Howard 26 December 2008 Modern Australian 9 Comments  Print This Post  Email This Post

Christmas is a great time of the year. When I was a kid, Christmas was always envisioned as a time of building snow men and opening presents in front of a fire place (thank you American media). As I grew older, I realised all of this was a lie and Christmas in Australia actually meant going to the beach, bbqs, boxing day cricket and flies. 

For lunch we often have a bbq instead of the convential and traditional roast turkeys, hams and so forth. Christmas to me is having good food, with good people. It doesn’t matter what you eat, as long as you celebrate it with someone. This Christmas, we had an east meets west  theme with a few Asian inspired dishes and some good old Australian favourites. 

Haloumi cheese

When I first tried haloumi, I thought it tasted like rubber with a bit of salt on it. To this day I still do, but oddly enough I love the taste of it. For our BBQ, we simply squeezed some lemon juice over the haloumi once it came off the bbq golden brown and slightly crispy. 

Beez Neez ($50 a case)

A bbq isn’t a proper bbq without some ice cold beers. This year we decided to go a bit fancy and get some Beez Neez. It was actually my first time trying this beer and I found it a bit uninspiring and ‘light’. I might stick to Extra Dry’s next year. I should have spent a bit more and bought some Hoegaarden’s.

Marinated chicken wings

Chicken wings are a challenge to cook on the bbq. I prefer to cook them on a coal based bbq so you can dictate the heat by moving the heat beads around. The marinade used was nothing spectacular, just your generic asian marinade consisting of soy sauce, oyster sauce, ginger, garlic and five spice powder.

Chicken wings getting ready to be eaten

Nam noung (vietnamese pork meatball)

Fresh cockles ($6.99 / kg)

When I was in Vietnam on holiday, they had street stalls selling different varieties of clam like seafood. Apart from cockles and pippies, they had about ten other ones which I didn’t even know existed. Anyway, when I saw these cockles for available I had to buy a kg so I could relive my days in Vietnam. After washing scrubbing and washing them to get rid of all the mud, we grilled them on the bbq until their shells started to open. Dip the cockles into some vietnamese fish sauce or simply lemon juice, salt and pepper. 

Mixed leaf salad

It’s important to keep the ladies and sensitive new age guys happy with a few salads. A simple mixed salad with balsamic vinegar did the trick.  

Cambodian salad

I couldn’t get the name of this, but it’s one of my favourite salads which is always available at a Thai or Cambodian bbq. From memory the ingredients consist of ; snake beans, mint, capsicum, red onion, scallion, fish sauce, shrimp paste, chilli, lime juice … ok I give up. I’ll try find out what exactly is in this, it is an intriguing salad with too many ingredients to remember. 

Eggplants in the garden

These are awesome aern’t they ? I love the concept of growing vegetables in your own backyard.  

Homemade garlic bread

Garlic bread is such a simple concept, yet we always seem to buy it because it ends up cheaper buying it pre-made than making it ourself. We decided to break the mould this year and try our own. All we did was mix butter, grinded garlic and sea salt. Spread it generously over the bread of your choice (we used the bread rolls from the Asian bakery) and put it on the BBQ for five minutes each side wrapped in foil. After slicing the bread, whenever someone wants a piece make sure to get them to put it on the bbq again for thirty seconds each side for a crunchy garlic bread guaranteed to taste better than what you can find at Woolies. 

BBQ mushrooms

With the left over garlic butter we spread some onto the mushrooms and it tasted orgasmic, a bit like having a different kind of mushroom. I love mushrooms on the bbq as it brings out the natural juices and sweetness. 

Woolies sausages

You can’t beat the good old Woolies or Coles sausages. These snags always bring back memories of the sausage sizzles we had back in primary and high school.  

• Cheap snags – check
• White bread – check
• Tomato sauce – check
• Onions – check

That’s all I need at a bbq to be honest. 

Marinated lamb cutlets

A simple marinade consisting of rosemary, garlic, lemon rind, sea salt and olive oil was used. It was left to marinade overnight and I’m glad we did, the flavours sunk deep into the lamb.

Milk crates are such versatile objects. Apart from carrying milk they can be used as seats, an extra bench for food (as shown), a rubbish bin (make sure to put a plastic bag in it!) and also as cricket stumps when stacked on top of each other. Milk crates can be found in front of your local corner store. While they are ‘free’, it’s best to return them after use in it’s original condition. 

marinated beef skewers, lamb, nam noung, chicken wings, garlic bread

Seasoning grinder from Aldi

Not everyone has an Aldi store near them, but if you ever get close to one I suggest you buy one of these. They are an absolute life saver if you run out of herbs and spices required for a quick marinade or to top off a dish.  

Beef skewers marinated in lemon grass and other asian spices

Giant tiger prawns

These were huge and possibly on steroids. No fancy business here, we simply chucked them on the bbq and let them cook until ready.

Chistmas day lunch in 2008 was a success. The weather was good, the company was good and most importantly the food was awesome. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Tweet This Post