Right folks, the sun’s out, the thermometer is rising and it’s right on time for BBQ season! Woohoo!

I’ve selected some fabulous recipes to make your barbecue a memorable one: yummy tahini chicken skewers, fingerlicking Southern US BBQ ribs, refreshing cucumber fennel salad with mint and feta and a nicely filling pesto pasta salad.

So, no need to linger here and read my blah-di-blah, go on, get out and throw the grill on!

Just one note on throwing on the said grill: if you’re like me and have never ever been left to your own devices when it came to grilling, here are some handy tips (which I tested myself, nice, right?!).

Make sure you have enough charcoal and firestarters before you start grilling.

You need to throw on the grill around one hour before actually grilling. So leave plenty of time (in case the coals don’t catch fire immediately) and get some nice apéritifs in case your guests will have to wait.

Right, now to starting your grill. Cover the base with charcoals. Light a firestarter, put it on top of the charcoal and cover with more charcoal, creating a little tower, so that the entire firestarter is covered. Repeat with a second firestarter next to the first mount (and maybe repeat one more time if you have a big barbecue).

As soon as you’ve built your mounts, cover the grill and leave the firestarters work their magic for 25 minutes. In theory they should burn out, and meanwhile have light the charcoal, which will start glowing. Well, this doesn’t always happen (in my case I needed 5 attempts!), but I realized that if you leave the cover on the barbecue for at least 20 minutes after building your mount (peaking in a couple of times to make sure it’s actually catching fire), it does work. Really! It eventually will! Don’t be tempted to run out and get a man to help! We can do this girls! We can be the grillmasters of this universe! Powerrrrr!

Sesame Chicken Skewers

Serves 4

800g chicken thighs, deboned
2 garlic cloves
5cm piece of ginger
3 limes
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp tahini (or if you can’t get that, peanut butter)
2 tbsp runny honey
2 tbsp sesame seeds

Cut the chicken thighs into cubes.

Prepare the marinade: peel the garlic cloves and crush them (or finely chop them). Peel the ginger and finely grate. Put both into a bowl and add the lime juice and soy sauce.

Pour a quarter of the marinade into a smaller bowl and set aside.

Use the remaining marinade and cover the chicken cubes with it. Cover and leave to marinade for at least 4 hours in the fridge (best is overnight).

Once the chicken has marinated, stick the chicken cubes onto 4 chicken skewers and put on the hot barbecue. Grill for 10 minutes while regularly turning. Meanwhile add the tahini and runny honey to the marinade you’ve set aside earlier.

Once the chicken has cooked through, brush the chicken skewers with the tahini marinade, sprinkle some sesame seeds over them and keep grilling for a few more minutes while brushing more marinade onto them so that you get a sticky glaze. Enjoy.

US BBQ Ribs

Serves 4

1.2 kg pork ribs
3 onions
6 garlic cloves
4 tbsp herbes de provençe
2 tbsp tomato paste
120ml white wine
8 tbsp ketchup
4 tbsp HP BBQ sauce (preferably woodsmoke flavour)
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp maggi seasoning sauce
black pepper

Cook the ribs for 40 minutes in simmering water. Remove from the water and let the ribs cool down.

Prepare the marinade: peel and finely chop the onions and put into a bowl. Peel and crush the garlic cloves and add them to the onions. Add all the other ingredients to the marinade, mix well. Set one quarter of the marinade aside, and add the rest to the ribs. Cover the ribs in clingfilm and refridgerate for at least 12 hours or overnight.

Grill the ribs on a hot BBQ until they acquire a caramel colour. Before serving, brush with the remaining marinade.

Cucumber Fennel Salad with Mint and Feta

Serves 4 as a side

1 cucumber
1 fennel bulb
4 handful broad beans
3 spring onions
200g feta
1 bunch fresh mint
1 lemon
100ml olive oil
salt and pepper

Peel the cucumber. Cut open lengthwise and remove the watery pips in the middle. Cut the halved cucumber into thin slices.

Wash the fennel, cut in half and cut into thin slices.

Cook the broad beans, let them cool down (you can shell them if you don’t like the shells).

Wash the spring onions and cut into thin slices.

Arrange all the vegetables on a large plate. Crumble feta over it.

Chop the mint and scatter over the salad, then pour lemon juice and olive oil over the salad and season with salt and pepper.

Pesto Pasta Salad

Serves 4 as a side

600g orzo pasta (or any other small-shaped pasta shells)
olive oil
1 tub of high quality pesto
20 cherry tomatoes
20 green olives
pine nuts

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions. Drain and add a glug of olive oil to the pasta so that it doesn’t stick. Let the pasta cool down.

