Let’s stick with the common sense thought.

• Buy the BEST STEAK that you can afford. Just because ‘it’s only a barbecue’ doesn’t mean that you should just eat low quality meat.

• If you want a rare or even medium–rare steak, it should be THICK enough to stay rare or pink in the middle in the time it takes to get the outside nicely browned and caramelised. Conversely, if you want a well-done steak, it should be THIN enough that it won’t burn on the outside while the inside is cooking right through.

• If you get the steak out of the fridge and throw it straight on the barbie, it won’t cook evenly. Bring your steak back to ROOM TEMPERATURE for half an hour to an hour (not in the blazing sun) before you cook it.

• I like to PUT THE OIL ON THE STEAK, not pour it all over the flat grill plate, because if you do that, all you get is the flavour of burnt oil. If you pour oil all over the chargrill, you simply need your head examined.

• You need the hotplate HOT before the steaks go on or they’ll stick to it and they won’t caramelise properly.

• There are differing views on seasoning. Some people think that salt before cooking draws the moisture out of a steak. I’m of the ‘a little before on both sides and plenty at the table’ school, but that’s just a personal preference.

• The most important thing is that, without doubt, you TURN THE BLOODY STEAKS ONCE ONLY. You want the natural sugars in the meat to caramelise and turn into a lovely brown crust. If you turn the steak, five, 10, 20 times and your mate turns it some more while you grab a beer, the steak will finish up like a piece of shoe leather. It is a mystery why the Australian male believes it is his mission on earth, to justify his position as holder of the tongs, to be constantly turning the steaks.

• If you rest the steak after it’s cooked, all the juices relax back into the fibres of the meat. Try taking a piece of steak direct from the grill and cutting it immediately; your plate will be covered in juices and blood. Rest the meat loosely covered with foil or a clean tea towel; don’t seal tightly or the meat will keep cooking in the steam created. I prefer a clean tea towel, which keeps most of the heat in but allows for some air. Don’t forget to spoon the delicious juices that have come from the meat back over them – you can’t make a sauce that good.

• Don’t put the cooked meat on the plate that it came to the barbecue on, with the blood still on it. Put it in a large bowl or on a CLEAN PLATE. Whenever I say this at cooking classes, there’s always the ‘Why do you have to do that, mate?’ responses from the crowd. The obvious answer is ‘So you don’t poison everybody’.

• Like I said, it’s only common sense.

Similar thinking with the bangers.

• Some people think you need to boil them so they’ll cook without exploding. I think you just need to cook them properly.

• Bring them back to ROOM TEMPERATURE, as with the steaks. Cook them on the FLAT GRILLPLATE not the chargrill. Some juices and fat are bound to escape and, if they’re on the chargrill, it will ignite and cause flames that make for black, incinerated bangers.

• DON’T POKE THE BANGERS. They put everything inside the sausages for a reason. Poking them just lets a lot of those things, like moisture and flavour, escape. If you poke the bangers and put them on the chargrill, you also need your head examined, because you are almost guaranteed to incinerate the sausages and end up with the alternative perfect Aussie banger: black on the outside and raw in the middle.

• Cook the bangers over LOW HEAT and TURN THEM OFTEN to prevent burning. The idea is to cook them through and not have them split open. Low heat and frequent turning will help.

So the next time you’re having a barbie, just try these steps and see what a difference it makes.