Fire and Food

Perfect Poached Eggs - It's All In the Planning

2012-02-04T17:19:00.000Z

Whether it's a breakfast treat for overnight guests, a hangover cure or just a naughty little snack, to me the perfect poached egg is where it begins and ends. I measure the quality of a restaurant kitchen by it's poached eggs and always order eggs poached when given the option. It's an anxious moment as more often than not I end out disappointed. They are usually either two hard or worse, have unset whites.

I get annoyed when asked 'how do you like your eggs poached?'. Perfectly of course! A perfect poached egg should have a hot creamy yolk and a fully set white. You can see the difficulty, a few seconds can make all the difference. In order to have a fully set white, the outside edge of the yolk must also be just set, leaving an nice steamy runny centre.

I'm proud of my poached eggs and I think I deserve to be. I've perfected the method over decades and no longer feel anxious when preparing as many as 8 or 10 breakfasts for guests. So today I share with you my little tips and hope you can enjoy the same feeling as I do because, there is nothing quite like the satisfaction of delivering perfect poached eggs.

1. The eggs:

Fresh fresh fresh and organic is all I can say. We eat so few eggs so what is the difference in a few pence per egg when it comes down to it. Always choose the ones from the back of the shelf with the latest use by date. If the egg is not really fresh, the white will go to pieces in the water. Yuck. Some say you shouldn't keep eggs in the fridge (supermarkets don't) but then I don't think it really matters and what are the egg holders in the fridge for anyway?. To be honest, if they are cold there is less risk of overcooking them.

2. The kit:

A ladle (to break the eggs into first) and a saucepan with at least 5cm (2 in) of gently simmering water with a serious dash of vinegar. I normally use white wine vinegar but I had run out so used malt vinegar instead. The only difference is the darker vinegar leaves a slightly coloured residue on the finished egg. Use a slotted spoon to check and remove the eggs. A bit of kitchen paper is useful to remove any last bits of water before they go on to the plate.

3. Preparation:

Timing is what it's all about, so get prepared. Make sure all of the other breakfast ingredients are cooked and ready to serve before you start poaching the eggs. Make sure the plates are hot, and make sure your condiments and garnishes are all ready to go. And don't forget the coffee.

4. Timing:

Use the ladle to 'roll' the egg into the water. As the egg sinks it will plume as the white starts to set and create just the right shape. Now this is where it all gets a bit weird. I don't time poached eggs because there are too many factors involved. For example the temperature of the egg, the number of eggs being cooked and the volume of water. So, I invented the 'wobble test' instead. Pick up the egg with the slotted spoon and gently wobble it. If it looks like a bag of water, it's not ready. If it doesn't wobble at all it's overdone. It should wobble just like a set jelly. With a bit of practice you'll work this out in no time, it's intuitive. This tells you the outside is firm enough to hold it together and the inside is still liquid. It's weird , but it works. Roughly it takes about as long as the toast takes in the toaster, so I always put the toast on immediately after the last egg goes in the pan.

Two eggs is obviously easier than 8 or 10 eggs. When I do a large batch, I use a large pot and remember the order that the eggs went in. When serving, I remove the pot from the stove and continue to check each egg and remove them the moment the pass the wobble test. Everything else must already be plated up or you'll get into a right flap.

5. Make them pretty:

Fresh coriander (cilantro) and fresh chillies are my favourites plus lashings of freshly ground black pepper. I raided my chilli bounty in the freezer and finely chopped a mild red one, a pretty purple one and a little green bomb; super hot and full of flavour. It looks like a pea with a fuse and wow, it really does explode!

So there you have it. That's how simple and stress free it can be.

And last of all, the leading photograph is one of those happy accidents we all hope for. The word 'EGG' on the Emma Bridgewater dinner plate has somehow landed perfectly above the egg itself! It wasn't until I copied the photo on to my laptop that I even noticed. Priceless.

Slow Roasted Leg of Goat

2012-01-30T14:38:00.002Z

Cooked in a Weber

What's going on here? One minute I'm stressing about having nothing to write about for my January blog, and the next minute I'm on to my second. They're sort of connected too. It was when we were staying with our friends in Herefordshire (see Ben's Curry Chicken Potjie), that I was taken to visit a fabulous local butcher, Legges of Bromyard. They had 2.5kg trays of mixed cuts of young goat for sale. How could I resist. Goat seems impossible to get hold of where I live yet here, 80 miles from home there it was, in abundance.

Our traditional Sunday family meal in the cooler months is a proper English roast dinner. We alternate between lamb, beef, pork and chicken with each family member having their particular favourite. Chicken with stuffing, beef with Yorkshire pud, pork with crackling, and lamb with mint sauce. So now it was to be goat. Our teenage daughter Kitty trembled at the thought (chicken is her favourite) and to be honest I was not looking forward to her asking what we would be having.

Weber chimney starter

My attraction to goat goes back to my time in Perth. I have two good friends there who occasionally satisfied my cravings for 'capretto' as a special treat. One had an outdoor wood fired oven and he would slow roast fist sized pieces in a large tray with garlic and herbs. I remember the smell wafting up the street as I arrived.

So here I was with a 1.2kg piece of goat leg and a bag of lumpwood charcoal. This was a big moment.

Goat is an incredibly lean and healthy meat. It benefits from slow roasting and some form of additional fat. I rubbed it with olive oil, and made a few slits between the muscles and inserted a couple of anchovy fillets and slivers of garlic. I laid it on a bed of rosemary sprigs in a pyrex roasting dish, tossed in a few trimmed heads of garlic and whacked it in the Weber.

I kept a bit of water in the bottom of the dish throughout the cooking time to provide a bit of steam and prevent the garlic and herbs from burning. It needed an extra splash from time to time. I also added a few knobs of butter on top of the meat about half way through.

It had a good hot start and was then left for about 2 1/2 hours with a gradually reducing temperature. Half an hour before the end I wrapped it in foil and removed the juices to add to the gravy which I was making on the hob. The gravy base was made simply with butter, flour and chicken stock.

The meat was tender and made a interesting change to our "English" Sunday roast. A jar of mint sauce on the table had a sufficiently Anglicising effect and really did go well with the meat. Well, Kitty did try it, smiled politely, and then left most of it neatly arranged around the edge of her plate so she could lap up the spuds and the gravy.

The other cuts from the 2 1/2 kg tray went into the freezer and will surface again soon in the form a proper 'curry goat', cooked over an open fire in my potjie, sorry, I don't have one so I'll give it a go in my Kotlich instead. Watch this space!

Ben's Chicken Curry Potjie

2012-01-30T12:01:00.000Z

I have been so stressed about my January blog. We started the month in Australia, travelled back to the UK, and then reality set in. Work, work, work with so much to catch up on so Fire and Food was to be well and truly parked. Then I was saved. Saved by an invitation to visit to my foodie South African friend Ben in Herefordshire and the promise of a proper traditional potjie curry cooked over an open fire. So here I am, the second last day of January, relieved that I have a story to tell.

I just love all things South African, and a Cape Malay curry with great friends after a manic week of work was just too good to be true. We legged it from Oxfordshire as soon as school finished to miss the traffic and arrived in time to enjoy Bringsty Common at dusk. Bringsty Common itself is a delight. Over 200 acres of hills with just a few dozen rural homes scattered about. A perfect setting for a South African family in need of open space.

The moment we arrived I could smell the curry spices in the kitchen. The fire for the potjie had not yet been lit so there was plenty of time to enjoy the whole experience.

You might not associate South Africa with curry, but there is a huge Malay influence going back several centuries from when enslaved Javanese from modern day Indonesia were transported to the country by the Dutch East India Company. There remains a Cape Malay ethnic group and their food culture has become an integral part of South African cuisine.

A potjie (pronounced poit-kee) is a three legged cast iron pot for cooking over an open fire. Ben had his sitting on a purpose made ring in the base of his Weber.

Ingredients: (serves 6)

- 8-10 Chicken legs and thighs
- Two large onions, finely sliced
- Large piece of fresh ginger, grated
- 2-3 large cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
- 1 handful of chopped potatoes
- 1 handful of chopped carrots
- 1 tbsp garam masala (for the dry rub)
- 1 tbsp medium curry powder (for the dry rub)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp whole fennel seeds
- 1 tsp whole mustard seeds
- 2 tsp whole cumin seeds
- 1 tsp ground cardamom
- 1 star anise
- 1 piece of cinnamon bark
- 1 tbsp hot curry powder
- 1 extra tsp of garam masala

Method:

Coat the chicken pieces in the dry rub spices for at least a few hours before cooking. Get the pot nice and hot before browning the chicken pieces in the olive oil. Once browned remove the chicken pieces and cover them with foil. Add the onions, ginger, garlic and remaining spices to the pot and stir to mix in all the bits left in the pot from browning the chicken.

Once the onions are soft return the chicken pieces to the pot, add the tinned tomatoes and stir until it starts to simmer. Finally add the potatoes and carrots, put the lid on and let it be for an hour or so. The fire needs to be just hot enough to keep it at a gentle simmer.

Bobotie

By the time this baby came to the table it was sensational. Intensely aromatic and full of flavour. Ben served it up with rice, a refreshing cucumber salad, and rotis. A dish of traditional South African bobotie also graced the table. I've not had anything like it before, a rich meaty, fruity dish topped with a savoury custard and baked in the oven. We had some of it cold on toast the following morning. What a treat.

After the meal, the girls donned their pinnies and slashed 'a few' damsons in preparation for Tersia's mega batch of damson jam.

Thank you again Ben and Tersia, it was a meal to remember.

Sunrise at Bringsty Common

Thai Green Chicken Curry Kebabs

2011-12-29T08:53:00.000Z

A BEACH SHACK BARBECUE. Yanchep, Western Australia

We have just returned from a glorious day and night staying with dear dear friends on our trip to Perth for the festive season. They've rented one of the last standing old beach shacks for a week or so in Yanchep, about an hour north of Perth.

We arrived in time for lunch, spent the afternoon lazing about in the shack and on the beach before Ian and I went to the local shops to gather some bits for the sunset barbecue. We returned with a pile of chicken breasts, some Thai green curry paste, spring onions, a tin of coconut cream, some skewers, veggies and other bits and bobs.

The barbecue menu consisted of the chicken kebabs, mixed veg kebabs, grilled sweetcorn and barbecued papadums (yes you can barbecue papadums). An array of salads and other delights made up the buffet style meal for eight hungry mouths.

THAI GREEN CHICKEN CURRY KEBABS

Ingredients:

- 8 medium chicken breasts, cut into 2-3cm cubes
- 1 small jar of green chicken curry paste
- 1 tin of coconut cream
- 1 bunch of spring onions, cut into 2-3 cm lengths

Method:

Spoon off the thick cream from the tin of coconut leaving the clear liquid behind. Don't shake the tin before you open it otherwise the cream won't stay separated. Add the coconut cream, diced chicken and curry paste to a large bowl and marinate for at least one hour. The longer the better. While the chicken is marinating, pre-soak the bamboo skewers in water to help prevent them burning on the barbecue.

On the skewers, start with a piece of chicken, then spring onion, then chicken and so on, finishing with a piece of chicken to hold it together. It takes a while, but I find it quite therapeutic. It was a good opportunity to have a chat

Grill the kebabs for about 5-7 minutes each side until they are charred just nicely on both sides. Chicken breast cooks quickly and will dry out if overcooked. Should you choose to use chicken thigh instead, it needs to cook more gently for a lot longer.

The left over liquid from the coconut cream did not go to waste. I poured it over some ice with a teaspoon of sugar and a generous measure of vodka. It made two surprisingly good beachy digestifs!

The sunset was beautiful and after our meal we just sat out and gazed at the stars in the southern sky. We watched the moon set beyond the horizon and retired to an incredibly peaceful sleep. A big thanks to Linda and Ian for sharing their holiday shack with us and for their wonderful company and conversation.

A Balinese Beach Barbeque

2011-12-22T06:25:00.000Z

Our five days in Bali en route to visiting family in Perth for Christmas was bound to present plenty of firefoodie fascinations. I'd read about the famous beach barbecues at Jimbaran Bay and was dying to get closer to some real traditional open fire cooking. This Indonesian island delivered in abundance.

One evening we set out to try one and Suara, our driver (and now great friend) dropped us off at a place simply called 'JBS'. The tables were arranged on the sand facing the sun set and we selected seafood from tanks which was then weighed, cleaned and grilled over charcoal to order. We made one big mistake however, we got there after sunset, so we missed that bit, and by then the selection of seafood was fairly limited.

One largish baramundi, a small crayfish and four giant prawns hit the scales before being passed on to the cooks for grilling. We returned to our table in the sand, had a few drinks and enjoyed the live entertainment.

The seafood was seasoned with traditional Balinese spices and grilled to perfection. It was served simply with steamed rice, steamed vegetables and some soy/spicy sauces on the side. The four of us devoured the lot in no time.

For an island where things generally cost very little, somehow this was one of the most expensive meals we had. Mainly because it is frequented by tourists, so next time, and there will be a next time because Bali is amazing, we will hunt out the places where the locals eat.

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon, White Wine and Honey

2011-11-20T15:31:00.001Z

It's that time of the year, not even December yet and I'm noticing that my 'Perfect Christmas Turkey in the Weber' article is starting to receive visits. Forward planning, I like it.

It's a traditional Sunday roast tonight at the firefoodie household so I visited my favourite farm shop on the way home from Luca's rugby match. Foxbury Farm, near Burford in Oxfordshire, one of the best local farm shops around here. We had already decided on pork so I chose a portion of boned shoulder and had the butcher score the skin nicely so we would have loads of delicious crackling. The fresh produce section had some lovely locally grown brussels sprouts, our first dose of brussels for the year. It was here that I also found some great local streaky bacon.

This recipe is a variation on a Delia Smith Christmas recipe and can be made with any sweet white wine, smoked or unsmoked bacon and good fresh sprouts. A white marsala wine is sweet enough to not need the honey, but I only had a dry white so I tried a small amount of honey to give a nice glaze and add that extra bit of sugar.

The pork shoulder, of course, was cooked in the Weber (keeps the hot smoky bit out of the kitchen) and the rest of the meal was cooked indoors. In addition to the sprouts, I served mixed roasted root vegetable (potatoes, swede and parsnip), and steamed carrots. I also made a simple stuffing (cooked separately) with fresh sage, more bacon, minced onion and fresh breadcrumbs.

Serves four:

- 600g brussels sprouts, trimmed and washed
- 200g streaky bacon, finely chopped
- 25g butter
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 small glass of white wine
- 1 dessert spoon of clear honey
- Salt and pepper

Method:

Steam the sprouts until they are about half cooked, that is still firm when tested with a fork. Meanwhile, fry the bacon in a pan in melted butter and olive oil until the bacon is nice and crispy. Don't worry about all those bits that stick, the wine will sort it out when it deglazes the pan. Add the par cooked sprouts and then add the wine in small splashes so the sprouts aren't drowned in it. Keep the heat high and as the liquid evaporates, add more, a little at a time. Put a lid on for a few minutes to steam them a bit more and then add the honey and toss them about before serving.

I will remember this night by the broken handle on my Weber. It was a bit tricky getting the lid off and on, but then I've had it for over ten years. Not impossible, just tricky. I'm not going to get rid of it, I am going to fix the handle. I am going to fix the handle...

Moroccan Spiced Chicken Skewers

2011-11-12T15:14:00.001Z

Cooked over the embers of a damson wood fire

Friday night dinner parties require a special kind of planning. Being a work day, I don't have the luxury of spending all day food shopping and cooking so things need to be prepared in advance as much as possible. This is a great first course in this respect. You can marinate the chicken the night before, and the skewers take no more than ten minutes to cook. The spectacle of the fire is also a nice warming welcome for when guests arrive.