Once cooles, add the pesto to the pasta. Wash the cherry tomatoes, halve them and add to the pasta. Halve the olives, dry-roast the pine nuts and add to the pasta salad. So darn simple, but still so good!

One thing the Brits are really damn good at is pies. Old-fashioned crusty pies, filled with all kinds of comforty goodness – from hearty steak and ale fillings to creamy fish pies –  a pie is always a winner.

You can really just chuck in anything, and as soon as you cover it with some puff- or shortcrust pastry or even creamy potato mash, you may name it a pie. Seriously, go on, open your fridge, see what’s left, throw it together in a pan, add some sauce and make a pie with it. Simple as that!

I like to keep some puff pastry as stand-by ingredient in the freezer, since you never know when you may need to whip up a pie, a tart or some cheese straws as appetizer. Magic ingredient, that puff pastry.

So, when the weather turned cold again, the wind howling around the house and raindrops bashing against my windows, I knew it was time to defrost that puff pastry!

I decided to make a very classic British pie, a chicken, leek and mushroom pie. Apparently, that’s what all British schoolchildren get served at school when they’re little, so it’s kind of a national dish.

Since I have no British childhood memories to dwell on, I just got on with it and created a chicken, leek and mushroom pie – the way I envision it. With lots of white wine (which, I’m pretty sure, no school canteen would have ever used) and rosemary (giving it a Meditteranean touch). Turned out absolutely lovely.

I hope you like it too!

Chicken, Leek and Mushroom Pie

Serves 4

2 chicken breasts
250g mushrooms
1 big leek
1 tbsp rosemary
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tbsp flour
250ml dry white wine (or 250ml chicken stock if not using wine)
250ml chicken stock
3 tbsp crème fraîche or 50ml cream
1 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry

Preheat the oven to 200° celsius.

Cut the chicken breasts into bite-sized chunks. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and sear the chicken with a pinch of salt until you can’t see any pink bits anymore.

Meanwhile, wash the mushrooms and leek and cut them into slices.

Once the chicken is seared, remove from the pan and put aside until later.

Pour 1 tbsp oil into the pan and now fry the mushrooms and leek with the rosemary and a pinch of salt for a few minutes. Once they’re soft, add the garlic and fry for another minute. Then, put the chicken back into the pan with the other ingredients. Add the flour, wine and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Let it cook for a minute. Add the crême fraîche and season. Take off the heat.

Pour the chicken mix into an ovenproof dish. Top with the puff pastry sheet, which you tuck in on the sides.

Bake the pie for 20 minuts or until the pastry is golden brown and crisp. Serve with mashed potatoes and French beans.

I’ve been craving Asian food lately, really, really badly. Maybe it has to do with the fact that it’s the ideal summer food, but I suspect it has more to do with my longing to go travelling somewhere far, far away. I’m currently crafting an intinerary in my head, taking me to places like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Bali and Singapore. So far it’s only in my head, but hopefully in January, it will materialize and I will be able to blog from all these places.

But for now, I’m stuck in London. So for the past weeks I’ve been seeking out Asian food in London, from lovely Pad Thai at Busaba Eathai to heavenly sushi and tempura at Dotori, from Vietnamese noodle soup at Kim’s in Camden to some chewy  Chinese dumplings at Yum Cha.

Then the other day, the lovely Mowie of Mowielicious and Bruce of Cunningeye came round for dinner, and I just couldn’t make up my mind as to what to make. I mean, what do you cook for a food blogging superstar like Mowie?! Not that he’s fussy or a food diva – not at all – he’s the most lovely guest ever (and so is Bruce!). But still.. you want to serve them something super nice! So I decided not to decide and instead make a tapas-style Asian menu. It was super hot that day, so I wanted to make food that didn’t require ages in the oven or on the stove, just some simple and fresh asian-flavoured food.

Bamboo Shoot Salad

Crispy Coconut Wan Tans

Thai Chicken Skewers

Vietnamese Salad Rolls

The menu ended up being a refreshing Bamboo Shoot salad, some crispy coconut and sweetcorn wan-tans, Thai chicken skewers marinaded in a coconut sauce and lovely Vietnamese Salad Rolls with a peanut dip.

