River Cottage Bank Holiday Barbecue

High summer is upon us and the long days of sunshine have worked their magic on River Cottage HQ. The garden is looking glorious and, more importantly, is yielding plenty of sun-ripened veg.

We're taking every opportunity to enjoy the beautiful Dorset countryside by cooking outdoors whenever possible - hence the River Cottage Bank Holiday Barbecue! With delicious food served up by River Cottage experts at our HQ, it promises to be the high point of the summer - and you can join the festivities by entering our superb competition!

We have got two tickets to our Bank Holiday barbecue (worth £150) to give away! Simply follow the details at the bottom of the page to enter.

River Cottage butcher, Ray Smith, says: "Barbecuing can make good meat completely delicious. I find the combination of caramelised meat sugars and mild smokiness irresistible.

"For the ultimate barbecue nothing beats spit-roasting a whole animal - this is about as spectacular as meat cookery gets.

"But I guess that spit-roasting will not appeal to the amateur…or the faint hearted! And even I can be put off by the eight hours needed to cook a whole porker. At recent Summer Feasts I’ve prepared lamb for the barbecue by boning the whole carcass, butterflying the shoulder and the leg and rolling the whole loin. The meat is marinated in olive oil, garlic and thyme for a full 24 hours before we cut the loin into noisettes. Prepared this way a whole lamb can be barbecued in 20 minutes or so to be served perfectly pink. But don’t take my word for it - join us for our Bank Holiday Barbecue at the end of August, where we’ll be barbecueing a whole hogget!"

For your chance to win tickets to the River Cottage barbecue, simply click on www.rivercottage.net/winatriptorivercottagehq

Entries per person are unlimited and entries from non newsletter subscribers are welcome, so encourage your friends to enter and increase your chances of winning a special alfresco experience.

The competition closes on August 15th, and winners will be informed no later than August 22nd. To find out more about this and other River Cottage events and products, visit www.rivercottage.net - a website about food, where it comes from and why that matters.

The Bank Holiday BBQ

Time: 6pm - c11pm
Cost: £75.00
Date: 29th August

Summer Feasts

Time: 6pm- c11pm
Cost: £82.25 incl. VAT per head
Dates: 10, 19 and 26 August