Barbecue basics...a few good-to-know food safety tips

• Keep meat in the fridge until you are just about ready to put it on the barbecue. Steaks can be taken from fridge to lose a little of its chill before cooking. Be mindful of the temperature of the kitchen or the heat of day. Around ten minutes is enough.
• Keep both raw and cooked meat covered.
• Never stand meat (cooked or uncooked) in direct sunlight for any length of time.
• Don’t use the same utensils to handle raw and cooked meat.
• Don’t mix up the cooking utensils. Preparation boards, knives etc, must be washed between handling raw and cooked meat. Never handle cooked and uncooked meats together. Do not cut them up on the same boards or with the same utensils. Wash tongs too.
• Use a clean plate to rest the barbecued meat on (not the one it came from the kitchen on).
• Never pour raw marinade over the cooked meat. You can heat the marinade (let it boil for a few minutes) if you do want to use it.
• Cook steaks or kebabs to your liking (from rare to well done).
• Cook beef burgers and sausages all the way through (no pink).

The 2 hour guide

• How to cook the perfect steak
• Barbecuing beef burgers
• Barbecued beef ribs
• Barbecuing beef sausages