Better late than never

All through summer, M and I have been watching, with some envy, our downstairs neighbours having barbecue parties. You see, our apartment in London has no access to the garden even though it looks out onto it. The garden belongs solely to the tenants of the basement flat, which is fair I suppose - if you have to live in the basement, it makes sense that you're compensated with a nice garden you can use. Still, there have been times where I've wished that I could also fire up a grill and put on some juicy steaks or hamburgers.

This week for dinner then I finally decided to make use of my grill pan, which I have to admit hasn't really seen that much action this summer. Given that's its now September and summer is over, its a little on the late side, but hey, better late than never. My meat of choice was chicken which I skewered with zucchini and red peppers. I served these skewers with a hoisin barbecue sauce which I found on this site.

I have to say that even though a grill pan is not exactly the real thing, it still produced a nice smoky flavour with the requisite grill markings on the food. So until M and I get a flat with a garden, I'm guessing the grill pan is going to get a lot more use!

Hoisin Barbecue Sauce
From Food and Wine

2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
3 tablespoons sake or dry sherry
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil

Heat the vegetable oil in a small saucepan and cook the garlic over moderately low heat until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sake, ketchup and rice vinegar and simmer over moderately low heat, stirring, until thickened, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the sesame oil. Let cool and serve.

The hoisin barbecue sauce can be refrigerated for 2 days.