It did take some time to prepare it all, but if you are well organized and make most of the stuff ahead, it’s really a fuss-free dinner party – except for the frying of the wan-tans! The wok regularly spewed some boiling oil on my bare arms, resulting in my shouting out all kinds of multi-lingual swear-words and Mowie and Bruce covering their ears and bursting into giggles. All in all, a wonderful evening!

More photos after the jump.

Crispy Coconut Wan-Tans

Makes about 20

20 Wan-Tan sheets (look in the frozen section of your Asian store)
2 spring onions
1 carrot
1 small can of sweetcorn (150g)
75g coconut cream
3 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp yellow or green curry paste (or curry powder if you don’t have any curry paste at hand)
1 tbsp flour dissolved in 2 tbsp water
about 300ml vegetable oil for frying
Sweet Thai chili sauce

Let the Wan-Tan sheets thoroughly defrost.

Meanwhile, grate the carrot and chop the spring onions. Drain the sweetcorn and rinse with water.

In a bowl, mix the coconut cream with the curry paste and soy sauce until well combined. Add the sweetcorn, carrot and spring onions and mix so that everything is covered in the paste.

Fill each wan-tan sheet with a teaspoon of the sweetcorn mix. Dip a pastry brush into the flour/water mix and brush the wan-tan edges with it. Fold the edges together so that the wan-tan resembles a little parcel.

Heat the oil in a wok or a deep pan. You know it’s hot enough when you dip a wooden spoon in and bubbles form around the edges. Deep-fry the wan-tans in batches of 5, for about 4 minutes each or until golden brown. Serve with sweet Thai chili sauce.

Bamboo Shoot Salad

for 6 people as a side dish

300g canned bamboo shoots (cut into thin slices if you can find it)
300g green beans
2 shallots
1 garlic clove
10 tbsp of vegetable stock
4 tbsp lemon juice
4 tsp light soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 red chili
3 tsp sesame seeds
1 handful of mint leaves
2 spring onions
3 tbsp fried shallots (you get those in Asian stores)

Cook the green beans until they’re cooked through but still crunchy (al dente), set aside.

If your bamboo shoots don’t come pre-cut, cut them into spaghetti-like thin slices, set aside.

Dry-fry the sesame seeds in a pan until they turn golden. Set aside.

Chop the shallots, chili and garlic, fry in a tablespoon of vegetable oil until transluscent. Then crush them into a paste with a pestle and mortar or with a hand blender.

Heat the stock in a saucepan and add the shallot mix to it. Add lemon juice, soy sauce, sugar and stir well. Add the bamboo shoots and stir them in the juices. Set aside and let it cool down (it can still be lukewarm when serving).

Assemble the salad: place the bamboo shoots in the middle of a plate. Arrange the beans around. Sprinkle the whole salad with sesame seeds, mint, spring onions and shallots and serve.

Vietnamese Salad Rolls

Makes 6

6 round vietnamese rice paper sheets
18 cooked prawns
60g vermicelli
60g iceberg lettuce
60g soy sprouts
18 mint leaves
1 tbsp sesame oil

For the peanut dipping sauce

2 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
3 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp chili flakes
1 tsp grated ginger (I used some from a jar)
1 tbsp lemon juice

Prepare the fillings:

Cook the vermicelli in boiling water for about 2 minutes or until they’re al dente. Make sure not to overcook them since they tend to turn into a mushy bunch very quickly. Drain and let them cool down.

Fry the soy sprouts in a frying pan with sesame oil until they’re transluscent but still crunchy. Leave to cool and set aside.

Finely chop the iceberg lettuce. Select 18 nice mint leaves, wash them and set aside.

Make the dipping sauce:

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl until evenly mixed. Set aside in the fridge.

Now assemble the salad rolls, one at a time:

Fill a big bowl with hot water (don’t use boiling water, since you’ll have to stick your hands in it). Take one rice paper sheet and submerge it in the water. Use your hand to stir it around so that it collapses. You’ll notice that the sheet very quickly changes from a hard plastic-like consistency to a loose supple one. Take the sheet out once it’s supple enough to fold and it’s translucent. Transfer it onto a clean surface, being careful not to tear it, and fold it all out, so it’s sort of round again.

Place three mint leave onto the middle, and top each leaf with a prawn.

Put some of the soy sprouts on top of the prawns, then some of the vermicelli, and top it off with some lettuce.

Tuck in the two sides of the rice paper on your right and left. Then roll it up into a parcel.

Put a wet piece of kitchen roll on the bottom of a container (or on a plate), and put the Vietnamese salad roll on it. Cover it with another piece of wet kitchen roll. This ensures that the salad roll stays fresh and damp until you have all of them finished and that it doesn’t stick to the plate.