These skewers were prepared as part of a menu for a dinner party for ten. The evening was a Moroccan themed variation of a dinner party we hosted earlier this year. I was determined to burn some wood but in complete denial of the twenty-four hour weather report; drizzle followed by heavy rain, just about exactly when I needed to be cooking, outside.

The firewood was a gift from my friend Ben when we visited recently at their new place in Herefordshire. Firewood as a gift? Yes, but this was no ordinary firewood. He had some dead branches from a damson tree and gave me some to take home as we were leaving. I was thrilled, and thank you Ben, it burned beautifully. (For tips on a wood cooking fire have a look at my earlier article, A Real Wood Barbecue.) The embers were hot. Really hot. Even with my long wooden handled tongs I managed to singe all the hair on the back of my hands.

I found the skewer recipe at waitrose.com and it is seriously good. I used chicken breast instead of thigh as it is perfectly suited to hot, fast cooking and the lighter meat absorbs marinade flavours wonderfully. The spice mix is amazing; coriander, cumin, cinnamon, garlic, cloves, lemon zest and olive oil. I made the mix the night before and got a full upper body workout with my beastly pestle and mortar while gazing mindlessly at an episode of Masterchef on the telly. The chicken marinated overnight and all that was left to do on the day was skewer the pieces and whack them on the barbecue. I put coriander leaves (cilantro) between each piece for extra aroma and colour.

They need to be cooked hot and fast, so they are just starting to char on the outside without drying out on the inside.

The Waitrose recipe includes a parsley, almond and feta salad, and I added a home made tsatsiki from a Tessa Kiros recipe in her wonderful book 'Falling Cloudberries'. Half a piece of pitta bread toasted over the embers plus a lemon wedge and the plate was finished off nicely.

By some twist of fate, the weather report wasn't quite right and it was just after we sat down for the first course that the heavens opened. It absolutely chucked it down.

The main course was a Moroccan Beef Tagine from a brilliant recipe by Jamie Oliver from his recent 'Jamie Does..' cookbook. Also great for a Friday, as you can marinate over night and cook slowly during the day or the day before with minimal attention. The beef was served with saffron and petit pois cous cous and slow roasted halved tomatoes.

A dessert of cinnamon oranges finished the meal from a great recipe from ehow.com with our own addition of a splash of cointreau to give it a bit of a kick.

The next morning we received some really lovely thank you notes and text messages. Makes it all worthwhile really. And by the way, that's me, second from the right.

Chilli Bounty Number Two

2011-11-12T14:43:00.001Z

Robbie, Robbie, Robbie. I enshrine you in this post. You never cease to come good with your extraordinary chilli generosity. As if the first batch wasn't good enough you return with yet another. I used a few of the skinny green ones in last nights Moroccan Beef Tagine, and the rest are going to join their friends in the freezer.

A Surreal Chilli Moment

2011-10-31T10:11:00.000Z

A typically mad packed Sunday, and I'm at home for a short period between taking our son to rugby training and having to shoot into London to collect our daughter when the door bell rings. Our good friend and neighbour Rob has turned up with a carrier bag... full of chillies! Red ones, green ones, yellow, black, brown, big, small, you name it. My eyes nearly jumped out of my head.

He had met someone nearby with a poly tunnel who loves growing chillies. Why? because they are so beautiful to look at. Here's the best bit... he doesn't even eat them! We were like two kids in a sweet shop. Ooing and aahing over this one and that one. We spread them out on the table, meticulously sorted them out and divided them evenly. What you are looking at is my half of the stash. This lot went straight into the freezer so now I'll be able to taste and savour them for months to come.

Freezing is a great way to preserve lots of fresh chillies. I take a few out at a time, slice them thinly, put them in a small bowl and barely cover them with olive oil. They retain their colour and flavour and once in the oil, they will keep in the fridge for days, that's if they last that long!

A Real Wood Barbecue

2011-10-03T13:32:00.000+01:00

How to make a proper cooking fire.

Let's face it, a barbecue is not really a true barbecue without wood. Don't get me wrong, lump wood charcoal is wood, as are charcoal briquettes (we hope!). Gas barbecues have their place too, but sometimes it just has to be a real fire with real wood. The fire making ritual is ceremonial and therapeutic, and therefore was perfectly suited for my Mum's last day with us before she headed back to Australia. The unprecedented late September heat wave helped add to the outdoor occasion.

A wood cooking fire is not complicated, but it has to be right. The wood needs to be a dense, seasoned hardwood (I used oak) and in pieces no thicker than 3-4 cm. Start by building a small fire with a piece of screwed up newspaper and then placing tinder such as dried twigs and small sticks on it. Once the tinder has fully ignited, build the hardwood over the fire to make a pyramid.

The oak I used was foraged from local woodland. It came from branches that had fallen some years before and although they were slightly damp, they were completely dead. I stored it in my garage for a few weeks and by the time I came to use it it was bone dry.

The fire should burn hot and fast, and only take about twenty minutes to become a pile of searingly hot embers. The embers are then spread out ready for cooking. A few words of warning, hot means hot. About 1,000 degrees C to be precise. I was cooking marinated chicken thighs and wings which need to be cooked slowly, chicken breast (tandoori kebabs), and some little chipolata pork sausages. You obviously can't turn the heat down, so you need to create cooler and hotter cooking areas either by moving the embers around, or by raising the cooking grill higher above the embers.

I started by putting the chicken pieces around the edge in fire proof pans, so I could move them easily and make sure they didn't burn early on. These pieces cooked for forty minutes in total. The tandoori kebabs went on to the grill next (about twenty minutes after the chicken pieces went on), and the little sausages about five minutes after the kebabs. The initial embers were too hot for the more delicate chicken breast and sausages, so the twenty minute wait made all the difference.

Surprisingly, with good hardwood, a fire like this will last for at least 45 minutes, which is long enough to barbecue pretty much anything. Super hot at first, and cooler towards the end, so it's just about timing the different foods accordingly. Once you get the hang of this method, you can pretty much barbecue anywhere you can find wood.

Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder

2011-09-27T13:54:00.000+01:00

Cooked over charcoal in the Weber

It's been a fairly intense month with family visiting from Australia combined with a massive work catch up after our summer holidays. I was uncertain as to whether I was going to meet my self imposed target of a minimum of one article per month, for the first time ever.

Luckily, a traditional Sunday roast and some locally made charcoal saved the day. I had a large shoulder of pork in the freezer, ideal for cooking outside in the Weber kettle barbeque. My Mum and parents-in-law were our guests so I planned a roast pork meal with all the trimmings.

Firstly, some musings on charcoal. Lumpwood charcoal is my preferred cooking fuel despite the number of branded barbecue briquettes on the market. With charcoal, you know what you are getting, or so I thought. I recently stopped at a garage on a country road for fuel and spotted bags of British charcoal for sale in unfamiliar packaging. The garage owner informed me that it was supplied to him by a couple of guys who had some local woodland. It was a large bag and reasonably priced. I did notice however that it did feel lighter than I would have expected for its size.

As usual I made a plan; light the charcoal at 2:15; start the roast at 2:45 and so on with view to serving the meal at 6:30. Then I read the lighting instructions. Ten minutes from lighting to cooking? I was more used to 20 or even 30 in colder weather. No fire starters or tinder required either? This was unexpected. Instead I was to select a handful of small pieces, scrunch them up with one piece of newspaper, light it, and then build more fuel on top. This stuff lit so quickly it was scary, and also a bit worrying in so far as how long was it going to burn for? For a good roast you need a hot starting temperature and a fairly slow burning fuel that doesn't give off too much smoke. This was going to be interesting.

Reading the packaging I discovered more. Ninety-eight percent of charcoal used in Britain (52,000 tonnes in 1992) is imported. The source wood is harvested mainly from mangroves and tropical forests with scant regard for regeneration. My charcoal however was made from coppiced wood in well managed local broadleaf woodlands, a practice that goes back as far as 6,000 years. So, the nice dense slow burning charcoal I had become so accustomed to wasn't so nice after all.

So what did this all mean? Mainly, that I was going to have to constantly top up the fires during the cooking time and use more charcoal than I would normally expect. The main consequence of this is that it was going to be a fairly smoky affair because normally you would allow the charcoal to become white before cooking after the initial smoky starting stage. And smoky it was. With each charcoal top up, smoke was pouring out of the top vent in the Weber and I frequently had to lift off the lid and fan the fire to accelerate the initial burn. I was planning to cook this pork for at least three hours.

All that said, let's get back to the pork. My 2.5kg shoulder had been defrosting over night and was the only thing to be cooked in the Weber. The potatoes, squash and stuffing went in the oven, and the broccoli and carrots in the steamer on the gas hob.

INGREDIENTS (Serves 8):

- 2.5 kg pork shoulder with rind scored with a knife
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- 1 heaped tspn of salt
- 4-5 large sprigs of fresh rosemary, still on the stalks

CHARCOAL METHOD:

Prepare two indirect fires in the base of the Weber (know your charcoal!). Rub the olive oil all over the rind and then sprinkle on the salt. Make a bed of rosemary stalks in the base of a roasting dish and rest the pork on top. Check the pork (and the fire) from time to time and baste the fat over the skin. After about two hours cut any string, and remove the rind from the meat with a knife. This will guarantee that the crackling will turn out soft and crumbly. At this point, I left the pork in the Weber for a further hour and put the crackling in the oven over the top of the roast potatoes. The extra heat is needed to finish it off properly. About half an hour before serving the pork, remove it from the Weber and cover with foil to rest before carving. Pour off most of the fat, and remove all the juices from the roasting dish with boiling water for the gravy. I thickened the gravy with some plain flour and added chicken stock to ensure there would be plenty.

OVEN METHOD:

Put the pork in a deep sided roasting dish as above and roast at 150 deg C for at least two hours before removing the rind. To get a crispy rind, finish the roast off at a high temperature (220 deg C). Cover the pork with foil towards the end to keep it moist for carving, while allowing the rind to become perfect crackling.

Ours was delicious, and worth all effort. The smokiness from the charcoal had subtly flavoured the meat and gravy, and the crackling was intensely flavoured and crumbly. The pork itself was deliciously moist and tender. Lucky there were some left overs, because writing this is making me hungry and I'm about to snack on them right now!

I'm still left with the charcoal quandary. The local stuff is easy to light and quick burning, ideal for open grill type barbecuing where food is being cooked fairly quickly. It would also be perfect for my open fire rotisserie, but it's got me thinking regarding slow cooking in the Weber. Extra effort and a smokier roast might just be the way forward.

Petit Feuilleté Boeuf et Figues

2011-08-29T22:41:00.001+01:00

In honour of dear friends moving away and inspired by our recent holiday in France, this dish was the first course of a four course French themed feast for the occasion. My wife and I had this at a restaurant in France, La Ferme Ladouceur, and all I had to go on was my memory of the dish and a photograph I took at the restaurant.

First of all, what is a 'femlleté'? I've searched, run various derivations through Google translate and have come up with nothing at all that is food related. The nearest was 'femmellete' which apparently means 'sissy'. So 'sissies' they are. Help me out here, please. (Mystery now solved... see comments below).

The filling is made from seasoned pureéd beef, and a piece of fresh fig, all wrapped in a shortcrust pastry. Seeing what I was doing, my wife stepped in with her artistic talents and actually made them look like figs. Impressive work. The sauce is a rich beef stock reduction and the garnish a simple leaf salad topped with redcurrants. I had recently bought some fig balsamic vinegar which was perfect for the dressing.

INGREDIENTS:

(Makes 10)

- 650g sirloin steak, trimmed and finely pureéd in a food processor
- 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
- 6 small fresh figs, quartered
- Salt and pepper
- Shortcrust pastry (1 'Jusroll' pack was good for 4)
- 500ml good quality beef stock (this was from Waitrose)
- 1 desert spoon of plain flour
- 1 desert spoon of butter
- Mixed soft leaves
- 1 tub of redcurrants
- Thick balsamic vinegar
- Beaten egg for brushing on to the pastry
- Parsley sprigs to garnish (I forgot this bit)

METHOD:

Start by making the filling. Trim the thick fat rind off the sirloin, cut it into chunks and put it in a food processor. Add salt, pepper and the chopped parsley to taste. (it tastes great raw so don't be afraid). The pureéd beef needs to be really well seasoned, but not too salty.

Divide the seasoned beef into ten balls (each should be the roughly the size of a golf ball). Lay each ball on a square of shortcrust pastry, put a quarter of a fig on top, brush beaten egg on the inside of the pastry, fold up the sides and then do your best to make them look like figs (or whatever your creative talents desire). Brush the outside with more egg before laying them onto a buttered baking dish.

Pre-heat the oven to 200 deg C and allow 30 minutes for them to cook. While they are in the oven, prepare the sauce by putting the flour and butter in a saucepan over a low heat to make a roux. Then add the beef stock, bring it to the boil, and then reduce it down at a low simmer until it is nicely glossy and just a little thickened. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.

Lay the leaves on the side of the plate, dress with some balsamic vinegar and place the redcurrants and a quarter of a fig on top. Finally, plate up the femlletés and drizzle over plenty of sauce before garnishing with a fresh sprig of parsley.

We followed this with coq au vin blanc (I found a brilliant recipe at The Gourmet Traveller), a cheese course, and a refreshing 'le colonel' (Bombay Sapphire version). The evening was topped off by burning some of my treasured foraged oak in the brazier as a treat for the South African majority (well, for all us blokes actually).

La Ferme Ladouceur, Ramatuelle, France

2011-08-25T16:46:00.000+01:00

A RESTAURANT REVIEW

Our two week family holiday in the south of France is always a firefoodie challenge. There is pretty much a blanket ban on open fires and barbeques everywhere except in private houses. Having seen more than one forest fire in the region at close hand I can see why.

We are surrounded by family and friends where we stay, and when my sister in law offered to feed and look after our kids one evening so my wife and I could try out her favourite local eaterie, what could we say? Her generosity was even further extended to driving us to the restaurant and picking us up after the meal.

La Ferme Ladouceur is a few kilometres from the stunning village of Ramatuelle, near St Tropez on the French riviera. It is locally reknowned for its evening only restaurant which is run along side their chambres d'hotes. The converted farmhouse is set back off the main road, surrounded by vineyards and has a beautiful shaded terrace at the rear. We asked for a special table and got one, right on the edge of the terrace under the canopies of olive and fig trees.

The set price four course menu includes wine and changes daily. There are no choices to be made, you are simply served the same four courses as everyone else that evening. Our menu:

- Petit femlleté boufe et figue
- Brandade de cabillaud, coulis de tomate
- Fromage
- Soupe de pesches

We were guessing as much as you as to what we would receive other than what we could work out with our limited French. The first course was something to do with beef and figs, no clue on the second course other than the tomato coulis, then cheese, and finally peach soup?

After we were seated, we splashed out and had a glass of champagne each to celebrate the occasion. The setting was truly lovely. The trees surrounding the terrace were gently up-lit and the tables set simply and elegantly with white linen, a small paraffin lantern and an array of wine and water glasses.

We were given the choice of red or rosé to have with our meal, and opted to start on a refreshing, chilled rosé which came to the table in a bottle without a label having been filled from a cask in the kitchen. Then came the first course, and wow. It was a small pastry parcel surrounded by a thick glossy sauce, and garnished with a salad of mixed leaves and redcurrants. The first cut into the pastry revealed a finely minced beef filling with a few slices of fig on top of it. The beef was beautifully seasoned and combined well with the sweet fig, pastry and sauce. The sauce, I think, was a reduced and thickened beef consommé. The leaves and redcurrants had a wonderful cleansing effect as an end to the course. Our plates were left clean, any last traces having been wiped up with some of the home made bread. Our first experience was full of complementary flavours and left us wanting for more.

