To open this year’s barbecue season, we’ve put together a few tips and tricks for making delicious treats truly tasty on the grill. And if you want perfectly grilled steaks, shoulder of lamb cooked to buttery perfection or beautiful, pink braised roast beef, you should take a look at our BT40 barbecue thermometer. It will ensure every meat dish is a triumph, because this barbecue thermometer knows all about the different cooking levels – which can even be preselected.
It’s no longer just pork belly, beef steak and sausages that give off that hearty aroma and turn into real delicacies on the grill. Vegetables, fish and poultry have now too claimed their place over the glowing coals. Still, the old barbecue rule holds true for them all: better slow and even than hot and burnt! Experts know that perfect barbecued food is above all dependent on perfect embers.
Tips and fresh ideas for the barbecue – meat, poultry, vegetables and fish
- The perfect result comes from perfect embers: ideally you will create these using a chimney starter. This will quickly give you even embers that you can then spread over the grill. As a general rule, low but even heat produces a better result over longer cooking times for fish and meat.
- When preparing large cuts of meat you should also rely on slow barbecuing at a low heat. For Porterhouse steak, veal cutlet, T-bone steak or whole roast beef, the results get better and better, but they require a longer waiting time to start with.
- In principle, you can barbecue almost any meat. Marbled beef and pork cuts – the ones with the small, fine veins of fat – are particularly succulent. When buying and cutting your meat you should ensure that the individual pieces are roughly the same thickness – this ensures the meat will cook through evenly.
- Mouthwatering beef such as rib-eye steaks. The tender prime rib meat is well marbled, making it taste particularly succulent. Or you might choose a rump steak. Streaked with fine veins of fat, this cut is also very juicy. An entrecôte, which is a rib cut around 400 grams in weight taken from the middle of a flat roast beef steak, is perfectly suited to barbecuing. Fine veins of fat make it a tender indulgence.
- Tasty pork such as well-marbled cutlets or the classic pork chops. Tender butterfly steaks and fine, lean fillet cutlets also come the same cut. Lumberjack steaks from the shoulder as well as pork belly, which belongs on nearly every barbecue, are also a great choice. For fingerfood fans there a spare ribs and delicate pork fillets, which are made from the cut used for tender pork medallions.
- Make a change with lamb – saddle of lamb, for example, is a particular delight for barbecue gourmets. The popular lamb cutlets are also taken from the same cut. Fans of tender delicacies love the delicate taste of these fine fillets. First-class steaks are cut from the leg.
- Veal is a special delicacy. Before barbecuing, you should wrap the meat in bacon or cover the pieces well with oil so that the meat stays tender and succulent. You should also place the meat in an aluminium tray and raise the grill because veal cutlets and schnitzel cannot take high barbecue temperatures.
- There are around 50 different types of Bratwurst, or frying sausage, in Germany alone. Whether it’s the traditional Thüringer Bratwurst or the crisp Nürnberger sausages, or perhaps sausages with added herbs or cheese – you are guaranteed to find one you like! And lamb, veal and poultry sausages provide even more variety on the grill.
- Poultry – a lighter taste from your barbecue. Versatile and uncomplicated, chicken and turkey breasts, legs and wings are perfectly suited to our needs. However, whole birds should only be barbecued on a spit.
- Fish – a barbecue delicacy. But care and attention is needed before you can tuck in and enjoy it. To stop the fish braking apart when you turn it, use a fish basket: encase the whole fish in the basket then turn the whole thing, including the basket. Fish shouldn’t be barbecued over a very high heat because it burns quickly and can loose its moisture. Fatty fish like mackerel, eel, herring, salmon, swordfish, tuna or trout work best, because they don’t dry out as quickly thanks to the high fat content.
- Asparagus in foil – from the barbecue! Place peeled, thick, white asparagus spears on a large piece of aluminium foil, add a little butter and season with sea salt and a pinch of sugar. Add a splash of wine and seal the foil well. Now place the parcel on the barbecue: as soon as you can hear the liquid bubbling in the foil, the asparagus needs around ten more minutes – then it will be perfectly cooked and delicious!
Always a perfect result – with the BT40 barbecue thermometer
With our BT40 grill thermometer you can cook all meat dishes to perfection! The BT40 precisely calculates up to five cooking levels in a total of eight different foods by measuring the core temperature: from RARE, or bloody, to MEDIUM WELL DONE, or a fully cooked-through piece of meat. Alternatively, you can also pre-select your desired cooking level from the outset with up to five cooking settings. Then the BT40 lets you know when the respective temperature is reached – and the dish can be served cooked “à point” to perfection. On top of that, food can be safely left to its own devices, as the BT40 saves you all those unnecessary trips to the barbecue to check on the meat thanks to its radio range of up to 20 metres.
