If you don't want to marinate your meat for several hours prior to cooking, a dry or dry-ish rub can be applied immediately prior to grilling on a barbecue which can add real flavour to a dish.

For chicken, think about what flavour you want to achieve. Are you after something mild or spicy? If you're catering for people who don't mind their food with a little "oomph", make a rub out of crushed allspice and cloves, a bay leaf, dried thyme and dried chillis - blitz it all in a coffee grinder or hammer it with a pestle and mortar, and then give it a base of a little walnut oil. Slap this all over the skin and grill away. If you're looking for something milder, try crushing fennel seeds and mixing with a little parpika or cayenne pepper (not much!), some crushed garlic (say three cloves for a whole chicken) and using a base of lemon juice to hold it together.

For lamb, think creatively. Score the surface of the meat (if it's on the bone, like a shoulder or leg) and try a rub made of crushed garlic and ground allspice held together with walnut oil or olive oil. Alternatively, follow Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's example and push anchovies, a sliver of garlic and rosemary into each of the slits, and roast the meat. Juniper berries which have been crushed and mixed with walnut oil also go very well with lamb, with the addition of some crushed black pepper, and for a Greek flavour try dried marjoram, garlic and finely-chopped shallots mixed with a little red wine and rubbed over the meat prior to cooking.

Beef goes very well with pepper-based rubs so try mixing a couple of teaspoons of paprika and cayenne pepper with some brown sugar, a pinch of ground black pepper, some mustard powder and a little oil. Alternatively, try crushed lavender for beef - only a little, as it's quite powerful stuff - mixed with olive oil.