We were left with just the right amount of time to contemplate how good the first course was and consider moving on to a red wine now the rosé was starting to run out. The local reds are very light, so hopefully our choice would work well with the coming main course (a conversation with one of the waiters had revealed that it was fish of some sort).

And wow again. The fish turned out to be cod, and was served on a bed of what looked like potato pureé (but by its taste was not), a whole steamed carrot, a kind of herby egg roll, and a piece of toasted rustic bread topped with baked tomato. There was a lot going on with this dish and it took a bit of a while just looking at it to piece it all together.

The fish was firm, white and just moist enough, and looked like it had been baked. It was not like the watery cod often served, but superior in quality. To be honest, I wasn't totally sure it was cod until I looked up the translation of 'cabillaud' the next day. The pureé beneath the cod was an intense, creamy, fishy experience. I was thinking of celeriac and not potato at the time, but the next day translation revealed it to be the 'brandade' on the menu; an emulsion of salted cod, olive oil and milk, a specialty of the region. Cod on cod, an abundance of seasoning, the sweet carrot and the tomato coulis, a divine dish. The toasted bread on the plate I'm sure was there for the final clean up. My wife and I couldn't stop raving as we were eating. It was (together with the wine) an intoxicating experience.

The third course arrived after a suitable break. A single, fairly large slice of brie on a plate. After the attention to detail we had become accustomed to, this felt just a bit disappointing. The quality of the brie was exceptional, but we both felt a bit let down. No garnish, a few grapes maybe, some cheese biscuits? It could be that there was some contrasting simplicity versus complexity going on, but it didn't give us much to think about.

The dessert, I'm afraid, was also a bit disappointing, but possibly only because of the expectations that had built up after the superb first two courses. The 'peach soup' consisted of small cubes of peach in rich peach pureé, and a small boat shaped sponge sitting on top. The idea itself was fine, but it was served in a deep glass goblet with a long spoon which made it awkward to eat. It was refreshing and I ate it all but I was disappointed with the presentation. It had also come straight from the fridge so there was no impression of any final flair in the finishing stages in the kitchen.

All in all, however, we had a brilliant time and together agreed on a score of 8 out of 10. The quality of service, ambience, and first two courses were exquisite. Value for money? at 43 euros per person including a litre and a half of wine for food of this quality, no question. The only let down was the last two courses. Had these followed the all round standards of the first two courses, this could have pushed the score to a 9 or even possibly a 10.

La Ferme Ladouceur is one of those places you have to try. The surprise menu of the day, the ambience and the quality have to be experienced. We will definitely be going back there. Oh, and remember to take cash, no cards accepted.

A Festival Breakfast

2011-08-06T18:59:00.001+01:00

COOKED OVER AN OPEN FIRE

Nearly a week has gone by and we have barely recovered from our four days of camping, feasting and music in Dorset last weekend. The X-Grill got yet another hammering, often for breakfast, lunch and dinner on the same day.

Sad-o here even took a box of seasoned oak firewood foraged from woodland near our home. As if you don't have enough stuff to lug around when camping. Our fuel was a mix of charcoal and oak, and for cookware, my trusty paella pan and karahi dish, both perfect for open fires.

The breakfast pictured above was a hearty selection of bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes and fried eggs. The trick is not to have too large a fire. It doesn't need to last long, and needs to cool down fairly rapidly. When the bacon first went on it was searingly hot, so it cooked quickly and was then transferred to the karahi dish to keep warm with the mushies. The mushrooms started off in the karahi when it was also searingly hot. Then the tomatoes, and finally the eggs. When they were done, there was just enough glow left in the embers to toast the bread on the rack.

At the end of the weekend, the X-Grill packed away nicely into the flat box it originally came in almost a year before.

For more about the X-Grill, have a look at The X-Grill Barbeque.

Spit Roasted Lamb Chops with Garlic & Rosemary

2011-07-25T10:32:00.001+01:00

It was a much needed day of glorious Oxfordshire sunshine, I had two bags of lamb chops in the freezer and some good quality charcoal sitting waiting. Lamb chops are traditionally grilled, but the large amounts of fat released can create unmanageable flames that leave sooty marks on the food plus the unnecessary stress of trying to prevent them from burning.

Being a Sunday, I had plenty of time to think of something a bit different and more relaxing. Spit roasting is slower, and without coals directly below the meat so fat fires are much less likely. The idea reminded me a bit of some kebab shops, where lamb is layered in slices on a vertical spit in front of a gas grill, and the cooked meat sliced directly off the spit. I thought that if I layered the lamb chops on my spit, with some garlic and rosemary between each chop, the slower cooking would allow the flavours to better infuse, and the self basting would create delicious sweet crunchy bits around the outside. And besides, I'd get to sit in the garden with a cold drink listening to the sizzle and taking in the smells.

As it happened, it worked. Once the spit was removed, there was no carving needed, and my 1.2 kg of prime lamb chump chops made five decent servings. The flavours were intense and the sweet crispy bits on the outside a real delight. I served ours with mixed roasted vegetables and cous cous.

INGREDIENTS:

- Lamb chump chops (allow about 3 per person)
- Garlic cut into thin slices
- Fresh rosemary stalks
- Salt

METHOD:

Layer the chops on the spit with a few pieces of garlic and a sprig of rosemary between each one. Pack them together tightly and then sprinkle the outside with salt. Prepare the charcoal fire so that there are no coals below the spit. Lumpwood charcoal starts off really hot and then reduces in temperature gradually, which is ideal for this type of cooking. I used about 2.5 kg of charcoal, and the chops were on the spit for just over an hour.

45 Indian Chillies in a Jar

2011-07-05T02:05:00.003+01:00

This is a big Fire Food moment. I've been desperate to create another batch of preserved chillies, and finally managed to squeeze the time out of my manic life to do it. I love it, it is so rewarding. It's therapeutic in a robotic kind of a way. I see that massive pile of chillies and think that there is no end to the snipping off the tails of each individual one with scissors, but somehow, it happens, and they are all gone.

This lot, 4kg (or just over 2,000 chillies) took around two hours to get into the pot and created a good opportunity to practice my mental arithmetic. The robotic rhythm is trance-like and made it fairly easy to work out that I was doing 3.6 seconds per chilli, inspecting and tailing each one. It was motivating in a surreal kind of way.

I ordered some little jars last year and when I checked the delivery note, it was a year ago to the day that they arrived. But then this past year has been far from normal. So here are a few photos to enjoy, and it's not for sale so if you want some you have to ask really nicely.

The recipe has evolved over more than 20 years, since I was making this with my Dad when I was still a student in Australia. In those days, we would lace the chopped chillies with as many Indian spices we could lay our hands on. It made an amazingly pungent and colourful mix, but over the years I have moved towards trying to extract just the smells and flavour of the chilli itself. The end result has proved to be much more versatile.

I love it on bread or cracker biscuits with a not too strong cheddar and a cold beer. Chilli, chese and beer; the holy trinity of food in my opinion. It's superb as condiment to bangers and mash, to spice up a pizza or to add a kick to a toasted sandwich. A quarter of a teaspoon is a good start. You can also add it to tomato ketchup to make a brilliant chilli sauce for barbeques. Once you get used to it try upping it a bit. To get the benefit of the unique chilli taste it is best added to food after cooking rather than during cooking.

This batch required four kilograms of chillies, next time I'm going for eight and will rope in some family to share the enjoyment.

Whole Salmon Baked in the Weber

2011-07-01T15:59:00.001+01:00

ON A BED OF FRESH TARRAGON & DILL

This was served as a main course after the moreish grilled mussels appetiser posted earlier this week. It was part of the (pesco-)vegetarian menu for our dear daughter and our friends visiting from Australia, Jean and her lovely girls. This dish is dead easy and a real indulgence.

As usual the pre-amble was as much fun as the cooking itself. It involved an intoxicating trip to the fish market and a visit to my friend Ben's place to pillage his garden of fresh herbs. This 2kg (cleaned weight) fish fed seven of us with very generous portions. It was simple to cook and rewarding to eat.

The fire was prepared for the first course of grilled mussels. There was plenty of oomph left in it for the salmon which only took about 30 minutes.

INGREDIENTS:

- 1 whole fresh salmon, gutted
- 1 bunch of fresh dill
- 1 bunch of fresh tarragon
- 2-3 lemons, quartered
- Sea salt

METHOD:

A hot fire is essential if you want a nice bit of crispy skin on top. My fire was a bit weak as it had suffered from a slow rainy start, but was still plenty good enough to bake the salmon.

Make a double (or triple) thickness foil tray in the middle of the Weber (two fires, one each side). This will need to be strong enough to lift out with the salmon when cooked.

Lay the fish on a bed of the fresh herbs, squeeze the lemon inside the cavity and put the lemon skins in the foil tray. Season the skin with freshly ground sea salt. This little baby was so big it had it's tail sticking out of the lid of the Weber.

Bake the salmon with the lid on (all vents open) and check it after 30 minutes by breaking open the flesh with a fork. It may need a bit longer depending on your fire.

We served ours with grilled asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, and baked cherry tomatoes with anchovies and green beans, all of which went down a treat.

Grilled Mussels with Garlic Butter and Parmesan

2011-06-27T13:33:00.002+01:00

CHAPTER 2 - COOKED IN A WEBER

Two years ago I prepared this dish in honour of a visit from our pesco-vegetarian daughter. The short article I posted quickly became the most visited page on this website. I promised myself I'd do it again with two key improvements: Firstly, much better photographs (the earlier ones were taken with my Nokia mobile phone) and secondly, cooked using charcoal.

Grilling (or broiling to use the American term) involves radiant heat from above, or a kind of upside down barbeque. I'd been pondering this for some time and one morning when I was out running in the countryside, the idea came to me. I thought that if I made two charcoal fires in the Weber held to the sides with the adjustable metal fences, and then arranged the coals so they went up the sides of the Weber, I could put the mussels right at the bottom and they would get heat from both sides and from above. I then thought that some foil reflectors might help get some more of that radiant heat to go downwards. As it happened this wasn't necessary as the mussels grilled perfectly well between two walls of charcoal. Afterwards, the same fire was used to bake a whole salmon in the conventional way.

It was another visit from our daughter and some friends from Australia that gave me the perfect excuse to get to the fishmonger and burn some charcoal. Not far off a looking like a perfect day. Rain was forecast, but I remained undeterred. You can of course grill them in the kitchen which takes 4-5 minutes at the most, but think of all that carbon you save by not turning on that power hungry electric grill. Besides, the charcoal then gets used to cook the rest of the meal.

INGREDIENTS (starter for 8)

- 1.5kg fresh live mussels (this got me about 50 good sized ones)
- 3-4 cloves of garlic, finely crushed
- 2-3 tbsp of finely chopped fresh oregano (or parsley)
- 75g butter

METHOD

The mussels can be prepared in advance, so that the only thing that needs doing is grilling before serving.

First, rinse the mussels and remove any beards, then bring 50ml of water to the boil in a large pot with a lid. Add the mussels and steam them open on a high heat. This should take about five minutes. Allow them to cool enough to be handled and discard any that have not opened.

Find a narrow shallow tray that will fit between the two fires in the bottom of the Weber. Break off the shell that the mussel is not attached to, and using the sharp edge of the spare shell, separate the mussel from the serving shell. Lay the mussels in their shells in the tray.

Make the garlic butter by putting the butter and garlic in a bowl. Soften the butter by putting the bowl in a microwave for 20 seconds or so, just enough to melt the butter. Mix the butter and garlic, add the chopped oregano, and using a teaspoon, pour a bit of the melted garlic butter mix over each mussel.

Again, using a teaspoon, sprinkle about 1/4 teaspoon of the grated parmesan over the top and set them aside until you are ready to grill them.

To grill, prepare two charcoal fires as described above (leaving enough room between them for your tray) and grill the mussels in batches between the hot coals. I put the lid on the Weber because it was raining, but each batch only took a few minutes so check them constantly. Remove the hot tray with tongs, serve the mussels onto a platter and watch everyone dig in. Enjoy!

Ben's Peri-Peri Chicken in the Weber

2011-06-20T21:48:00.002+01:00

AND AN ARRAY OF OTHER DELIGHTS

We had the pleasure of Ben's cooking the week before when we were invited to help him celebrate his birthday on an extraordinarily wet Sunday afternoon. His menu was amazing so we decided to respectfully re-create a few of the dishes for an evening with friends visiting from Australia. It was all a bit last minute and in the middle of a hectic working week.

I'd had many phone conversations with Ben for his advice on methods and ingredients, and my wife and I settled on the following menu for our friends Jean and Ken:

STARTER

- Prosciutto rolls with peach, mozzarella, basil and mint

MAIN COURSE

- Ben's peri-peri chicken in the Weber
- Warm salad of french beans, artichoke hearts, asparagus and wild rice
- Ratatouille

DESSERT

- Rosewater panna cotta with pink champagne and strawberry jelly and crystalised rose petals

Our meal was a great success but the dessert stood out by a mile. It was astounding. Unique, creative and carefully considered in every way. My version of Ben's peri-peri however was affected by not having the right ingredients at hand. I only had hot chilli powder (instead of mild) and used too much paprika to compensate. It still tasted great but would not have met Ben's standards I'm sure. The recipe below is how Ben makes it and was taught to him by his Dad in South Aftica.

PROSCIUTTO ROLLS
Makes 12 rolls

Ingredients:

- 12 slices of prosciutto or parma ham
- 2-3 peaches, peeled and cut into 12 strips
- 1 ball of mozzarella, cut into strips
- 12 whole basil leaves
- 12 whole large mint leaves (or more smaller ones)

Method:

Carefully roll the fillings inside the prosciutto. Serve at room temperature, garnished with a few extra herbs and freshly ground black pepper.

BEN'S PERI-PERI CHICKEN
Serves 4

Ingredients:

- 1 whole chicken, spatchcocked
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp of smoked paprika
- 4 tbsp mild chilli powder
- 3-4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 handful of fresh parsly, finely chopped
- 1 handful of fresh oregano, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp fresh taragon finely chopped.
- juice of 1/2 lemon for the marinade
- Fresh lemon wedges to serve with

Method:

Marinate the chicken the night before and leave it in the fridge. To make the marinade, add the paprika and chilli powder to the olive oil, tasting all the time for 'chilli hotness'. Add the garlic, herbs and lemon juice to the marinade, prick the chicken all over with a skewer, and put the chicken and marinade in a sealed plastic bag (or bowl with clingfilm) in the fridge. The longer the better.

To cook the chicken, prepare two medium charcoal fires in the Weber, sit the chicken in a baking dish in the centre and cook the chicken slowly with the lid on and all vents open for about 40 minutes. This needs to be a gentle cook or the chicken will dry out to much. From time to time, spoon the marinade over the chicken as it is cooking.

To finish the chicken, remove it from the dish and grill it directly over the (by now fairly gentle) coals. Turn it freqently to prevent it from burning. Ten minutes or so in total should be plenty. Cut the chicken into portions, making sure everyone gets a share of the breast and finish it off with the lemon wedges.

I can't wait to do it again, but hopefully with more time to get the spices just right.

WARM SALAD OF FRENCH BEANS, ARTICHOKE HEARTS, ASPARAGUS AND WILD RICE
Serves 4

This is served just slightly warm and all of the ingredients can be pre-prepared before the final assembly.

