8 show-stopping barbecue recipes for summer

If you have a rotisserie attachment for your barbecue, the first thing that will come to mind is a chicken, and with good reason – there really is no better way to roast a chicken. As the chicken slowly rotates, the flames lick at the surface and the fat bubbles under the skin. Stuffing the chicken with a mixture of freekeh, dried apricots, pine nuts and herbs imbues the chicken with a lovely fragrance, whilst the chicken juices simultaneously drip into the stuffing.

Scallop and black pudding actually make a fantastic combo – the intense meaty flavour of the latter contrasts nicely with the sweetness of the former, especially when you add sharp pink grapefruit as the kicker. Putting your scallops on a skewer is actually a fantastic way of ensuring a beautiful golden sear on them too – just skewer them all in a line, then turn them all over in one fell swoop!

There are a million ways to cook pork ribs and they all work perfectly well – the only necessity is that they need plenty of time before the meat starts to fall away from the bone as it should. This recipe is designed for simplicity and flavour without too much messing around – just make your marinade, coat your pork ribs, then leave them on the barbecue for a few hours whilst you get on with other things. A fresh, crunchy salad of pear, radish and spring onion brings together this Korean-inspired dish

This mash up of classic English and North African flavours may seem a bit odd on the surface, but the flavours work seamlessly. Cooking the lamb leg on a rotisserie gives you a uniform sear all over the surface of the meat and keeps the inside nice and juicy, whilst the addition of Medjool dates to the mint sauce provides a lovely sweetness to the whole dish. A tray of roast potatoes, chickpeas, cherry tomatoes and poppy seeds completes the ensemble – what's not to love?

This dish was inspired by a wonderful seafood restaurant in Lisbon – Cervejeria Ramiro – which serves incredible scarlet prawns on bread. The idea there is to squeeze all the prawn juices over the bread before you eat it; in our case, we've substituted the prawn for a mammoth tomahawk steak (though you can use any cut you wish). Over time, the meat juices, miso butter and tarragon salsa verde all drip into the garlic bread, giving you a lovely little treat at the end.

Taking inspiration from the chicken and white barbecue sauce of Alabama, these chicken thighs are dipped in a caesar dressing before being seared under a weight – a technique often known as brick chicken. Not only does it help you get an incredible golden sear on the chicken, but the caesar dressing creates a little crust on the outside, whilst the insides remain moist and juicy. Simple, but deceptively delicious – this is a dish we always turn to.

Pork, apple and rosemary is an English combo we're all familiar with, but this recipe makes great use of some simple techniques to create something exceptional. The smoked apple sauce, for example, is a revelation – made from just two green apples, roasted in the embers of the barbecue and blended with a touch of sugar and butter. Pork shoulder steaks are often a little dull and bland, but these are brought to life by a spritely marinade of fennel, cider vinegar and rosemary, and the fiery heat of the barbecue. The flatbread dough uses just four ingredients – salt, baking powder, self-raising flour and yoghurt – and can be cooked on the barbecue too. This is a perfect example of how a barbecue can elevate simple ingredients into something special.