The Secret of a Perfect BBQ – Poaching

We all love BBQ’s with lots of friends or just the family it always seems special.

But we all have at one time seen or heard of food that has been burnt on the outside and raw in the middle. And that is potentially lethal or at the very least inedible.

So I like to ‘Poach’ my chicken, sausages, ribs if big and some pork cuts basically any meat that has to have clear juices to be safe to eat.

Poaching also keeps the meat juicy and tender as it does not dry out meat like roasting can do. You can also serve more people quicker than ever before.

The poaching liquid should be full of flavour so it enhances what ever you put in it. A basic poaching liquid is water, some fresh herbs, onion, garlic cloves, bay leaf and black pepper corns and a pinch of sea salt. You can also add wine, carrot, celery, leek really anything you like the taste of.

To poach a whole chicken I like to flatten it out (butterfly) by cutting out the backbone with some kitchen scissors removing the wishbone and pushing it flat. Then I poach it in a large pan you can also do this in halves or quarters if you don’t have a big enough pan. Bring your poaching liquid just to the boil and reduce the heat till the bubbles are gently winking at you then cook for 20 mins or less for smaller pieces. But please make sure that it doesn’t boil!

Whole chicken butterflied ready to poach

Poached butterfly chicken

Bring your poaching liquid just to the boil and reduce the heat till the bubbles are gently winking at you then cook for 20 mins or less for smaller pieces.

The search for the best Kebabs in Ireland.

Where I grew up in London is one of the best places to buy a Kebab. A good Kebab is a wonderful experience, the flavour of grilled meat with freshly cut salad in pitta or Turkish flatbread and a large squeeze of lemon is just ‘beautiful’.

Haringey in North London was mainly a mix of Irish, Greek, Cypriot, Turkish and English families. I was lucky to have Greek Cypriot neighbours as a child, so I learnt about charcoal grilled foods long before I heard of a BBQ.

Greek 'village bread'

I learned to love fresh Greek bread ‘village style’, a large round loaf always hot out of the oven. Mum used to send me for a couple of them 2 or 3 times a week. The smell of freshly baked bread as I walked home has always stayed with me, as does the wonderful smells wafting from the Greek restaurants and take aways on Green Lanes.

Phyllis Coleston a friend of my mum and dads, bought me my first Doner Kebab. I was about 7 or 8 years old and I was round at her house playing with Martin her son who had (as I remember) a great mini golf set. I wasn’t sure if I wanted one, but Martin told me they were lovely so we had one each for lunch. I didn’t like spicy food, so I avoided the chilli sauce, I just had a big wedge of lemon that had warmed up sitting on top of the Doner Kebab wrapped in paper. It was a revelation. I loved it!. Hot slices of slightly spiced lamb with thinly sliced iceberg lettuce,onions and cucumber and a few wedges of tomato,all held together in a warm pitta bread, and it was huge!

So as you can tell I like the odd Kebab. It was the food of  choice for chefs in London. After working in a hot kitchen all day and night with the finest ingredients money could buy the last thing you wanted was to eat any of the stuff you cooked. A Kebab was always a winner  at 1 or 2 am 🙂 So as a chef I could tell a good one from a bad one.

Then I came to Ireland, and and occasionally didn’t feel like cooking and desired a Kebab. Imagine my ‘Horror’ to find that wonderfully simple dish turned into the stuff of nightmares. I have had at about 15 Kebabs in the last 3 years in Ireland each one an insult to food and to the customer! A tiny amount of meat (usually microwaved) served in a ‘small’ pitta bread with truly awful salad that is swamped by horrendous processed sauces that are slopped on a such huge quantities that I can only assume is to hide the ‘SHIT’ they have charged you for.  So I am very pleased to let you know I found a great Kebab in Ireland

The Best Kebab's in the West

The Charcoal Grill in Galway City is on Cross Street near the Quays. The staff are amazingly friendly and the food is outstanding. Layered chicken and lamb doner’s, Kofte’s, chicken and lamb shish kebabs cooked to order and at a very reasonable price. We shared the Charcoal Grill Special that came with some of all their styles of Kebabs salad chips and pitta bread. The cost was less than 20 euros with 2 cokes, An amazing place, a huge well done and thank you.

Yum Yum

John and Elora

Happy Staff with Great Food