1. Spit

This summer, I’ll be inviting many more people round each time I throw a barbecue because I received a spit for my birthday. So, whole lambs and suckling pigs are destined to slowly turn (and turn) into dinner. You’ll find basic spits selling at mega-hardware shops for about $100.

2. Seafood

Sure the barbecue may be all about satisfying the desire for meat but don’t forget the beauty of bugs or lobsters cooked in the half shell, or prawns cooked on skewers for ease. Or cook prawns a la plancha as the Spanish do, so they curl up orange with chunks of chorizo, capsicum and blistered cherry tomatoes.

3. Sweetcorn

While I understand there is a place for grilling eggplant, field mushrooms or zucchini, really the only vego solution that cuts it for me on the same level as a good snag or steak is roasty-edged cobs of sweet corn. These you can slather with butter, salt, lime juice and dark brown sugar (for a sharper version of the Dutch classic) or a mix of toasted shredded coconut, chilli powder and fresh red chilli, cut with a little sugar and salt.

4. Sweet

There used to be that thing when people would ask everyone to bring their own meat to the barbecue, but I would far rather they brought their own desserts. Personally I could just go a Lime Splice or barbecued bananas cooked in their skins with chunks of chocolate pushed into the flesh through a single long incision. And don’t forget that sweet works well with desserts as well as with savoury. Pineapple is a case in point. In that new cookbook of mine, I’ve got a recipe for pineapple with lime syrup and black pepper which is ace on the grill but you can also fry rings of it next to bacon for a killer Aussie burger. Why not go all out and just fry the pineapple in the bacon fat?

5. Salads

Please close the curtains and disconnect the phone. What I am about to tell you might have the Secret Grill Police banging on my door to confiscate my tongs if they heard what I am about to share, to wit: I think that the salads are more interesting than the meat at a barbecue – and that’s not just because I’d rather hang out with women than men overly keen on proving their alpha-dom. I’d love to tell you more, but we’ll have to save that for my next column…

For more by Matt Preston be sure to check out his profile here full of recipes, tips and stories.