Ingredients:

- 1 pk of fresh asparagus spears
- 1 pk of fine green beans
- 1 small jar of artichoke hearts in oil
- 1/2 cup of wild black rice
- Juice of one lime
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 lime cut into wedges

Method:

First cook the wild rice following the instructions on the pack (takes up to an hour) then rinse with cold water in a sieve to prevent it overcooking. Meanwhile, Blanch the beans and asparagus in slightly salted boiling water for a minute or two and then run them under cold water also. Put the cooled vegetables in a bowl with the lime juice, olive oil and garlic to marinate.

To serve, quickly chargrill the beans and asparagus on the barbeque (or toss quickly in a hot wok) until they are hot, but still firm. Toss the hot vegetables with the rice, marinade and artichokes and garnish with extra lime wedges.

RATATOUILLE

Using the juices from the peri-peri baking dish, I simply added a finely chopped onion, courgette and red pepper to the same dish to soak up the spicy flavours. Then a tin of chopped tomatoes was added and the whole thing cooked was quickly over a fairly high heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently. By this time my fire was too low, so I transferred it to a pan and finished it over the gas hob.

ROSEWATER PANNA COTTA WITH PINK CHAMPAGNE AND STRAWBERRY JELLY AND CRYSTALIZED ROSE PETALS.
Makes 4 in ramekins

Not only does it sound amazing, it tastes amazing and is beautiful to look at. This is a result of Ben's current rosewater fettish and it is a truly imaginative and successful creation. You won't have tasted anything like it before and once you do you will be wanting it again. And again...

Ingredients:

For the pink champagne jelly:

- 150ml of pink champagne (or medium rose)
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
- Gelatin leaves or powder
- 4-6 fresh strawberries trimmed and cut into wedges

For the panna cotta:

- 300ml double cream
- 300ml milk
- 1 tbsp rosewater
- 80g caster sugar
- 1 large fresh vanilla pod

For the crystalized rose petals:

- 8 rose petals
- 1 egg white, gently beaten
- Caster sugar

- Fresh mint leaves and extra strawberries to garnish

METHOD

You need to allow plenty of time for this, the finished dessert needs at least 6 hours in fridge to set before serving, and the rose petals need time to harden in a dry warm place.

First make the jelly, by warming up the wine and caster sugar until the sugar dissolves. Add the gelatin (check the packet for the amount needed to set 150ml) and make sure it is completely dissolved. The jelly needs to cool down (but not set) before it is added to the ramekins.

Place the strawberry wedges into the bottom of the ramekins and pour over the jelly mixture. It should take up no more than the first 1.5 - 2cm of the dish, then put the ramekins in the fridge to set. The jelly needs to be completely set before the top layer of panna cotta is added.

To make the panna cotta, gently heat the cream, milk, seeds from the vanilla pod and the sugar in a saucepan, add the rosewater (and taste it!), then the gelatin (again, check the packet) until fully dissolved. Allow to cool (but not set) before pouring it over the set jelly. Put them back in the fridge to set.

The crystalized rose petals are made by first trimming out the thick stalk, brushing them with egg white and covering them with loads of caster sugar on both sides. The petals then need to be laid out and put somewhere dry and warm until they become crispy. It was a sunny day so I laid mine out on a plate on the table in the conservatory

To serve, turn the dessert out onto a plate or bowl (a bit of hot water on the outside of the dish will help to release it) and garnish with the rose petals, extra strawberries and some fresh mint leaves. It will impress.

Roast Pork Belly in the Weber

2011-06-06T14:38:00.004+01:00

After this experience, I'm struggling to see why I would roast any other cut of pork in the Weber. The abundance of crackling and the layers of fat make this one of the best roast meats around. The Weber is perfect for pork belly. The high starting temperature gives the crackling a head start, and as the temperature slowly reduces, it allows the meat to gently baste in its own juices.

Being a Sunday, there was enough time to really make the most of it. I had bought a fairly big piece of pork belly from my local butcher a few weeks before and had been really looking forward to getting it in the Weber. The threat of rain didn't put me off a bit, as the lid was going to be on the barbeque anyway. I took the belly out of the freezer on Saturday night and started mentally planning our Sunday meal. We always have a roast (or barbeque) on a Sunday so I thought fairly traditional accompaniments were in order.

The pork was simply rubbed with olive oil and salt, and then laid on a bunch or rosemary twigs from the garden in a Pyrex dish to retain the basting juices. The rosemary leaves (if that's what they are) were kept for the garlicy roast potatoes and swede. We had French beans and carrots for the rest of the veggies, and a simple gravy made from the pan juices and extra stock, and an oniony, herby stuffing made from fresh breadcrumbs.

ROAST PORK BELLY

INGREDIENTS: (serves 6):

- Large piece of pork belly (1.5-2kg)

- Olive oil

- Freshly ground rock salt

- Rosemary twigs

METHOD:

First, prepare two indirect fires in the Weber and while you are waiting for them to be ready, prepare the pork. Rub the pork with olive oil and sprinkle a generous amount of rock salt on the skin. The skin needs to be scored first (my butcher did it with a Stanley knife) to help release the fat and to make it easier to divide the crackling.

Lay the pork belly in a small roasting dish over the rosemary twigs and put the dish in the centre of the Weber, between the two fires. Put the lid on (all vents open). Check the pork from time to time, basting occasionally with a spoon.

This one was in the weber for 2hrs 20mins and then wrapped in foil out of the oven to rest for a further 20 minutes. This gave me time to make the gravy before I cut the pork into portions.

To serve, remove the ribs from the underside (great to nibble on as a chef's perk) and slice through the skin to divide the pork into large chunks, about 5cm square. Two of these chunks make a decent serving and everyone gets a good mixture of crackling and meltingly tender meat. Finish it off with a moderate helping of gravy. The meat is really moist so you don't need much.

ROAST PORK BELLY GRAVY:

INGREDIENTS:

- 2-3 tbsp fat from the roasting dish (pour off the rest of the fat and discard it)

- 2-3 tbsp plain flour

- knob of butter

- 1-2 cups of good quality chicken stock

- Salt and pepper

METHOD:

In a deep pan or sauce pan, make a roux by combining the fat and flour over a gentle heat. Use a bit of boiling water to get all of the lovely bits out of the roasting dish before adding to the roux. Slowly add the stock as the sauce thickens, add the butter, stirring constantly, season and taste. How thick you like your gravy is a matter of choice. My preference is somewhere in the middle, just thick enough to hold it together.

GARLICKY ROAST POTATOES AND SWEDE

INGREDIENTS:

- Peeled potatoes and swede cut into 2-3cm chunks

- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely chopped

- 3-4 tbsp olive oil

- Handful of fresh rosemary

- Freshly ground rock salt.

METHOD:

Pre-heat the oven with an empty baking dish in it to 180 deg C. Meanwhile, plunge the potatoes and swede into a large pot of salted boiling water. Once the water returns to the boil, turn off the heat and leave it for 5 mins or so with a lid on. Drain the vegetables, put them back in the same pot, add the olive oil, garlic, rosemary and salt. Put the lid back on and shake the pot vigorously to give the vegetables an oily, garlicky, starchy coating.

Turn them out into the hot baking dish (no need to add any further oil), spread them out and roast them for around 50 minutes. I added a few extra unpeeled garlic cloves in the pan also have as crunchy little treats with the meal. Next time I'll add them a bit later as they were a bit too crunchy!

All in all this was one of our best roast dinners for some time. It smelled awesome cooking away in the Weber, and tasted even better. I'm definitely making sure I always have some pork belly in the freezer.

Firemaking Kit

2011-05-22T22:41:00.009+01:00

Last winter, our son Luca received the most delightful birthday present. A shiny metal tin containing all you need to get a fire going in any conditions. When I realised what it was, I smiled at my sister-in-law, and she knowingly said "well, I thought it was something you could do together". Too right.

We kept it safe until our first camping trip earlier this month where we could both enjoy it and Luca could make his first true fire.

We planned to use it on our second day when I would have more time to pore over it with him. We opened it together and discovered surprise after surprise. The tin box contained little paper bags full of hardwood twigs, dried holly leaves and dried bark, a bundle of hardwood kindling, a flint, a box of stormproof matches and a veggie peeler (for making tinder shavings). Underneath all this lot was of a packet of marshmallows. Truly heart warming. It was so beautifully considered and packaged you couldn't help but smile.

We decided we would use it to start our afternoon fire for our barbeque supper. During the day we walked the fields around the camp site collecting kindling and fuel from under some of the large trees.

When the time came to light the fire, we used our own tinder and kindling to preserve the beautifully packaged bits in the tin. Luca shaved some soft sticks with the peeler to make more tinder and we started to build what would become our fire. We laid some smaller sticks at the bottom of the X-Grill we had bought with us to stop the tinder from falling through the grill (click here for my earlier review of the X-Grill). We then laid some dried grass, shavings and tiny twigs on top and then a few larger twigs to hold it all down.

Now, we were contending with 20mph plus winds and even stronger gusts, so being on the edge of an open field was probably not the best 'survival' location for fire lighting, but hey, we were camping. The wind made the flint starter a bit of a challenge, so we eventually opted for a storm proof match. Did the trick instantly and the wind made sure the fire took off very quickly.

We loaded it up with the wood we collected earlier and this became the fire that would keep us going all afternoon and evening.

Every time I think of this little tin box I feel warmed inside. It's like a box of little gifts. The joy doesn't stop at the first time either like many presents. You just want it to keep being there. I love it.

The lack of marshmallows in my photos is because by the time I had got the camera out we had already toasted them on a fire the night before. Brilliant idea 'though. Ten out of ten for feel good factor.

Hungarian Goulash in a Kotlich

2011-05-08T08:08:00.004+01:00

COOKED OVER AN OPEN FIRE

I was recently given my first kotlich as an early birthday gift and couldn't wait to get something going in it. A few days camping at Folly Farm in the Cotswolds in the early May bank holiday provided the perfect opportunity.

The kotlich is an eastern European cooking pot (bograc in Hungarian), suspended from a tripod over an open fire. The idea of a goulash seemed a perfect match for my new kotlich's initiation.

I did some digging for traditional goulash recipes and came across some inspiring details on a Budapest tourism website. History, recipes, variations, the lot. The whole thing joined up perfectly when I read that goulash was originally cooked by Hungarian herdsmen in a cast iron pot over an open fire in the fields. With prime quality beef at hand, and a cooking method requiring little attention, it suited (and still does) their life style perfectly.

The recipe I found at the 'Budapest Tourist Guide' is the perfect 'one pot meal', ideal for camping, or even at home on the hob or in a slow cooker. There was a bit of apprehension from my dear wife when I suggested it for our meal as she claimed she had never had a goulash that was flavoursome enough. I dug my heels in and set out to prove otherwise.

RECIPE (serves 4):

- 600g beef shin or shoulder cut into 2-3cm cubes (I could only get brisket)
- 2 tbsp olive oil or lard
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1-2 carrots, diced
- 1 parsnip, diced (I couldn't get one)
- 1-2 celery leaves (I used one stalk, chopped)
- 2 medium tomatoes, skinned and chopped (I didn't bother skinning them)
- 2 green peppers, chopped
- 2-3 medium potatoes, sliced or chopped
- 1 (heaped) tbsp of paprika powder (I used more)
- 1 tsp ground caraway seed (I couldn't get any)
- 1 bay leaf (or more)
- Water (I used water and beer)
- Salt and pepper
- (plus I added a tin of chopped tomatoes)

The great thing about this cooking pot is that it is not fussy about the fire, it just needs heat. Flames, embers, doesn't matter a bit, unlike when cooking directly over fire. And also, when camping, unless you are uber organised or super equipped, everything takes longer.

For the fire, I used our X-Grill portable barbeque (see my earlier article and review), as we weren't allowed to light fires directly on the ground. We'd brought along a box of decent hardwood, my favourite hatchet and had gathered I pile of tinder and kindling from around the farm. We were also contending with 20mph winds and occasional severe gusts that routinely tipped over our camping chairs.

METHOD (Allow at least 3-4 hours depending on the cut of meat)

Get a good fire going under the pot and brown the onions in the oil. Then add the paprika, stirring to prevent burning. Add the beef, garlic and caraway, stirring until the beef changes colour. Add the bay leaf and enough water to cover and leave to cook. This is where I also added the tinned tomatoes.

After an hour and a half or so (when the beef is half cooked), add the potatoes, carrots, parsnip and celery, check for seasoning, and add another 2-3 cups of water if needed.

Finally, when the vegetables and meat are almost done, add the fresh tomato and green pepper and cook for a further 5 minutes or so.

Goulash is often served with csipetke, little dumplings cooked in the sauce, which need to be added five minutes before serving. I didn't do them this time.

The sauce should be rich, aromatic and thick, and ours certainly was. My wife was converted and they all loved it and scraped the pot for seconds. Next time, with caraway, parsnip and dumplings, it can only get better.

After the meal, we sat around the warmth of the fire and toasted a load of marshmallows for our dessert.

The kotlich is a must have camping accessory. Lightweight, easy to pack, easy to clean and really good fun to use.

Click here to get your own kotlich from The Glam Camping Company.

Garden Spit Roast - Chapter 5

2011-04-27T01:03:00.000+01:00

ROTISSERIE CHICKEN, POTATOES, SWEDE, RATATOULLIE & GARLIC BREAD

This pseudo summer with its balmy April evenings has done it for me. Temperatures in the high 20's, with enough humidity to make it feel even warmer has got the whole country doing things normally reserved for the middle of the year. These still evenings have been awash with aromas of back garden barbeques and outdoor chatter.

We'd had a fairly intense weekend entertaining family, so by Easter Monday, chilling out by the charcoal fuelled brazier seemed an ideal option. We took a leisurely walk into town in the morning, had a light brunch at Hacketts in Witney, and bumped into loads of friends on the way. We grabbed a few essentials on the way back and I settled into my seat by the fire for the better part of the late afternoon.

Rotisserie chicken, charcoal baked potatoes and swedes, ratatoullie and garlic bread, all cooked over one decent batch of lumpwood charcoal. My current theme is to do as much as possible with the fire so I'm not forever dashing back and forwards from the kitchen. In this case, everything (except the salads of course) was prepared over one fire.

I piled up about 2.5kg of lumpwood charcoal into my Weber chimney starter and let if take off for a bit whilst I sorted out all the ingredients. This gave me 20 minutes or so to season and skewer the chicken, skewer the spuds and swedes, wrap up the garlic bread and chop up the vegies for the ratatoullie.

Once the charcoal was ready, I spread it around the outside of the brazier so there were no coals directly beneath the chicken. Otherwise the bird would burn and a fat fire would be inevitable. I placed a few rocks in the centre beneath the chicken to absorb the dripping fat and retain some heat.

I was determined not to top up the charcoal but retrospectively I think another 1/2 kilo after the first hour would have sped things up a bit.

RECIPES: (for 4-5)

SPIT ROASTED CHICKEN:

- 1.5 kg whole chicken
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- Mixed dried herbes de Provence

Secure the chicken on to a rotisserie spit, rub with olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper and the dried herbs. Cook over the coals for up to two hours always making sure there is enough heat to keep the skin gently sizzling. Once the chicken starts sizzling, the dried herbs will send amazing smells wafting through your garden. Sprinkle on a few extra bits of charcoal from time to time if need be.

After about two hours remove the chicken from the spit and let it rest wrapped in foil before carving into portions.

