We’ve just had a great Australia Day BBQ lunch. Apart from the salad, we had Easy Tandoori Chicken and Texas-Rubbed Steak. I cooked the meat on the Weber using the direct method (straight over the coals, as opposed to indirect as for roasts).
Easy Tandoori Chicken
This is, well, easy. Take 500gm chicken thigh fillets and rub half a jar of Tilda Butter Chicken simmer sauce into them. Leave for 4 hours to marinate (and this probably doesn’t have too be this long, it is just the time I used today). Cook over coals. Your cooking time may vary, but on a Weber directly over the coals it took around 10 minutes - and finished incredibly juicy and tender.
Texas-Rubbed Steak
This is hardly any more trouble than the Chicken. Take 500gm of eye fillet and rub the following mixture into it then refrigerate (I left it for a couple of hours, it may not take that long).
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons white sugar
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon dry oregano
1 tablespoon Italian herb mix (containing basil, oregano, dried capsicum and pepper)
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
Note: I adapted this from a recipe on CD Kitchen that had a lot more sugar in it.
This isn’t really a chowder - in that it is not blended or mashed in any way - but it is a rich seafood soup. It takes on elements of Thai and New England cuisine without belonging to either. I like it, Donna didn’t, your mileage may vary.
Oyster Corn Chowder
Ingredients:
1 85gm tin Smoked Oysters
1 Massel Beef stock cube
1 teaspoon Nam Prik Klang Dong (Thai dried chilli shrimp, available from some Asian grocers)
Handful flat white rice noodles (the larger ones, as sometimes used for pad thai)
Boiling water (sufficient to cover the noodles)
1 310gm tin Creamed Corn
1 teaspoon Valcom Red Curry Paste
Boil the water in a medium saucepan, and add chilli prawn, red curry paste, stock cube and noodles. Stir. A minute or so later, add the creamed corn. When the noodles are soft, add the smoked oysters (and any oil in the tin). Stir for another five or so minutes and serve.
Serves two ordinary folk (or one hungry bugger) 
This is what Donna and I are enjoying now: the chocolate vodka slushy! Into the blender, place:
1/4 bottle creme de cacao
1/5 bottle of Absolut Vanilla
a couple of tablespoons of sugar
1 tray of icecubes
Blend, drink. All worries leave you far behind, because basically you are soon too wasted to think 
I remember reading somewhere (although Google fails me in finding a source) that the fighting spirit of the British Jolly Jack Tar (sailor) was due to intestinal discomfort - caused on the morning of battle by a breakfast of herring and onion (and no doubt a mug or two of grog).
I don’t mind herring and onion myself - there was a tin of herring in the cupboard - and I was making congee (rice porridge, basically) this morning and decided to put this story to the test. Would eating herring and onion for breakfast make me fit to fight on a rolling deck? Or would it make me ill?
The recipe was:
200gm tin Herring in Tomato Sauce
1 cup rice
1 Massel™ stock cube (chicken)
3 small-ish pickled onions, chopped roughly
water
A handful chopped baby English spinach
I boiled the rice with the stock cube until it was falling to bits (just over 30 minutes), turned the heat down, then threw in the spinach and onion. A couple of minutes later I added the herring (broken up in the tin into smaller pieces). Left to warm through for 5 or so minutes, and served shortly thereafter.
The result? I think it tastes great - Donna less so. I’ll make it again (depending on how rambunctious and bellicose it actually makes me feel later ). I do feel warmer for it.
Some notes:
- I kept the water up to it to stop it glugging up and burning.
- I probably wouldn’t add a lot more onion.
