddenly remembered. Never mind.



Well, everyone left happy. I didn't feel quite as in control of the cooking as I would have done over charcoal, but it all turned out alright...