SPIT ROASTED POTATOES:

- 4-5 med/large potatoes

Put the potatoes onto a skewer and place around the edge of the fire, rotating every now and then to keep them cooking evenly. It can easily take up to two hours to get nicely roasted potatoes when cooked this way. You could cheat and put them in a microwave for a couple of minutes to get them started off. This would at least halve the cooking time.

RATATOULLIE:

Our summer holidays in France often involved buying the odd rotisserie chicken for supper. Most rotisserie sellers offer 'sauce' with their chickens or meats. This 'sauce' is basically onions and peppers cooking slowly at the bottom of the rotisserie in the fat that drips from the cooking meats. Incredibly tasty. My version was cooked in olive oil in a saucepan directly over the coals.

- 1 red or green pepper, roughly chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
- 2 medium onions, roughly chopped
- 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
- 1/2 cup of chicken stock
- Mixed dried herbes de Provence
- Salt and pepper
- 2 tbsp olive oil

Cook the onions and peppers in the hot oil until soft. Add the garlic and tinned tomatoes. One the sauce is simmering again, add the chicken stock a bit at a time as the liquid evaporates. The 'sauce' should be thick, moist and glossy when served.

GARLIC BREAD:

- Bread rolls or baguettes cut into portions
- Butter
- Finely chopped garlic
- Mixed dried herbes de provence

Spread a generous dob of butter on each portion of bread, sprinkle over the garlic and herbs, wrap them in foil and sit them around the edges of the fire to warm up gently. Turn them from time to time so they heat up evenly. They shouldn't take more than ten minutes or so depending on how hot the coals are.

BARBEQUED SWEDE:

- 1/2 swede (rutabaga) cut into 2.5cm cubes
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper

Thread the cubes onto a metal skewer, brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place the skewer around the edge of the fire and turn it frequently until soft all the way through. This will take at least an hour and be careful not to let them burn.

Swedes are brilliant for us low carbers, so I am constantly thinking up new ways to serve them.

This was the first time I had tried this, and next time I will par-boil the cubes for 2-3 minutes before barbequeing them. Cooking them wrapped in foil is another thing I will soon try.

An Indian Meal Cooked Over an Open Fire

2011-04-21T10:12:00.001+01:00

Inspired by unusually hot April weather and a family request for a curry meal, I decided that I needed to be outside in that glorious early evening sunshine and cook the whole meal on the barbeque. That's everything, rice, vegetables, bread and the main dish itself.

I'd spent a fair amount of time driving to and from meetings in the afternoon so I had plenty of time to mentally plan how I would do this. It would all be done over charcoal making the most of the gradually decreasing cooking temperature over 45 minutes or so.

I decided on a menu:

- Grilled tiger prawn tandoori kebabs

- Chicken tikka with red peppers and spring onions

- Broccoli with ginger, garlic and spring onion cooked in foil

- Steamed basmati rice

- Wholemeal chapatis

- Cucumber raita

(see below for all recipes)

This meal took a leisurely two hours from start to finish. First I prepared all of the raw ingredients and marinades before lighting the charcoal briquettes in the chimney starter. All of the ingredients and utensils came into the garden with me and the rest was done sitting by the brazier in the early evening sun.

There was a fair amount to prepare so I started by making the chapati dough and wrapping it in foil to be rolled out later. Then the chicken breast pieces were left to marinate in the tikka curry paste and the defrosted tiger prawns in the tandoori marinade. I then prepared all of the onions, red peppers, garlic, and grated ginger for each of the recipes.

The meal was to be served at 6pm, so I needed to ignite the charcoal in the chimney starter just before 5, allowing 20 minutes for the coals to come to temperature. Once the coals were ready I heaped them in the centre of the brazier to create a hot spot in the middle and less hot areas around the edges.

RECIPES (all recipes to serve 4, generously):

GRILLED TIGER PRAWN TANDOORI KEBABS

- 20 defrosted tiger prawns

- 1 tbsp tandoori masala spice mix (I used Natco brand)

- 1 tbsp natural yoghurt

- 2 spring onions cut into 3cm lengths and split down the centre

- Fresh coriander leaves for garnish

- 1 lime cut into 4 wedges

Put the prawns, spice mix and yoghurt in a bowl for 20 minutes or so. Thread the prawns onto metal skewers (or thoroughly soaked bamboo skewers) with a slice of spring onion between the prawns. Grill over the coals about 10 minutes before serving. The coals will be gentler by then. Garnish with the coriander leaves and serve with lime wedges. Makes a great starter.

CHICKEN TIKKA WITH RED PEPPERS & SPRING ONIONS

- 3 large chicken breasts cut into cubes

- 1/2 jar of tikka masala paste (Pataks in this case)

- 2-3 spring onions

- 2 medium onions, roughly chopped

- 1 red pepper chopped

- 1 tin of chopped tomatoes

- 1 large handful of fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped

- Olive oil

Start by mixing the chicken, tikka masala paste, spring onions and half of the coriander leaves in a bowl to marinate for 1/2 hour or so. Once the coals are ready and at their hottest, fry the chicken marinade mix in a large (metal handled!) frying pan in the centre of the fire in a bit of oil. Stir constantly for 5 minutes or so until the chicken pieces are mostly cooked. Remove the cooked chicken from the pan and put it back in the bowl and cover with foil.

Add a bit more oil and fry the onions and red peppers until the onions are just soft. You may need to add a bit of liquid (water or beer) to loosen any spices stuck to the pan. Then add the tin of tomatoes, give it a good stir and let the sauce cook down for 10-15 minutes. About 10 minutes before serving, return the chicken pieces to the pan, stir will and bring back to a simmer. Move the pan to the edge to keep it warm.

Serve the chicken tikka masala with a generous garnish of fresh coriander.

BROCCOLI WITH GINGER, GARLIC & SPRING ONION COOKED IN FOIL

- 1 medium sized head of broccoli cut into pieces

- 2cm cube of fresh ginger, grated (I keep ginger in the freezer, easier to grate and always fresh)

- 3-4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

- 2-3 spring onions, roughly chopped

- 1/4 cup of water or chicken stock

Find a flat bottomed cereal or pasta bowl and line it with two layers of foil, leaving plenty overhanging the edges. Place the spring onions on the bottom, add the broccoli pieces, and then the garlic and grated ginger on top and add the water or stock. Make a lid (a bit like a pie!) with another piece of foil and tightly seal the edges to make a flat bottomed parcel.

Place the parcel around the edge of the coals turning them every few minutes to make sure it cooks evenly and the bottom doesn't burn. Allow at least 20-30 minutes, slow and gentle is best and it takes a while to start off. If you listen carefully you should just hear a gentle simmer going on inside and a small amount of steam escaping.

STEAMED BASMATI RICE

-1 cup of washed basmati rice

- 2 cups of water

- 2 bay leaves

Put the washed rice, water and bay leaves in a small saucepan with a lid. Put the sauce pan around the edge of the fire without the lid, giving it a shake every now and then until it starts to simmer. Keep checking it and once the water gets to the level of the rice put the lid on and keep it to the edge, turning the pot every now and then. From this point the rice needs only 5 minutes of gentle heat, and then a further five just kept warm with the lid still on. You could remove it from the heat and wrap it in a tea towel.

I would start the rice about 30 minutes before serving. It takes a bit to get going, and will stay hot in the covered pan until needed.

WHOLEMEAL CHAPATIS

One of my all time favourite unleavened breads. Great for camping and can be made with white flour for a softer Mediterranean version. See one of my very first posts: Unleavened Bread

- 200g wholemeal flour (strong or plain)
- 90ml warm water
- 1 tbsp olive oil

Mix the ingredients in a bowl with a knife and knead for a few minutes until fully blended. Wrap the ball of dough in cling film or foil at least an hour before it is required.

It will only take about 5-7 minutes to cook so when ready, divide the dough into 4 and roll each piece out on a floured board to about 20cm in diameter. The coals should be fairly gently by now, so grill the breads a minute or so on each side until puffy and just browned. As they become ready, wrap them in a tea towel to keep them warm and prevent them from drying out. If the fire is really hot when you are cooking them, cook them on a dry skillet instead.

CUCUMBER RAITA

- 1/2 peeled cucumber, chopped
- 2-3 tbsp natural yoghurt
- 1/4 tspn garam masala
- pinch of salt

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and serve.

Paella Over an Open Fire - Chapter 2

2011-04-13T00:03:00.000+01:00

The occasion of occasions, our Charlie's 18th birthday and this was a special request for his ultimate birthday meal. Not surprising really as he had been hassling me for months about cooking a paella. I warned him that I might push the boat out a bit and include some rabbit in the recipe but he was delighted by the idea and so that is how is was to be. It had been nearly two years since I had cooked paella over an open fire when we were camping in the New Forest, so I was as delighted as Charlie.

I pondered over the recipe the night before and resolved to use both chicken and rabbit, plus either mussels or clams, king prawns, chorizo, and the usual capsicum, garlic, onion and saffron. All of this depended on what would be available at the markets on the day.

A trip to the covered market in Oxford (including a visit to my favourite fish monger, Haymans Fisheries), was all it took to satisfy my full list of ingredients (serves 5-6):

3 large chicken thighs

1 whole rabbit (or an extra 3 chicken thighs)

2 medium onions, finely chopped

4 large cloves of garlic, crushed

1 green pepper

2 plum tomatoes, roughly chopped

200g chorizo (2cm cubes)

1 large handful of live mussels

1 large handful of live clams

10-12 frozen shelled tiger prawns

Saffron (about 1/4 tsp)

2 cups of rice (I use basmati as a fluffier alternative to paella rice)

Olive oil

Lemon wedges

You can't rush a good paella. From beginning to end, this took about and hour and a half, and everything was cooked over charcoal briquettes.

First, I prepared all of the vegetables, washed the mussels and clams and cubed the chorizo before filling the Weber chimney starter with the charcoal briquettes. This gave me about 20 minutes to remove the bones from the chicken thighs and remove the flesh from the rabbit. A fairly fiddly task, as there is not a great deal of flesh on a wild rabbit. The loins are fairly easy to remove whole but to get the flesh off the legs requires a small sharp knife and a bit of determination.

Once the briquettes were ready, I put the chicken bones, rabbit carcass, half of the chopped onions and a bit of the garlic in a large pot for the stock. These ingredients were browned off a bit in olive oil before adding about a litre of boiling water. I put a lid on the pot and let it boil vigorously for about 15 minutes. The longer the better of course, but I added a heaped teaspoon of chicken stock powder so I could use it sooner. In the past I have also added chorizo and saffron to the stock pot, but this time I decided to reserve them for the paella pan. I had a couple of spare chicken drumsticks, so I just put them around the edge of the fire to let them slowly grill separately.

While the stock was still boiling away, I pushed it to the side a bit to make room on the hot part of the fire for the paella pan and still allow the stock to simmer.

To make the paella, saute the remaining onions and garlic with the chorizo and saffron in a bit of olive oil in the hot paella pan. then add the chicken and rabbit (cut into cubes) followed by the green pepper and chopped tomatoes.

Once the onions are soft, add the rice and mix thoroughly before adding 4 cups of the stock and covering the pan with a lid or foil. After about 5 or 10 minutes, depending on how hot your fire is, lay the defrosted prawns on the top and leave it a bit longer. The mussels and clams are added about 5 minutes before the rice is cooked, so you need to keep an eye on it and test a bit from time to time.

The steam from the cooking will cause the mussels and clams to open up (keep the pan covered), and once they are all open, the paella is ready to serve. Ours was served simply with a mixed salad and lots of lemon wedges.

This is a great way to cook paella outdoors for family and friends. It's fun to watch and the smell is amazing. Happy 18th birthday Charlie. Love Dad. x

Ben's Built-in Braai - Chapter 4

2011-03-27T16:08:00.000+01:00

Three days into the English spring and we had been blessed with days of defiant sunshine. Ben and Tersia had finished painting and paving around their braai and saw it fit to invite us and some other friends around to celebrate.

Ben excelled himself and yet again proved how rich and diverse every day South African outdoor cooking actually is. Armed with a bag of lumpwood charcoal and a load of beautifully seasoned English ash we were in for a treat that none of us could have predicted.

In the true traditional way, he started with a selection of sausages, in this case there were three; venison, champagne and pork, and pork chorizo (my favorite), all sourced from our mutual friend and local butcher Clint at Denshams in Witney. Topped up with some corn on the cob and salad, this also served as the main meal for the small army of children who had been occupying themselves building a den of some sort.

King prawns marinated in garlic and lemon juice followed, served with a lemon mayonnaise and cooked on Ben's new Jamie Oliver perforated grilling plate.

Ben had both the braii and the Weber going as the main course included an intensely flavoured pork fillet filled with a herby smoked oyster stuffing that needed to be quickly baked in a hot kettle barbeque.

His venison loin chops were melt in your mouth stuff and were topped with a warm, sticky, home made barbeque sauce. Most bizzarely, the main course was also served with cheese, tomato and onion toasties, gently cooked over the dwindling embers in the braai tool. This was an unexpected treat and one I would highly recommend.

A generous salad of mixed leaves, avocado and olives made the perfect accompaniment to the main meal, both refreshing and robust.

This was a beautiful example of using fire at its best. Grilling sausages at a fairly high temperature over hardwood embers initially, followed by marinated prawns, then the venison chops cooked more gently, and finally the toasties. The Weber did its own separate job and sorted out the quickly roasted stuffed pork loin along side.

Tersia's radioactive waste pudding was another surprise. Crunchy green minty stuff chopped up and laid over the top of 'Tennis' biscuits (yes, and I don't know where that name came from from either, please enlighten me if you do). I've never had anything like this before. Intensely sweet and distinctively flavoured, I can see why South Africans hanker to re-live this experience. Well done and thank you to both of you.

Haunch of Venison in the Weber

2011-03-20T15:18:00.000Z

Wrapped in streaky bacon and stuffed with mushrooms, thyme and creme fraische, the 4kg haunch was enought to feed a small army. I used a third of it a a main course for a dinner party for 8 and so had plenty of leftovers.

On this occasion we opted for a very classic menu:

- Smoked salmon plate (discovered in 'Falling Cloudberries' by Tessa Kiros)

- Roast venison haunch with a red wine jus, roast potatoes and swede, steamed julienne carrots and purple sprouting broccoli

-Freshly made pavlova topped with whipped cream, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries

I ordered the venison from my friend and local butcher at Denshams in Witney. I asked for it to be 'tunnel boned' and hoped he might have some caul fat for me to wrap it in. Unfortunately not, so I bought some streaky bacon instead, just enough to cover the top and sides of the joint. He came up with an idea as he was serving me and presented a large fatty membrane from a beef flank. I decided to keep the bacon as well to put around the venison before wrapping the whole thing in the membrane.

Anxious not to risk disappointing my guests, I also bought a new meat thermometer as our old one had come apart some time ago.

FOR THE RED WINE JUS

You can make this in advance and then add the pan juices at the end.

- 1 bottle of red wine for cooking

- 1 red onion, finely chopped

- 1 medium carrot, finely chopped

- 1 stick of celery, finely chopped

- 1/2 litre of chicken stock

- 1 knob of butter

- 1 tablespoon of olive oil

- 1 tablespoon of double cream

Saute the vegetables in the butter and olive oil until soft, then add the wine and simmer it down to at least halve the volume. Add the chicken stock, and reduce it again. Knorr make a superb chicken stock powder labelled 'Chicken Powder' or 'Bot Ga' available in tins from most Chinese supermarkets. I affectionately call it 'powdered chickens' because I'm sure that's what it is! It tastes nothing like any chicken stock cube I've every tried.

