Despite being nearly 47 years old, I have very little experience cooking with barbecues (partly down to spending most of my life in Shetland - not the ideal climate for barbecues). I decided I'd rectify this and have bought myself some cheapo equipment to start with. Got a 2 burner gas barbecue for when I can't be bothered to light the charcoal one (although, with the chimney starter, it's so easy, I can't see me using the gas one much). Also bought myself a cheapo kettle BBQ, a chimney starter and a wok burner (ceramic hob is no use whatsoever for wok cooking).
Got some duck breasts out of the freezer on Saturday and bunged them in a marinade on Saturday night with the intention of cooking them yesterday. Unfortunately, I had a near terminal hangover yesterday so I had them today instead. Can't remember the exact details of the marinade as I was extremely drunk at the time
From what I can remember, there was soy sauce, maple syrup, lemon juice, five spice powder, finely chopped chilli, ginger and garlic, olive oil and a dash of sesame oil.
Anyway, I got it all underway this evening. Having had little experience, I was playing it by ear for the most part.
This is me cheating by lighting the chimney starter using the wok burner
The charcoal lit and in the BBQ - took about 15 minutes to get to this stage:
This is the duck having been burned slightly (although not too badly) and now off the direct heat. I put the lid on at this point and left to roast for about 15 minutes.
This is the stir fry being cooked on the wok burner. This baby gets bloody hot. You have to keep the stuff moving and it cooks really fast. Luckily I had everything prepared in advance so it was just a case of tipping stuff in. I'll never cook stir fry any other way now - a well seasoned wok and a 9.2KW burner is definitely the way to do it
Stir fry consisted of fairly standard stuff; garlic, ginger, chilli, peppers, mushrooms, onions, spring onions, mangetout, broccoli, soy sauce, fish sauce, five spice powder, groundnut oil and sesame oil I also tipped in the marinade from the duck near the end.
The finished product.
All in all, I'm very pleased with the result. It was very tasty and, despite charring the duck skin a little more than I would have liked, not a bad attempt for a relative noob - especially considering the marinade for the duck was conceived completely off the top of my head after 2 bottles of wine and 2 bottles of beer