Thai Chicken Skewers (Moo Ping)

makes about 12

450g deboned chicken thighs
2 garlic cloves, chopped
4 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
110ml coconut cream
110ml vegetable oil
1/2 tsp dried chili flakes
1 handful mint leaves

For the dipping sauce:

1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp fresh chopped chili
1 tbsp sugar

Cut the chicken thigh fillets lengthways into two.

Combine all the skewer ingredients (except for the chicken) in a bowl until they are well mixed. Add the chicken and cover it in the marinade. Cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Meanwhile prepare the dipping sauce. Mix all the ingredients, cover with cling film and chill until needed.

Once the chicken is ready, skewer each chicken piece onto a wooden skewer. Heat up the grill of your oven and place the skewers underneath. Cook the skewers for about 5 minutes on each side, until the chicken turns golden.

Japan, Japan, Japan.

If there’s one place and one cuisine I’m obsessed about then it’s definitely to be found over there! Like tonight I was out in central London at Abeno stuffing myself with Okonomiyaki, those round cabbage pancakes that are covered in Japanese Mayonnaise and Okonomiyaki sauce (a bit like a Japanese Worcester sauce) and Bonito flakes (smoky dried tuna flakes – to die for!).  The dinner was in fact my thank you for Lawrence, who kindly designed this page for me.

You see, last Autumn Lawrence, my sister and another friend went on a trip to Tokyo and Kyoto. And on one of our last night, Lawrence and I went to this tiny Okonomiyaki place. And I think that kind of changed Lawrence’s life (or at least for one night it did). His eyes got that twinkle and he just couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the sizzling disks of egg mix on the hotplate in front of us. Who cares if we smelled like fried bacon and eggs afterwards?! Who cares if it got so hot we had to kill the heat by drinking bottle after bottle of cold sake?! It was divine. Amazing. If there is a heaven on this earth then it is in that tiny little side alley in Asakusa, where for one night Lawrence and I binged on Okonomiyaki…

Anyway, what has that to do with Teriyaki?! Well, apart from it rhyming with Okonomiyaki, not much. But hey, nice story, right?

Now, over to Teriyaki. I like those chicken skewers very much. You see I was a vegetarian for about 8 years (!), and throughout all this time I craved smoked flavours (which lead to a lot of smoked cheese consumption). So, ever since I’ve turned back onto meat-eating (and yes, that’s another story, you’ll get to hear one day), I’ve been indulging in smoked meat, like smoked bacon, smoked chicken, smoked everything. And the beauty about chicken teriyaki is that it has that smoky taste without actually having been smoked! Instead, it’s just marinated in teriyaki sauce (a mix of strong soy sauce, sake and mirin), et voila, you get a Japanese smokiness!

Ok, I have to shamefully admit that I did not make my own teriyaki sauce, but then, who in Tokyo please makes it?! They don’t have any space in their tiny little Tokyo apartments, right? So, if they can’t make it in their little homes, then how the heck are we supposed to make it in our tiny London flats? Right? Right!

(Ok, no, it wouldn’t have been too much hassle actually, but hey, Kikkoman has this amazing teriyaki sauce, so make sure you get that or a proper Japanese equivalent if you want to make this – don’t go for some Sharwoods or other so-called Asian brand! Yes, here speaks the food-snob in me…).

Chicken Teriyaki Noodles

Serves 2

4 boneless chicken thighs, cut into chunks
4 tbsp teriyaki marinade (preferably Kikkoman)
200g fresh egg noodles
4 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp fresh ginger (I use the one that comes in a jar, otherwise use fresh one that you chop into tiny pieces)
1 crushed garlic clove
1 tsp chili sauce
1 pack stir-fry veg (like mange tout, peppers, sweetcorn, soy beans, cabbage, red onion, etc)
3 tbsp dark soy sauce
sesame seeds

Marinate the chicken in teriyaki sauce for about 1 hour (the longer, the better).

If you use wooden skewers, soak them in water for 5 mins so they don’t burn under the grill. Skewer the chicken and put under a hot grill. If you use the oven grill, make sure to keep the oven door open, otherwise your smoke alarm might get some action. Grill from each side for about 10 mins, or until the chicken gets a nice dark brown colour..

Meanwhile, stir-fry the vegetables with the condiments for 2 mins, add the fresh noodles and stir-dry until everything gets piping hot but is still crunchy. Put into bowls and top with the chicken skewers. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Voila.

Easy peasy, right?