Ideally you want to have a decent cup full of jus before straining it and adding the cream to bind it together. These quantities will happily do 8 serves. Allow a good hour or more to make a good jus and keep an eye on it. If you like, you can thicken the sauce with a basic roux but I prefer it just as it comes.

FOR THE MUSHROOM, HERB & CREME FRAISCHE STUFFING

- 200g of mushrooms (any sort) finely chopped

- 1/2 red onion finely chopped

- 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh thyme leaves

- 1 big dollop of of creme fraische

- salt and pepper to taste

- 1 tablespoon of olive oil

- 1 knob of butter

Saute the onion in the olive oil and butter until soft before adding the mushroom and seasoning. Cook out all the moisture and allow to cool completely. Fold in the creme fraische and chopped thyme and set aside.

Venison is very lean so it needs to have fats introduced to help it along during the cooking. This stuffing is great as it provides fat in the centre of the meat to supplement the streaky bacon on the outside.

THE VENISON

- Venison haunch (I had a whole thigh from a 25kg animal)

- Mushroom, herb and creme fraische stuffing (above)

- 8-10 rashers of streaky bacon

- kitchen string

Using a tea spoon, push the stuffing into the bone cavity of the venison with a spoon. Then, with two pieces of string tie both ends of the haunch to give it a nice round shape. Use a third piece of string to close up the ends of the haunch lengthways, but not too tightly or the joint will end out mis-shaped.

Drape the rashers of streaky bacon over the joint to provide plenty of basting fat for the roasting. On this occasion I then wrapped the whole thing in the fatty flank membrane and secured it with a few more pieces of string.

Place the venison on a narrow baking dish in the Weber to retain the juices for basting. I used my trusty pyrex dish which was barely big enough for this one.

Depending on how you like your venison done, a joint of this size will take up to 3 hours to cook in a Weber. I used lumpwood charcoal, a chimney starter full at the beginning (split into two indirect fires) and I topped up the fires twice with a couple of handfuls more charcoal during the cooking. This was also a good opportunity to baste the roast and to let the charcoal re-oxegenate.

Concerned about having the roast ready on time for my guests, I kept checking the inside temperature with the thermometer. Two hours in and the temperature was below the 'rare' scale and seemed to be climbing ever so slowly. I also noticed that the membrane covering was preventing the meat from browning so I made a last minute decision to remove it so I could give the venison a proper basting and hopefully accelerate the cooking for my hungry guests. Miraculously, the roast turned out perfectly, soft and moist on the inside and with loads of nice crispy bits on the outside. 65-70 degrees C at the centre of the roast is what you need to achieve.

Carve the meat thinly and serve with a generous helping of the jus. This is melt-in-your-mouth stuff. Unbelievably tender and intensely flavoured.

FOR THE SMOKED SALMON PLATE (for 8)

Eye food at its best. Meticulous preparation, intense colours, diverse flavours, the perfect appetiser to get the evening going.

- 200g Smoked salmon

- 2 small jars of Salmon caviar

- 24 cocktail Blinis

- 4 hard boiled eggs, white and yolks separated and finely chopped

- Large tablespoon of fresh dill, finely chopped

- 1/2 red onion, finely chopped

- 2 small lemons, filleted as below

To fillet the lemons, slice the top and bottom off of each lemon and sit it flat on the chopping board. Then remove the skin and pith with a small knife. Carefully cut out each segment by running the point of the knife down each side, remove any pips and put the segments in a small dish for use later. Squeeze any remaining juice out of the lemon 'skeleton' and keep it to drizzle over the salmon. Filleting a lemon was a new experience. It took half an hour to remove the fillets of two lemons, but hey, it was beautiful day and I did it sitting at the table bathed in sun in the conservatory.

Chop the red onion into super fine pieces and cover them in water with 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Let them soak for 1/2 hour or so before straining and rinsing them thoroughly.

Carefully assemble the ingredients on a plate and dress the salmon and caviar with the lemon juice. Warm the blinis in the oven for 5 minutes before serving.

FOR THE PAVLOVA (serves up to 12)

- 8 egg whites

- 2/3 cup of castor sugar

- 1 teaspoon of cornflour

- Vanilla essence

- 1/2 pt of whipping cream

- berries for the topping

Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C. Beat the egg white on a high speed in a mixing bowl until softly stiff. Slowly add the castor sugar, cornflour and vanilla essence on a lower speed until thick and glossy. Using a spatula, put the pavlova mix out onto a flat baking tray lined with grease proof paper. Shape it into a round about 25cm in diameter and make a shallow well on top.

Bake it at 180 degrees for 20 minutes, and then at 120 degrees for a further hour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Just before serving, whip the cream, spread it over the top and dress with the berries.

I kept the left over egg yolks in the fridge and used them the following day to make fresh custard.

Aussie Damper Bread on a Stick - Chapter 4

2011-02-27T08:56:00.001Z

The end of February looms, and still no fire food opportunities. Thankfully a weekend away staying with family in south Wales saved the day. What could be more perfect than the kids and their cousins cooking their own pudding over an open fire.

I knocked up a batch of dough about an hour before and wrapped it in cling film. 2 cups of self-raising flour, 3/4 a cup of milk and a bit of sea salt is all it takes for five decent sized dampers. I mixed the ingredients together in a bowl first with a knife and then with my hands. It felt a bit sticky, so I just added a sprinkling more flour.

By the time the dough was needed it had already started to grow and felt beautifully light and airy. I went into the garden with a torch and a large cherry tree had kindly left enough decent sized twigs on the lawn so the five kids would have one each. I used my little finger as a guide for the thickness.

Meanwhile my brother-in-law Jared had started a cracking cooking fire in the outdoor brazier with smallish sized wood so it wouldn't take too long to become embers.

I scrubbed the sticks in the sink to get the mud off them, scraped the ends clean (not really necessary) and worked the dough on to the ends. After 15 minutes of rotating the dampers over the embers, they had more than doubled in size and smelled delightful. I was slightly worried that the embers wouldn't last long enough, but Jared's cooking fire proved to be perfect. There was no danger that the dampers would burn and the cooking finished off at a nice gentle temperature.

My niece, Amber, said the smell reminded her of scones. Not surprising really, scones on a stick cooked over an open fire is what they are. The ingredients are the same.

The kids and cousins loaded them up with butter, jam, Nutella, you name it. They loved them and I fulfilled my 'at least monthly' obligation to cook over fire. Everyone's a winner.

All the time our dear Kitty had filmed the experience with her video camera. Once she's done her editing homework you will be able to check it out on YouTube. Fire Food's first...

A Moroccan Menu

2011-01-23T17:43:00.000Z

January is always a Fire Food challenge. Fortunately, we had planned a dinner party for a few lovely friends and after trawling our library of recipe books found a main course that would define the Moroccan theme for the evening.

Then began the research. Choosing a theme is great because it focusses the mind and provides a framework for deciding the menu. Hankering for some warmer weather and desperate to burn some charcoal, a Mediterranean/North African meal just felt right.

Moroccan food culture is wonderfully ritualised and steeped in tradition. Loads of lovingly prepared courses are designed to delight and comfort the guests. Sometimes dozens of tiny courses are served, usually local dishes and prepared over a period of days. Bread making takes on an almost religious role, families use their own traditional recipes and the children take the loaves to communal ovens for baking.

Our UK lifestyle required a practical adaptation to the Moroccan approach. We planned the meal around three courses, where the Moroccans may have turned the same meal into six or seven:

FIRST COURSE: Moroccan spiced chicken skewers with parsley, almond and feta, home made unleavened bread and mint yoghurt

MAIN COURSE: Lamb with anchovy and harissa, sprouting broccoli and slow roasted tomatoes

DESSERT: Cinnamon oranges

The skewers and unleavened bread would be cooked over charcoal on the Weber to keep the smoke out of the kitchen, and the lamb was to go in the oven.

The starter is from a recipe we found at waitrose.com, the main course came from the 'Autumn' section of a fabulous cook book "A Year in My Kitchen" by Skye Gyngell, and the desert recipe was discovered at eHow.com under "Easy Moroccan Desserts" .

I got back from food shopping some time after 2pm and loads of various elements needed preparing. I was lucky to have just enough time before my guests arrived at eight. As usual, I prepared a plan. It began by toasting and grinding the spice mixes by hand, one for the kebabs and one for the harissa. Several large red peppers were blackened under the grill and their skin removed (for the harissa). 6 cloves of garlic were then crushed for the chicken rub and harrisa, and another two cut into slivers for the lamb.

The slow roasted tomatoes would take 3-4 hours at 100 degress, so they went in the oven. Medium sized red ripe vine tomatoes were halved, sprinkled with a bit of salt and sugar and laid out, cut side up, on a baking dish.

To feed eight, I bought two small legs of lamb. I was worried that one large leg might not do and was hoping for some leftovers anyhow. I removed the bone from each leg and 'butterflied' the lamb. I laid the lamb skin side up in a large baking dish before poking holes every 3-4cm with a paring knife and pushing a sliver of garlic and half an anchovy fillet into each one. I brushed the lamb with melted butter, seasoned it with lots of pepper and a bit of salt, covered it with foil and put it aside at room temperature.

The recipes required coriander, mint and parsley, so I chopped them finely and put them in sealed containers in the fridge.

The spice rub for the chicken skewer starter is a delightful mixture of coriander seeds, cumin seeds, cinnamon, cloves, saffron, turmeric, garlic, salt, lemon zest and olive oil. The recipe called for boned chicken thighs, but I opted to use breast instead. My charcoal fire was going to be hot and the risk was that thigh may have been undercooked when burnt on the outside. Breast takes minutes to cook and should be just lightly charred on the outside.

Following the quantities in the waitrose.com recipe, there was an abundance of the spice rub. I used four chicken breasts for 8 small skewers, and each cube of breast was thoroughly coated into what became an intensely aromoatic crust after just a few minutes of char-grilling. I used metal skewers (even soaked bamboo skewers would not survive this kind of heat) and put coriander leaves between each cube of chicken.

The parsley, almond and feta salad came out very differently to what the recipe intended. Firstly, after visiting two major supermarkets and the fruit and veg stall at our local market, flat leaf parsley was nowhere to be found. Curly parsley only. I prepared all of the ingredients, crumbled the feta, toasted and chopped the almonds, chopped the dates and added the parsley. Possibly something to do with the type of feta I used, but mixing it all together, however gently created something that resembled more of a dip than an salad. Nonetheless, the flavour was great and it would still look good on the mezze style plate for the starter.

For the unleavened bread I used my favourite method. Basically an Indian chapatti recipe, but using plain white flour instead of wholemeal, and olive oil instead of ghee. I made the dough a couple of hours before the guests arrived, wrapped it in foil and left it at room temperature. I made enough dough for 4 small flat breads (1 cup of flour) so each starter plate could be served with two quarter pieces.

The minted yoghurt to be served with the starter was basically a Greek tsatsiki recipe, using drained grated cucumber, a mixture of fresh and dried mint, crushed garlic, a squeeze of lemon and a bit of olive oil. I made this in advance and put it in the fridge to chill.

I prepared the harissa in the food processor, being careful not to put in too much chilli, covered it with cling film and left it room temperature. Meanwhile, my lovely wife prepared the cinnamon oranges and put them in the fridge.

Finally, I washed and trimmed the broccoli, prepared a light, herby stock with a bit of saffron added for the cous cous (to be prepared just before serving).

With the guests arriving at eight, I had just enough time to clear up the kitchen and put some decent clothes on. I would put lamb in the oven and light the charcoal once the guests arrived and hoped that the rest of the timing would all fall into place.

By 8:15, they had all arrived. After we provided everyone with a drink and made the necessary introductions, the lamb went into the preheated oven and I lit the Weber chimney starter. This meant 20 minutes before I could grill the kebabs and make the bread, and an hour before we could serve the main course. The recommended cooking time for the lamb was 40 minutes plus resting, 20 minutes under foil and 20 minutes to brown the skin side.

Whilst waiting for the charcoal fire to mature, I rolled out the four flat breads and wrapped them in a tea towel to stop them drying out. As planned the coals were searingly hot in good time so on went the paella pan to heat up for the bread, on on went the skewers. I was constantly moving them about to stop them burning whilst cooking the flat bread and wrapped them in a cloth to keep them warm. The whole thing took just a few minutes, five at the most, and the starter was ready to serve.

I covered the skewers with foil in the hot pan I had used for the bread to keep them warm back in the kitchen whilst the feta, parsley and almond "salad" and tsatsiki were spooned out. I finished off the plate with the hot skewers, pieces of flat bread, a lemon wedge, a single caper berry and a sprinkling of fresh coriander leaves over the chicken.

Needless to say, it went down a treat. The sweet and sour provided by the feta and dates, refreshment from the yoghurt, lemon and mint, and the intense complex flavour of the marinated chicken worked for me. The starter was sufficiently substantial to bridge the 30 minutes or so before the main course would be ready.

For the main course, all there was left to do was steam the broccoli, prepare the cous cous, carve the lamb and serve it up. Using my just sharpened carbon steel Opinel knife, I carved the lamb into thin slices across the grain of the muscle and returned them to the baking dish to keep warm under foil. I put the dish on the hob with a gentle flame to keep the pan juices hot for serving.

The sliced lamb, brocolli, pan juices and harissa were served on to warmed plates and garnished with two roasted tomatoes.

The lamb was not pink (I had left it in a bit longer), but very tender and full of flavour with the anchovy fillets and garlic slivers providing extra little bursts along the way. The harissa? Well I was impressed. Complex flavours from the spice mix, just a bit of bite from the red chilli and all that elevated freshness from the coriander leaves. Unfortunately, I had overcooked the broccoli, which was a shame, but it was all eaten all the same.

After a reasonable break and plenty more wine, my lovely wife served up the pre-prepared cinnamon oranges. Wow, nothing like I have ever had before. Juicy chunks of orange mixed with slivered almonds, finely chopped dates, lemon juice, ground cinnamon and a bit of castor sugar. The refreshing, cleansing effect was a perfect finish to the meal.

Christmas Turkey on the Weber - Chapter 4

2010-12-29T12:12:00.001Z

SUB-ZERO OUTDOOR COOKING - CHRISTMAS 2010

After a week of snow and freezing temperatures, Christmas day promised to be dry, sunny and very cold. And that it was. The temperature fell to minus ten degrees C overnight and peaked at an invigorating minus four sometime during the daylight hours.

We planned to have our Christmas dinner at around 6pm, so the cooking was done in the afternoon. I was slightly anxious as I wasn't sure how to compensate for the extreme cold (no insulation in a Weber!). To avoid any fire starting delays I deployed the Weber Chimney Starter and loaded it to the top with good quality, dry lumpwood charcoal that I had been storing in the house. I had a total of about 4kg and was starting to worry whether it would be enough as it was seriously cold outside.

We went to a Christmas service in the morning, and then by the time we had done a round of present opening and had a bit of lunch, I lit the chimney starter at about 1:15pm. We had a 8.5kg (17 pound) turkey plus a layer of stuffing between the breast and skin. I'd looked up the cooking time for the bird weight at 3hrs 10mins plus a bit extra for the cold weather (I guessed a mere 10 minutes). As the stuffing is to protect the breast, it doesn't affect the cooking time of the thigh so I made no further adjustments.

