The true blue Aussie barbecue

GLOBETROTTING chef Curtis Stone reckons nothing beats an old fashioned Aussie sausage sizzle - and living away from home has made him appreciate what he describes as "a guilty pleasure" even more.

GLOBETROTTING chef Curtis Stone reckons nothing beats an old fashioned Aussie sausage sizzle - and living away from home has made him appreciate what he describes as "a guilty pleasure" even more.

"When you travel and talk about the food, you realise the Aussie barbecue experience is very different," he says.

Curtis, who is now based in the US, says he was reminded of the joy of a sausage sizzle when trying to tell his American fiancee Lindsay Price what made it so good.

"Trying to explain a sausage sizzle is quite difficult. You're trying to tell them it's amazing, but it's actually white bread, tomato sauce and a sausage. And when you butter the bread and the sausage hits the bread ... it's a guilty pleasure.

"It's foreign to Americans. They do hot dogs, but it's not the same. There's way too much bread. Unless you feel at any bite that the sausage could burst through the bread and end on the floor, then the jeopardy isn't there."

Curtis says his sausage sizzles at home include caramelised onion, mustard and a gourmet sausage - "but it's good which ever way you do it".

The simple pleasure of a sausage sizzle is a great starting point for an Australia Day barbecue. It's relaxed vibe and everyman appeal fits the way we like to imagine ourselves.

But Australia Day can also be a time to celebrate the fantastic meat and seafood that's often at its best cooked on the grill.

Curtis also loves Australian lamb - a taste he says is considered exotic in the US where it isn't eaten nearly as much as here.

"An Aussie Day barbecue is a good time to celebrate our favourite meat," he says.

He suggests trying lamb chops with rosemary, oil, garlic and a drizzle of honey dijon mustard. Or a whole leg of lamb rubbed with olive oil and garlic, laid on strips of rosemary and tied together, then cooked slowly, with the lid on, in the barbecue.

He says potato salad is the ideal accompaniment. "It's good to have on the plate to soak up some of the juices from the meat."

He cooks chopped potatoes in chicken stock and mixes with grilled bacon, chopped gherkins, onion, then finished with mayonnaise.

> STEFANO DE PIERRI

A LOVE of cooking on fire is one of the common bonds in this multicutural country, says Mildura-based chef, author and TV presenter Stefano de Pierri.

"Everyone likes a barbecue," says Stefano, who came to Australia from Treviso, in northern Italy, as a boy. "Most immigrants have adopted it with gusto."

Stefano says he prefers the romance of cooking on an open fire, using simple flavours like garlic, chilli, herbs and olive oil.

"I'm not particularly fussed what I cook," he says.

"We have a great privilege here of fabulous lamb and fish and prawns."

He also has a soft spot for a pork sausage spiked with fennel and chilli - "My god, how good are they" - with a salad in summer or polenta in winter. Cooking for a group, he also recommends lamb backstrap, marinated in yoghurt, onion, tumeric and garlic, that can be quickly grilled and carved at the table.

For a salad accompaniment, Stefano says it's hard to go past summer tomatoes and basil.

> MARION GLASBY

LIVING in Bangkok, where lamb is hard to find and costs a small fortune, has made Marion Grasby appreciate what she has lost.

"One of the great things about living in Australia is having access to amazing meat," she says. "I've really come to appreciate my lamb since being here."

So it's no surprise her Australia Day barbecue would include lamb chops, soaked in a marinade of garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper.

She'd also throw on quality pork and fennel sausages, and prawns, cooked in their shell to stay juicy, served with a nahn jim dressing of coriander, lime and fish sauce.

"That mix of Thai and South-East Asian flavour with local produce is what I think of as Australian food," she says.

"And you've got to be near the beach. You've got to have the sun and the sand and all those things."

> KYLIE KWONG

FOR chef Kylie Kwong, an Australia Day barbecue needs to reflect both her heritage and her upbringing here.

"I'm three generations Australian between nine generations Kwong," Kylie explains.

So, she has created what she says is a true Australian-Chinese dish - think yabbies grilled with some homemade chilli sauce, sea parsley and samphire dressing.

The main ingredients - the yabbies and greens - are native to Australia, but the dressing brings in the Asian flavours of chilli, garlic, ginger and soy. If yabbies are hard to source, she suggests using king prawns (preferably from South Australia's Spencer Gulf) or blue swimmer crab that has been split into quarters.

The dressing could be modified to include shallot, coriander, mint and other herbs instead of Asian produce.

> ELVIS ABRAHAMOWICZ

COOKING on fire at Porteno is a theatrical experience, with whole beasts splayed on an Argentinian-style metal cross or "asado", where they roast it for about eight hours.

But when co-owner/chef Elvis Abrahanowicz has a barbecue at home, it's much more low-key.

"Often when we have a barbecue it's not planned, it's a last minute thing," he says.

"We have it in the backyard and it's simply a few bricks holding up an old grill."

Elvis says his favourite cuts for grilling are beef skirt steak and beef ribs cuts into 2cm lengths. He will also throw on some chorizo, morcilla and "definitely sweetbreads".

The right music is also extremely important.

"We've always got tunes cranking, usually kicking it off with some country, and as people come throughout the day, they put on the records they bought along with them," he says.

"These barbecues sometimes turn into some of our best parties."

> MATTHEW EVANS

WHATEVER you want to cook for Australia Day, it is likely to be better on a barbecue, says television's Gourmet Farmer's Matthew Evans.

"The important thing is that the barbecue makes everything taste different and, in most cases, taste better," he says.

"You can cook, sear something so much hotter than you'd dare to do in the house and that changes the way things taste. From the cook's point of view, the barbecue does the work and you don't have to do too much ... just make sure things don't get burnt or end up raw."

The former chef and food critic whose move to raise pigs and grow vegies on a farm in southern Tasmania has been recorded in an SBS TV series, has a huge choice of barbies at home.

His favourite barbecue? ... a simple metal plate, suspended on bricks in a stone fireplace. "It reminds me of when I grew up," he says.

"It's the same barbecue my dad had."

For Matthew, one of the joys of being Australian is being able to "pick and choose and take in all the good stuff from around the world".

So his barbecue might include a Middle Eastern lamb kofte with cumin and a mint dressing; char-grilled eggplant with tahini and pinenuts.

Or a whole flatheat marinated with tumeric, cumin, coriander and yoghurt ("It makes an awful mess but it tastes fantastic.").

Matthew says he also likes to use the native pepperberry, from the Tasmanian bush.

"I love that flavour in combination with garlic and crushed up bay leaves and cooked on a char-grill," Matthew says.

"You've got something that tastes unlike anything from any other part of the world."