New Zealand Barbecue Cookbook

By Simon & Alison Holst (Hyndman Publishing, RRP $19.99)

New Zealand Barbecue Cookbook by Simon and Alison Holst is packed with great recipes for summer.

Sam's beef patties

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Our summers here in the south might sometimes be a wee bit dodgy but when we do get a good weekend, there's nothing better than cracking open a nice cold beer and cranking up the barbecue.

If you're sick of the same old charred sausages and scorched chops, New Zealand's first family of food have once again come up with the goods: a little book packed with great barbecue recipes.

There's nothing too taxing in the actual cooking side of things so these are perfect recipes for when you've got family and friends over: you wont be tied to the kitchen filleting sardines or any other tricky tasks.

They also, naturally, feature ingredients that we're all likely to have in our fridges or pantries already. And if we don't already own them, we wont have any problem finding them in our supermarkets: there's chicken, pork and ham, corn, capsicums and kumara. It's kind of refreshing to find a cookbook that doesn't offer up lists of ingredients that involve scouring the internet for specialist delicatessens or chartering a private jet to hop over to far off Somewhere to get some rare ingredient that you will never use again.

But really, this is the Holsts so their good judgement should come as no surprise.

As always, the book is more than just a collection of recipes. There's also a section at the start with advice on how to barbecue and the tools you can use.

And finally, the recipes themselves are great. We've taken half a dozen of them for a test drive so far and are looking forward to trying the rest.

Here's a recipe from the book for you to try: Sam's Beef Patties

The addition of black bean sauce to these patties gives them a hint of the exotic – it may see a little unlikely but it also seems to make them extra popular with children too.

For 12-18 patties

• 3 slices (90 to 100g) bread
• 1/2 small-to-medium onion, peeled
• 500g beef mince
• 1 large egg
• 2 to 3 Tbsp black bean (or black bean and garlic) sauce

Method: Tear the bread slices into quarters and place in a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade. Process until finely crumbed, then transfer to a bowl.

Add the onion to the processor and chop very finely.

Tip the crumbs back into the processor, add the mince (broken into golf ball-sized pieces), the egg and the black bean sauce. Process in short bursts until evenly mixed (try not to over-mix or you will toughen the patties).

Divide the mixture into rough golf ball-sized portions and shape into patties about 2cm thick.

Preheat, then lightly oil the grill or hotplate and cook the patties over a medium-high heat for 3 to 5 minutes per side or until the largest patties are cooked through.

- © Fairfax NZ News