Cooking Heston’s Barbecue for a BBQ Off

We are enjoying a nice summer this year. Walking around the residential streets of London, you will smell the wafts of meat grilling and the sounds of clinking glasses and drifts of conversation.

Last weekend, I had a little BBQ party with a few friend and to make it a bit more fun, we did a BBQ off. Everyone had to bring a dish and we would all judge their efforts and someone would be crowned an overall winner. Using Heston’s Ultimate Barbecue for recipe ideas, I decided to make Heston’s pulled pork recipe using pork shoulders and serving it in a wrap instead of a bun. I also made an Asian tangy slaw with red cabbage to go with it.

You can see the recipe here. It was much easier and faster to cook than I expected, took just 1 1/2 hours on the stove in stead of hours in a low oven. The use of smoked paprika in the braising liquid gives the bbq sauce a nice smokey flavour too. This recipe also gives you a lot of very tasty barbecue sauce from the braising liquid. I used this sauce to make some barbecued spare ribs after too.

The competition was meant to be based on everyone making the same recipe but of course no one ever follows the rules so we had some great spicy chicken, awesome beer steamed BBQ ribs and some courgette and haloumi skewers.

It’s not quite Guy Fawkes yet but we decided to make a big bonfire in the field too. This took half a day to build and we smeared ghee all over the bigger pieces of logs to make it burn faster and longer. It was quite awesome and I think we’ll be doing that again in the Autumn.

You can get more ideas and recipes for Summer Parties here:  http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/inspiration/waitrose-summer-partyideas/heston-s-ultimatebarbecuerecipes.html?cq_ck=1403770224098

This BBQ off was sponsored by Waitrose Groceries.