BBQ on Saturday - Inspire me!

[Iwasbornin1993]

So myself and OH are hosting a family BBQ this weekend and I'm severely lacking in ideas!

Spurned on by the burger-and-sausage-less BBQ thread I'd love to do a few adventurous dishes that will really impress though I will still do burgers and sausages because I'm a coward.

Can you please inspire me with your tastiest and most impressive BBQ dishes? And does anyone have any recipes for a nice fruit punch to serve?

There is going to be 15 adults and 5 kids, no budget restrictions unless we're talking caviar and champagne marinades and luckily no specific dietary requirements to consider!

Asda are doing some lovely garlic and herb chicken breasts at the moment and maple pork ribs. I don't normally go for the pre marinaded meat, but we bought the for a camping BBQ and they were great!

In fact, since we have been home I have bought the chicken as part of a family meal.

giant shell on prawns marinaded in garlic chilli and olive oil?

home made seekh (lamb mince, onions, harissa paste, chopped corriander) and prawn & chorizo (the thin sliced out-of-a-packet variety) kebabs always go down well at ours.

Those are two, different kebabs, of course, not one 'taste car-crash' combination!

Cold pasta, cucumber tomatoes and anything else, cover in mayo.
Bread sticks and dips, chicken covered in honey, or lemon or both!

If you have adventurous family (and are not adamantly sticking to to 'no burgers/sausages' ), you could get some unusual meats to try. We picked up a small BBQ box from here:

www.exoticmeats.co.uk/mixed-exotic-meat-packs.html

And it had things like llama sausages, zebra burgers, etc. Good conversation starters!

We recently spent a lot of time before a BBQ preparing lovely side dishes (coleslaw, potato salad, etc.) and no one even touched them - everyone just scoffed the meat!

These - I'm making them for my little brother's pre-wedding BBQ in a couple of weeks and we are all a bit excited!!

For those who can't be bother to watch the whole thing they are basically burgers but stuffed with either veggies/chilli con carne/any other delicious things you can think of - then wrapped in bacon and topped with cheese and then BBQ'd!

Just in and around my face please!

What about some nice homemade burgers and brioche rolls and salad with pomegranate seeds

Not too different but little nicer

Thanks so much for all the suggestions so far! Writing most of these down to suggest to OH when he gets home!

Party - giant shell on prawns sound like a must! Will definitely do those!

knackster I'm trying to picture everyone's faces if I served up seekh, prawn and chorizo kebabs all on one skewer - though it probably wouldn't be the strangest thing I've cooked them before now!

Cupcakes my OH would absolutely love some exotic meat dishes so will definitely check that out - thank you! Not sure whether the delivery would be in time for us for this weekend though? Will look into it!

We're definitely a meat-loving family so I will do side dishes but won't go OTT on the amount of those! Cold pasta salads will probably be a winner, plus maybe a few veggie kebabs thrown on the BBQ!

Smchettigan79 - wow those look amazing! would certainly go down a storm in this family! We might just have to try them out before Saturday - for quality control purposes only of course

Brioche buns added to my list thanks mrsmeerkat!

Smcgettigan79* sorry!

You can pick up from their warehouse if you're nearby (Ripley, Derbyshire) and arrange it - that's what we did.

If not, you may have luck getting some stuff from supermarkets - Iceland have a range of speciality meat, but I've not tried it yet :)

I did a bbq recently and one thing I cooked that went down really well was this lamb koftas. I have to say they were bloody delicious. I did a dip thing with them that was orange and rosemary.

We're in the NW so a bit too far from Ripley unfortunately! There's an Iceland quite close to us though (I think!) so might be worth a look!

Roussette those koftas look great and more importantly for me - easy to make - so thank you!

Beer can chicken (Google for recipe ideas and instructions)
Cooked 4 of these on Sunday for 7 adults & 5 young teens (plus a sausage each) - they take about an hour each on our gas BBQ. I did 2 garlic lemon and 2 chilli paprika. Gorgeous

m.allrecipes.com/recipe/14713/souvlaki/

Pork souvlaki kebabs. Really simple but really tasty.

Thanks for all the suggestions! Going to be so hard whittling them down! Might just have to do them all

Fingers crossed for sunshine on Saturday now!

Let us know what you end up doing! Good luck x

Just wanted to say thanks again for all of your suggestions, the weather stayed lovely yesterday so the BBQ was a great success!

Smcgettigan79 I think you are my family's favourite person ever now we gave the burgers a go (filled with chilli, jalapeños, cheese and American mustard) and they went down an absolute storm! Very messy but that just made it better we thought

We also did -

Knackster's seekh kebab suggestion - very tasty!
Chicken, chorizo, bell pepper and paprika kebabs
Party's shell on prawns with garlic, chilli and oil (wish I'd bought more prawns though as I didn't get to try any before they were all gone!)
Fresh sardines done Portuguese style with rock salt, olive oil and lemon
A few different types of sausage from our local Butcher's (sweet chilli flavour went down best!)

All served along with a few different salads, veggies and a thrown-together fruit juice, rum and amaretto punch heavily improvised by OH

Amazing - i am currently lying on my sofa having just got in from my brother's bbq - stuffed full of beer can burgers! They are sooooo good! X x x