Barbecue | Sybaritica

You can certainly barbecue a whole chicken in its original shape (either with or without a spit), but butterflying it and opening it up so that it lays flat on a grill allows not only for a faster barbecuing time, but ensures more even cooking too. We will take a look at this technique in today’s post and, if you have never tried butterflying a chicken before, don’t worry… it’s really very simple…  Read more

Many years ago, I came across a recipe for grilled corn on the cob and it was something of a revelation to me as I had never really considered any other ways of cooking cobs other than by the traditional method of boiling it. There are plenty of ways of cooking corn on the grill, of course, and the preparation featured in today’s post, with its roots in the cuisines of South-east Asia,  reproduces the first recipe I came across as best as I can remember it…  Read more

I have recently featured a couple of different back-rib recipes. Both used fairly complex seasoning mixtures and respectively employed the techniques of pre-cooking and  the indirect heat grill method. Today, I am cooking back-ribs again but I am going to grill over a direct flame after a marinating the meat using only garlic and herbs…  Read more

One of our local stores had some lovely racks of back ribs for sale and I grabbed three packages; one for immediate use, and two more for the freezer. Not long ago, I did a post featuring my Grilled-Poached Ribs experiment wherein I slow-poached a rack of ribs in my Firepot Stock before finishing them quickly on the barbecue at high-heat. That time, I used side- ribs but for this dish I am using the much more tender back-ribs and will employ a slightly more mainstream method of slow grilling over indirect heat using wood-chips for a nice smoky flavor, and then finally caramelizing over direct flame to finish… Read more

While I was having lunch at a restaurant in Yellowknife a while ago, an interesting item on the menu caught my eye. I forget the name of it now, but basically it was a rib-steak marinated in a Chimichurri sauce and then given a Cajun style rub before grilling. It sounded terrific and I would love to have tried it but the steaks on the menu were only available after 5pm. In any event, the idea was quite intriguing and though I can’t really recreate it (not having been able to taste it), I thought I might try something along the same lines at home… Read more

Recently, Carla over at Expat Chef in Barcelona ( a great blog, by the way, so please check it out), made some great comments to Part 6 of my Sunday Gravy experiment (The Pulled Pork Sandwich).  I was looking for something to do for part 8 and her BBQ sauce idea prompted me to cook some ribs in the gravy (thus adding yet more depth to the flavor) and then use them to play around with barbecue sauce ingredients she suggested.

I plan to update you on the status of the gravy shortly (we are now at Day 45, of the experiment), but, basically, Carla inspired me to use a little of the current result with some simple additional  additions in order to make a tangy sauce. There won’t be any actual barbecuing involved in this experiment, actually, but I am looking forward to seeing how her general theme works with the ribs cooked in the oven… Read more

My poor neglected barbecue had little use since my wife bought it for me as a housewarming present back at the end of August. All told, I have only been able to use it a few times so far, what with being away from home so much and being cursed with crappy weather the rest of the time… I was very much hoping to do a whole host of posts featuring interesting barbecue adventures but it looks like that might have to wait until next year, I’m afraid.

Anyway, this may not be the most exciting of posts, but I did get to grill up a rib-eye steak a while ago. My wife was away, so I couldn’t share with her, but maybe my readers might enjoy the pictures I took as I cooked this meal for myself… Read more

 I am not a huge fan of beef ribs, usually. I often find them too fatty… especially the short rib cut.  However, these nice long, lean ones you see above are the ‘Prime Rib’ variety and, since they don’t appear in our stores very often, I just had to grab a few for supper.

Lately, I have been having a bit of a hankering for barbecue but, sadly, ‘tis not yet the season here in the North and, since my last cookout fiasco, I need to buy a new barbecue unit before I can do the real thing once again. Accordingly, I decided to cook these ribs in the oven with a nice barbecue rub made right here in my kitchen…  Read more

The above picture captures what has to be one of my least successful BBQ feasts…

The post I am currently working on involves a particular culinary process that will take some time to complete and, since I can’t finish writing until it is done, I have decided to take break from my usual sort of post and share a rather nasty experience with you. The incident in question took place over a year and a half-ago and, while I am able to take it somewhat lightly now, at the time it was one of the scariest episodes in my whole life …  Read more