The cooking and checking timetable worked out something like this:

13:15 hrs - Lit chimney starter

13:40 hrs - Turkey in Weber

14:00 hrs - Checked turkey/fire and took photo (top). Sizzling nice and gently, skin starting to brown, anxiety decreasing

15:05 hrs - Fire a bit low, so added a bit of charcoal to both fires

15:50 hrs - Checked, all ok

16:30 hrs - Added a bit more fuel (total fuel used approx 3-3.5kg)

17:00 hrs - Removed turkey and covered with foil (total cooking time 3 hrs 20 mins)

I let the turkey rest for about 45 minutes before removing an entire breast with its stuffing layer. This was enough to feed six hearty appetites and was on the table at 6pm as planned. Our vegetarian daughter had all the trimmings served with a vegetable stock and garlic gravy I made separately.

I served the turkey with the traditional accompaniments of stuffing, giblet gravy, pigs in blankets, roasted potatoes and parsnips, steamed carrots, brussel sprouts and home made bread sauce.

This left us with an entire breast (for turkey pie which we had yesterday), and the legs, thighs and wings for turkey lasagne. The carcass is currently simmering away in the kitchen and will provide us with some good stock for the lasagne and what's left will go in the freezer for soups, sauces and gravies.

For the original post have a look at Perfect Christmas Turkey on the Weber where you will find loads more detail, photos and links to other recipes.

Christmas Turkey on the Weber - Chapter 3

2010-12-04T12:40:00.000Z

THE STUFFING

To complement my original article Perfect Christmas Turkey on the Weber and the recently posted photo gallery from our 2009 Christmas turkey, this is an ideal stuffing to layer between the breast and the skin. Don't worry if you make too much, it can be rolled into little balls and baked separately.

You can make the stuffing and stuff the turkey on Christmas eve and leave it in the fridge for cooking the next day. This really takes the sting out of kitchen duties when the kids are all desperate to sit around and open their presents.

I use a whole tube of good quality sausage meat, with about the same volume of fresh breadcrumbs (made in the food processor). then add the juice and grated rind of a whole lemon and lime, and plenty of seasoning. The stuffing just needs to be mixed well before working it between the skin and the breast. The stuffing layer can be at least an inch thick. It protects the breast from drying out beautifully and is a treat in itself.

Christmas Turkey on the Weber - Chapter 2

2010-12-03T21:11:00.000Z

PHOTO GALLERY

For the full story, method and cooking times, have a look at my original article, Perfect Christmas Turkey on the Weber. These photos are from our 2009 Christmas turkey experience at home in Oxfordshire (another 20 pounder) and will hopefully help to entice you further towards striking that match!

Perfect Roast Duck in the Weber

2010-11-14T17:02:00.000Z

Cooking duck indoors can be a smoky affair, especially in the winter when the house is tightly closed up. Our local shop had fresh duck on offer, so I grabbed two, one for dinner and one for the freezer. It was only after bumping into a neighbour in the shop that the idea of cooking the duck in the Weber came about. She had recently roasted some duck legs and found the duck fat smell in the house fairly overpowering and long lasting.

Our normal winter Sunday evening roast is a fairly random rotation of chicken, beef, pork, lamb and gammon. The duck idea freaked the young ones out a bit, but when they remembered how they loved Chinese crispy duck pancakes they relaxed a bit.

The Weber is just ideal for cooking duck. The high starting temperature gets the fat melting and skin crisping up straight away, and as the temperature subsides during the hour and a half or so of cooking time, the meat cooks more gently finishing off soft and moist inside. I followed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Meat Book as a guide. This included the giblet stock for the gravy, but I added a tomato to his stock recipe, and a spoonful of cranberry sauce to the gravy.

The Weber guides never tell you this, but I always use a rectangular roasting dish rather than just sitting the meat on the grill. This retains all of the fat which is a must for basting. I have a pyrex dish which is perfect for this.

I made a plan for the afternoon, working out at what time I needed to light the fire, put on the duck, prepare the other veggies and so on. I filled my fairly new Weber Chimney Starter with good quality lumpwood charcoal and a piece of newspaper. I had allowed 20 minutes for this, but the charcoal was in paper packaging and was stored outside (under cover) so had become a bit damp. The chimney starter took twice as long, and the meal time was bumped further away as a result.

The starting temperature is much higher in a Weber than the 200 degrees C oven temperature recommended, so the roasting started off with a real sizzle. After the first half hour, the skin was browning nicely and it looked like I wouldn't be needing to top up the charcoal at all during the roasting. In fact I was getting worried that the outside might burn before the inside was done. An hour in, the temperature was still high and there was a lot of smoky fat spitting away in the roasting dish. I gave the duck a good basting and let it get on. Another 15 minutes in and I was still worried. I gave the thigh a poke with a skewer and from the steam it was clear that the duck was still very moist. I just hoped that I hadn't put too much fuel in at the beginning. Luckily the fire did what it was supposed to do and eased off towards the end so that by the time the 90 minutes were up, it was an aromatic, gentle sizzle.

I took the duck out of the Weber and covered the baking dish with foil to rest before carving and set out to make the gravy from the giblet stock prepared earlier. Following Hugh's advice, the breasts were removed whole, and the legs and thighs separated from the carcass. The breast was sliced thickly and offered with either a leg or thigh when served.

I was really surprised as to how moist the flesh was and how tasty the crispy bits were. There was also the distinctive smoky taste from the Weber that reminded me of the Christmas Turkey we had last December. The breast was almost creamy in texture, and the legs moist and savoury.

We had our roast duck with steamed carrots, roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, peas, gravy and some shop bought cranberry sauce. And, the kids loved it.

I found a new home for the charcoal indoors so next time it should be nice and dry.

Aussie Damper Bread on a Stick - Chapter 3

2010-11-07T15:24:00.000Z

GUY FAWKES WEEKEND

And also our lovely Luca's ninth birthday. After igniting a fair sized box of fireworks in our friends Katie and Cai's garden, I spontaneously decided to make a batch of damper dough for the kids to bake on the fire in the brazier.

The simple mix of self raising flour, milk (or water) and a bit of salt was mixed in a bowl, kneaded to a light dough, and wrapped in foil for a while until the fire subsided to embers.

Cai's son Louis was sent on a mission to find sticks in the garden the thickness of his little finger and about 50cm long. He returned with some bamboo gardening stakes which were just perfect. Cai sawed off the ragged ends and washed the dirt off them before I worked a small ball of dough a bit larger than a golf ball onto the end of each one for the kids to slowly roast over the embers.

The kids took their damper and rotated them constantly and slowly over nice hot spots above the embers for about 15 minutes until the damper expanded to about double the size and was a lightly toasted colour on the outside. For the kids 15 minutes was an eternity, constant cries of 'mine's ready' were countered by me reassuring them that it would be worth the wait.

After being removed from the sticks, the dampers were broken open, buttered and topped with jam, Marmite, whatever. They loved them.

For the recipe look at Aussie Damper Bread on a Stick.

Ben's Built-in Braai - Chapter 3

2010-10-24T17:54:00.000+01:00

THE OFFICIAL OPENING

Attended by all those who helped plus spouses and kids, this was a great night and one to be remembered. For his architect (me), his builder (Rob), his South African neighbour on a spade (Riaan), his South African friend on a spade (Dean), wives, young'uns and Riaan's sister who was visiting from South Africa, Ben and Tersia put on a proper feast and celebration.

Oxfordshire's autumnal weather kicked off with a heavy rain shower before the guests arrived, but the night stayed respectfully still, cool and dry for the occasion.

We could smell the wood smoke and spices as we approached his house on foot. When we arrived the braai was in full flame and the potjie was simmering gently with just a few embers below it. A hardwood fire was blazing in the back corner of the braai to provide warmth for the guests and a supply of embers for the potjie and braii tool (grilling rack) when needed.

We blokes hung around by the new braai admiring the set-up and talked long and hard about our barbeqeing memories. I obtained an insight into the long and sophisticated tradition of cooking with fire in South Africa. This is so unlike Australia where as a child I was often horrified at how grown up friends and relatives could so easily destroy my food. Fortunately Australia's barbequing culture has moved on since the 70's. It will although never have, in my opinion, the depth of the South African tradition as it has always been a suburban pursuit rather than a rural one.

Given the number of guests and the age range (11 adults and 8 kids) Ben deliberated long and hard about the menu for the milestone event. For the first course he made chicken tandoori kebabs served with poppadoms, home-made raita and salsa plus a sweet chutney. Boerewors sausage was grilled for the kids so they could get on to watch TV and play games.

The main course was a slow cooked lamb curry, spiced rice, saag aloo and naan bread. For dessert Tersia produced a gorgeous white chocolate panna cotta.

Chunks of lamb on the bone were meltingly tender and the handful of garam masala thrown in ten minutes before serving was Ben's special trick to intensify an already wonderful taste and aroma.

Under no pressure at all (yeah right) Ben has so generously provided his recipes because basically I gave him no choice.

Get yourself a local architect and builder and you can have one all of your own. Go on, you know you want to.

Tandoori Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 pint of live natural yogurt

1 Tablespoon Cumin powder

1 Tablespoon Garam Massala

1 Teaspoon Coriander powder

1 Teaspoon Turmeric powder

1 Teaspoon Chilli Powder

Juice 1 lemon

8 cloves garlic - crushed

1 inch grated ginger

Red food colouring

4 pieces of skinless chicken on the bone

1 Lemon

Method:

Mix the spices, colouring, lemon juice and garlic and ginger up into a paste with a little water and stir in well with the yoghurt. Marinate for 12 hrs. Shake off excess marinade and place chicken pieces on skewers. Braai for 10-15 minutes and check the chicken is cooked by piercing the thickest piece with a skewer, if the juices run clear it's cooked, serve with a wedge of lemon.

Curry recipe:

Ingredients:

2 kg of lamb stewing meat

Two tins of chopped tomato

3-4 Stems of finger length fresh ginger, peeled and grated.

5 cloves garlic chopped finely or crushed to paste

4 large onions sliced finely

4 large carrots chopped

4-5 medium potatoes cut in quarters

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon Cumin seeds

1 teaspoon ground cumin

6 cardommom seeds crushed

4-5 Star anis pods

1 Cinnamon stick

2 tablespoons Garam Masala

3 tablespoons of Mild Curry powder

1 tablespoon Turmeric

3 bay leaves

Salt and pepper to taste

Chilli powder to taste, half teaspoon for mild

Lamb stock 2-3 tomato tin full

Fresh Coriander for garnish

Chopped almonds if wanted for garnish

Method:

Brown meat in veg oil. Remove from pot. Brown onions with garlic ginger and all spices. Do not let it burn. Add meat and juices to onions and spices. Brown for a further few minutes and add tomatoes. Put two tomato tins full of stock in now as well. Cook slowly until meat is almost tender(1-1.5hrs). Add carrots and potatoes and add another tin of stock. If curry is to dry to your taste, add more stock. Season. Cook for another 30 min until potatoes are cooked. Take off heat for at least 25 minutes. Best to cook previous day. Garnish with Fresh Coriander and almonds.

Saag aloo recipe:

Ingredients:

7-9 medium sized potatoes of your choice, cut into quarters

4 garlic cloves, chopped

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon garam masala

A few Cumin seeds and fennels seeds Teaspoon in total

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon dried chilli/chilli powder (or more if you like it hot!)

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

Fresh spinach, a good few hands full, dont cut

Water for boiling

Vegetable oil for Frying

Method:

Par boil the potatoes. Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat then add the garlic and spices. Drain the potatoes once they are ready and put them in the pan as soon as the garlic begins to turn brown. Turn up heat. When the potatoes are brown, add the spinach and once the spinach has wilted, turn off the heat.

Tandoori Chicken

Ben's Built-in Braai - Chapter 2

2010-09-28T19:15:00.000+01:00

The traditional South African outdoor kitchen in Witney, Oxfordshire has become a reality.

Ben sent me this photo from his mobile on the weekend to proudly show off his new toy for the coming winter. Over the past weeks we've had plenty of discussions about firewood, cooking pots, rotisseries, you name it.

In the traditional way, this braai will be used for grilling, slow cooking in a three legged pot (potjie - pronounced poit-kee) and baking bread using hardwood embers.

The design and construction team will be enjoying Ben's delights at a ceremonial party in just a few weeks, so watch this space.

The X-Grill Barbeque

2010-08-30T16:03:00.000+01:00

A REVIEW OF THE X-GRILL PORTABLE BARBEQUE

Also branded as the Hotspot Notebook Portable BBQ, this has to be one of the most versatile pieces of charcoal fuelled outdoor cooking equipment I've ever come across. Lightweight and compact, it's a must have for camping and picnicking. I first saw one when we were camping with family and friends in Gloucestershire and decided to get one for a camping weekend in the Cotswolds. It folds up flat so it's easy to pack and has carry handles. The design is simple and it works.

With any charcoal barbeque I look for a couple of key features; adjustability in cooking temperature, air supply for the cooking fuel, and easy refuelling when cooking.

With any charcoal barbeque, varying cooking temperature is best achieved by concentrating the coals in one area so food or cookware can be moved around to areas of lower or higher temperature. For refuelling, I keep one end open so I can place extra coal on the fire using tongs.

Our first meal on the X-Grill was slow cooked pork with paprika cooked in a paella pan. The fire was kept to one end and I slid the grill rack to the side a bit to get better access to the fire. After the meal was finished, I closed up the open end, removed the grill rack and we used the X-Grill as a brazier for an open fire for the evening.

All in all, this is one of the best camping accessories I've bought. The only trade off is lightweight vs robust. It won't last forever like our trusty 'Go Anywhere Weber' so expect it to last only a couple of summers, but it makes up for it in every other way. So, my scores from 1-5 are:

Value for money - 5

Flexibility -5

Portability - 5

Longevity - 2

I've also discovered a larger stainless steel version at £35 which may well come up with a perfect score.

Rosé Wine Sauce with Sage Butter

2010-07-12T20:33:00.000+01:00

IDEAL FOR PORK OR POULTRY

This was invented for a summer dinner party to accompany spit roasted pork shoulder cooked on the outdoor rotisserie. The idea is based on a white wine sauce, but uses rosé instead and is flavoured with sage infused butter. The taste is unique and summery, and suited the slow cooked pork perfectly.

INGREDIENTS (for 6 people):

- 12 to 15 fresh sage leaves

- 50g lightly salted butter

- 1 heaped tbsp of plain flour

- 1/2 bottle of rosé

- 500ml chicken or pork stock

- salt and pepper

METHOD

This sauce should be prepared a few hours earlier and then reheated just before serving. In a small saucepan, add the rosé, bring to the boil, and simmer until the wine is reduced to about a third of the original quantity. Meanwhile, gently heat half of the butter in a saucepan until melted and just starting to froth. Fry the sage leaves carefully for a few minutes being careful not to let the butter burn. Remove the sage leaves and stand on kitchen paper to use as a garnish later.

Add the flour to the sage infused butter and whisk to a smooth consistency. Add the rosé wine reduction and the rest of the butter combining the ingredients with a whisk or a wooden spoon, season with salt and pepper and add the stock. Simmer and stir, tasting from time to time, until the sauce reduces and thickens to the right consistency. Cover the sauce until you are ready to reheat for finishing your pork or poultry main course.

Garnish with the crispy fried sage leaves, they are an intense delight that compliment the more subtle sage aroma of the sauce itself.

Pork & Paprika Over an Open Fire

2010-06-29T23:01:00.001+01:00

SLOW COOKED PORK SHOULDER

Inspired by a gloriously hot weekend in the Cotswolds, this is heart warming, slow cooked camp food at its best. I served this with garlic potatoes cooked in foil over the embers.

The promise of endless sunshine was too hard to resist so we took Roxy, our beloved 1971 VW Dormobile, for a spur of the moment weekend at the camp site at Folly Farm in Gloucestershire, about 20 miles from where we live.

