to think if I get something from the 'barbecue food' section at Sainsbury's, I ought to be able to put it on the barbecue?

[LadyWellian]

We had a particularly late lunch today because having fired up the barbecue (thankfully a gas one) and then looked on the packets of chicken drumsticks and ribs I had bought in the barbecue section at Sainsburys (they were on special offer), we found that it said we had to preheat the oven to gas 6 and cook them for 40 minutes before browning them on the barbecue.

Surely if they are selling 'barbecue food' we ought to be able to barbecue it? Or is this just health and safety arse-covering so they can be sure you have cooked it to death before it ever meets a barbecue?

H&S arse covering thing.
It is preferable to zap the chicken in the microwave before barbecueing to make sure that it is cooke through. If, however, the chicken is cooked slowly and thoroughly on the barbecue, there is no need to do the zap thing!

that is odd! Surly BBQ food is meant to be cooked on errr the BBQ! at the gas BBQ though!

I usually give chicken drumsticks a blast in the microwave just to start them off, but it isn't necessary as long as the BBQ isn't so hot that they end up charred on the outside while the inside is still raw.

It's Health & Safety gorn maaad!

Something if it had been our old barbecue the bloody thing would have gone out before the 40 mins in the oven were over! It is a bit dishonest though. It's just an outdoor grill really.

They are just covering their asses. Of course you can cook chicken drumsticks on the BBQ, you just need to make sure they are cooked through. They take quite a while and you need to be careful not to burn the outside before they are cooked through in the middle but they certainly don't HAVE to be cooked in the oven first!

As Madamdeathstare said BBQ is smoking, which why BBQ flavour is smoky.

I would say that the cooking instructions were for best results not health and safety gone mad. Drum sticks are not the best meat for a BBQ (hence the instructions) but people like them because they are cheap and cheerful.

As others have said you could have cooked them on the BBQ but at a really low heat.

I always cook drumsticks in the oven first.

I cook chicken in the oven first, too - that way I know it's cooked in the middle as well as burnt on the outside!

Slightly off-topic, but we bought corn-on-the-cobs from the BBQ section a few weeks ago and they were on wooden skewers. Of course the moment we put them on the BBQ the wooden skewers caught fire, and burnt away to leave just a hole through the middle of the cob. I thought that was a pretty stupid example of 'food for the BBQ' too.

Too late now LisasCat, but I always wet my wooden skewers thoroughly before bbqing so they don't catch fire. Might be useful to know next time

Yes Lisacat that is a bit silly but if you wet them first or cover in foil they won't catch fire.

OK, I feel daft now for not having thought of that, but surely in the age of 'idiot-proof' instructions, the packaging should have told me. Can I sue? Oh and my coffee cup didn't warn me the contents were hot.....

MadamDeathStare on the offchance you look back to this thread, does a barbecue have to have a closed lid then? Because I'd contend that with our old charcoal barbecue we were cooking over charcoal embers, not curing with hot smoke, as we generally wouldn't cook on it until the flames had died down and it was glowing rather than smoking.