I raided the freezer for some pork shoulder I knew I had, then discovered an unopened spice jar of paprika in the pantry and only had to top up with the remaining ingredients on the day. This was also an opportunity to test our newly aquired X-Grill folding portable barbeque.

INGREDIENTS (4 big serves):

- 1.2kg pork shoulder off the bone

- 2 medium onions, finely chopped

- 2 large capsicums, finely chopped

- 1 large tomato roughly chopped

- 4-5 cloves of garlic, crushed

- 1 small bottle of lager (or stock)

- 20g (4 heaped teaspoons) paprika

- Olive oil

- Salt & pepper to taste

METHOD:

First, cut the pork into large (5cm) chunks and mix in a bowl with a dash of olive oil and half of the paprika to marinate. Then prepare the onions, garlic, tomato and capsicums so everything is ready for when the fire is on.

Prepare a charcoal cooking fire suitable for a paella dish or flame proof pot, and once mature, sear the marinated pork while the heat is high in a dash of olive oil, then take it out and wrap it in foil. Add some more olive oil (I used the rind of the pork for the fat) and cook the onions until soft. Then add the capsicum, garlic and lager (or stock) and simmer it down for a while before returning the pork to the pan. Stir in the remainder of the paprika, cover in foil (or a lid if you have one) and keep an eye on it for a couple of hours until the pork is meltingly tender and the sauce nice and thick.

You may have to add a bit of water, beer or stock from time to time depending on how hot your fire is. The good thing about a charcoal fire is that it starts off hot, and then subsides steadily to give a constantly reducing cooking temperature.

I made a few customisations to the new X-Grill for this one. I kept one end open so I could easily access the fire, and kept the fire to the other end so I could move the pan along if the fire was too hot. This worked a treat and I was well impressed as to how versatile this new piece of cooking kit actually was. For half the price of a 'Go Anywhere Weber' the X-Grill won't last a lifetime (one summer if you are lucky) but it is a very practical and versatile open fire cooker. It also makes a great fire pit once the meal is done and the sun has set.

Garden Spit Roast - Chapter 4

2010-06-01T22:19:00.001+01:00

GIANT LAMB KEBAB
This is a bit like putting a normal sized kebab on a photocopier and making it ten times the size. This experiment is actually the precursor for the giant goat kebab fantasy that I am promising myself will happen this summer.

INGREDIENTS:

- 1.9kg leg of lamb, boned and cut into about 6 fist sized chunks.

- 1 red onion cut in half

- 2-3 mixed peppers cut in half and de-seeded

- 1 tablespoon of freshly ground cumin

- 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil

- 1 handful of fresh coriander leaves

- 1 teaspoon of salt

METHOD:

Mix the lamb, olive oil, ground cumin, and coriander leaves in a bowl and cover for a few hours to marinate. Prepare the charcoal fire and let it mature whilst the giant kebab is being assembled. Good lumpwood charcoal is best, and keep the coals to the sides, not beneath the food.

On a 60cm spit, alternate chunks of lamb, onion and peppers and pack them tightly together. Season the surface of the lamb with salt. Start cooking the kebab when the charcoal is at its hottest, then let the embers burn down a bit, only adding small amounts of fuel every 30 minutes or so.

To get meltingly tender lamb, you need to let it cook slowly for 2-3 hours over coals that are just hot enough to create a very gentle sizzle on the surface of the meat.

This one of course was done on my trusty battery powered rotisserie which has featured since Garden Spit Roast - Chapter 2 (and still running on the same two batteries I have to add), but with proper dedication, it could have been done by hand in the same way many Italians cook capretto (roasted baby goat or kid) beside an open fire.

Ben's Built-in Braai - Chapter 1

2010-05-24T09:48:00.000+01:00

This little project is from one of those bizarre connections that can only be put down to fate. A good friend who is also the local vicar (and well aware of my fire and food obsession) had put me in touch with a South African guy who was wanting to create a traditional South African outdoor kitchen, in the middle of Witney in West Oxfordshire and only a few streets from where I live. For the first time, my passion for cooking outdoors met completely with my professional life as an architect.

Most architects would see a project like this as either too small or uneconomic to take on. Not me, I embraced it as a necessary part of continuing professional development.

I'm fascinated by the way that South African's bring South Africa with them wherever they go. Ben cooks outdoors all year round and has been relying solely on his trusty Weber. His requirements were very specific as one would expect.

Local planning laws require permission to build anything in your garden that is made of masonry and connected to the house, so I was commissioned to prepare documents to support the planning application and to help get it built.

This built-in braai is to be made from reconstituted cotswold stone bricks, rendered concrete blocks, cast concrete for the work tops, and timber trellis for the screen. We have started the process of looking for tradesmen to do the work, so, hopefully, it should be fully operational some time this summer. I'm planning to document the construction process in subsequent chapters so watch this space.

Garden Spit Roast - Chapter 3

2010-04-21T20:29:00.001+01:00

LAMB ON A SPIT

I am a fair way from ascending to my next fantasy of the Giant Goat Kebab, but a gorgeous Saturday invited me to put two boned shoulders of lamb on the rotisserie to feed an eager group of local friends for a dinner party.

The Giant Goat Kebab thing so far only exists as a bunch of sketches in my note book. I'm still hunting for readily available kid to experiment with before I inflict it upon my unsuspecting guests and friends.

Lamb on a spit however is less risky and has reminiscences of my fairly recent Janjetina experiences in Croatia. I procured two shoulders of lamb from my local supermarket and spent a disproportionate amount of time filleting them with a super sharp Opinel carbon steel knife before wrapping them together around my spit with some good kitchen string.

The filleted shoulders were first rubbed with salt, garlic and rosemary before being rolled up in the hope that the pure long-cook flavour from the whole-animal spit roast would be achieved. Two and a half hours over a medium charcoal fire did the trick. I wrapped the lamb in some foil before slicing off 25mm thick portions for my guests. The bones from the filleting exercise were pan fried before adding to the stock pot with celery, onion (skin on) and carrot. I also reduce a bottle of Spanish red wine to mix with the stock and a little flour to make a rich sauce to serve with the thick slices of slow cooked lamb.

Summer approaches and ideas for extreme fire food experiences continue to emerge.

The Fire Shop

2010-03-15T15:01:00.000Z

GULISTAN KEBAB HOUSE, NEW RD, WHITCHAPEL, LONDON E1*

1968-2000 (approx.)

From a recent visit to my old stomping ground in the east end of London emerged deeply fond memories of my favourite local haunt for simple, fresh, quality food. I re-walked the streets a couple of years ago and was devastated to find that the Gulistan Kebab House, New Road, Whitechapel was no more. Hoping to find its reincarnation at a different address I made local enquiries, none of which led to good news.

A humble shop front a few doors from the corner of Whitechapel Road, I affectionately named it the Fire Shop. Flickering flames from the grill behind steamed up glass acted as a beacon on dark London winter days and nights. There is a wide footpath in front of the London Hospital and as I walked it towards my east end flat from Whitechapel station (or from the London Hospital Tavern) the Fire Shop flickered away in the distance, luring me to treat myself to one of my treasured little snacks. I had to walk past the door, so I really had no choice.

For one pound fifty, two friendly men would work in perfect unison, one rolling and baking the naan bread in the tandoor oven, the other grilling two spicy lamb kebabs over the charcoal grill. Imagine the smell. The spicy minced lamb kebabs were pressed over fairly thick square steel bars, so the resulting kebab ended out hollow in the middle and not too thick on the outside. This also made them quite quick to cook. Two kebabs were then removed from the skewers and rolled in the naan with a little yogurt and fresh coriander leaves. Amazing smell, spiciness, freshness, and just the right amount for a moreish snack. Sometimes I’d be back for seconds within just a few minutes.

I haven’t been able to find any photos, reviews or advertisements to immortalise the memory of the Fire Shop. I’ve had to rely on my own memory and in doing so I made these two sketches, one showing where it was, and one more detailed sketch describing the layout. You couldn’t get more basic than this, a tiny shop with room for maybe 6 people to eat at stools and a small table, and another room upstairs. I remember dark plywood panels on the walls that must have been there since it opened in the sixties.

(1 Charcoal grill - 2 Tandoor - 3 Woks - 4 Large curry pots - 5 Fridge - 6 Chair for the naan man - 7 Bar and stools - 8 Table and bench - 9 Stairs to dining room - 10 Front door - 11 Shop front window - 12 Sneeze guard - 13 Door to back room - 14 Bread prep - 15 Kebab prep)

A range of other curry dishes were also on offer. Four or five large aluminium pots sat on the counter containing chicken, lamb and vegetable curries. These would be ladled into hot woks and finished with a bit of fresh chilli, yoghurt and coriander leaves before serving with hot naan bread.

I moved from the east end in 1993 to another part of London, and made frequent visits back to the Fire Shop for a taste of a treat I haven’t been able to find anywhere else since. On one visit I was greeted by my friendly one time neighbours and noticed a new addition to the fit-out: A glass sneeze guard between the customers and the large pots of curry. A health inspector had obviously made his or her mark. Before the days of the glass screen I know of at least one one pound coin that settled to the bottom of one of those deep pots. The knowing smile and gentle ‘not to worry’ head gesture I received from the naan man told me that it wasn’t the first time! The depletion of the contents of each curry pot must have resulted in a trove of loose change.

I am hoping this article will be the beginnings of a shrine for this wonderful east end institution. I know there are others out there who will share my passion and I really hope that this leads to the creation of a new archive to truly immortalise the Gullistan Kebab House. Please, if you know of anything, or anyone that has connections with the Fire Shop, do the right thing and send it my way.

Firefoodie.

*Gulistan is a town of about 75,000 people in the Balochistan region of Pakistan, about 8km from the Afghan border. Elevation: 1,480m

Croatian Lamb on a Spit

2010-02-28T13:05:00.000Z

This month has seen few opportunities for any decent fire food experiences at home. Fortunately I spent a week on business in Croatia and was thrilled to find that the ultimate all year round local favourite is roasted lamb on a spit know as janjetina. Mostly seen at roadside restaurants, the wood burning ovens and spits on display are too enticing to be missed.

Slightly salty, meltingly tender and served simply with fresh bread and a leaf salad dressed with vinegar and olive oil, this one is up there with my all time favourites.

My mission this year is to do one in the garden for an as yet unspecified special occasion.

Having no decent photos of my own, I did some web research and came across a Croatian foodie's blogsite where there is a wealth of information about janjetina. This is where the photo came from. Maninas: Food Matters is a must see. The posting on janjetina is entertaining and informative. My compliments to the writer/photographer.

Things To Do With Firefoodie's Christmas Chilli

2010-01-31T12:26:00.001Z

Since handing out dozens of jars of Christmas Chilli recently, I've been getting all sorts of comments and ideas on what can be done with it. At our house, it's on the table with almost every meal. Our favourites (and some from our friends) for this special condiment are:

- Bangers and mash

- Penne alla arrabiata

- Fishermans' pie

- Chinese stir fry

- Chilli con carne

- Curries

- Pizza

- Brodo

- Anything Mexican

Now, as an ingredient, it's another thing. Our 16 year old son Charlie expects it in his sandwiches every day, and I love it in cheese toasties. Use it in the classic comfort dish Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino for example and you can't go wrong.

Anything with cheese or potato seems to be an overriding theme. It has a distinctive taste and aroma, far more than just a chilli kick!

We're down to our last jar and it's only January. I can see another order being placed for a box of chillies at the local market before too long.

Leftover Christmas Turkey Lasagne

2009-12-26T21:49:00.002Z

I reckon that in our family, turkey lasagne is more awaited than the Christmas turkey itself. It's a great way to use the stock from the bones plus the leg and thigh meat left over from your Christmas feast.

This dish is best prepared a day ahead, leaving the final baking for the day of serving. It can also be frozen before baking. This batch was big enough to make one large and one medium lasagne. The smaller one went in the freezer.

Preparation time: 3 hours

Baking time: 45 mins

Serves: 10-12

INGREDIENTS:

For the ragu:

- 1kg cooked turkey meat, roughly chopped

- 8-10 cloves of garlic, crushed

- 2-3 tablespoons olive oil

- 1 glass of white wine

- 1/2 of a 200g tube of tomato puree

- 3 x 680g jars of tomato passata

- 2 teaspoons of salt

For the turkey stock:

- 2 onions halved (skin on)

- 3 medium carrots, halved

- 1 small celery stick

- 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil

- Turkey carcase, broken up

- 2 teaspoons salt

- Enough water to cover

For the white sauce:

- 2 tablespoons of plain flour

- 50g butter

- 400ml of turkey stock

- Salt and pepper to taste

For the final assembly and topping:

- 500g lasagne sheets

- 250g grated mozzarella cheese

METHOD:

First remove the meat from the carcass and roughly chop it. Then start off the stock by sauteing the onions, carrots and celery for a few minutes in a large stock pot (mine is 9 litres), add the turkey carcass, cover with water and bring to the boil. Simmer gently with the lid partly on for 2-3 hours.

Once the stock has been started, begin making the ragu in another large saucepan (6 litres minimum). Add the crushed garlic, olive oil and tomato puree to the pot on a medium heat. Cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly so as not to burn the garlic, then add the white wine and cook gently for a few minutes until the base starts to thicken slightly. At this point, the smell is amazing.

Then add the 3 bottles of passata, bring to the boil and simmer very gently for 2 - 2 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. The turkey meat is already cooked so it goes into the ragu after the sauce is cooked and only for a further 20 minutes or so.

For the white sauce, melt the butter in a small sauce pan, add the flour and mix thoroughly before adding the stock. Cook gently whisking constantly until it reaches a thick but pourable consistency.

For the final assembly in a large shallow pan, poach the lasagne sheets 2 -3 at a time in turkey stock for just a couple of minutes to soften them slightly.

(After all this plus making a turkey pie filling (see photo below), I was left with almost a litre of stock which went in the freezer for another day.)

Get two lasagne dishes and start with a layer of pasta at the bottom. Then a layer of ragu, another layer of pasta, another of ragu and so on until finishing with a layer of pasta topped with a thin coating of the white sauce before the final sprinkling of grated mozzarella.

The lasagne can now either be baked straight away at 180 deg for 45 mins, or stored in the fridge for a couple of days before baking. Alternatively it can be frozen and enjoyed after the turkey mania has subsided a bit.

42 Ghanaian Chillies in a Jar

2009-12-18T09:50:00.000Z

FIREFOODIE'S CHRISTMAS CHILLI - BATCH #2

This is the result of batch #2 following my previous Firefoodie's Christmas Chilli article posted earlier this month. I relented and purchased a tray of 60 very cute 3 oz jars with gold lids to overcome my label removal angst. I asked the green grocer at the market in Witney to get hold of a box of chillies for my second round of little gifts for me to collect the following week.

I collected the box early in the morning (see the gap above the fennel) and psyched myself up for another intense evening. This time, my son Charlie helped with the tailing of the chillies, and we managed the whole batch in just over an hour. 16 x 200g batches in the food processor to be precise. We worked out that we tailed just short of 1600 of the treasures by hand.

Once the garlic was added and the chilli was cooked down with the olive oil, vinegar (about 300ml of each), salt (2 tbsp) and a bit of water (Charlie had retired by now), I filled 38 jars with Batch #2 of my addictive relish. They were then simmered in a large baking tray and topped with extra virgin olive oil before sealing, cooling and labelling.

If you are amongst the privileged few in possession of one of these little jars, it's great with cheddar cheese and cracker biscuits. Add a nice cold beer, and you have found another room in firefoodie heaven.

Remember to add a bit of olive oil to the jar each time you use some, enough to cover the chilli. It will keep it fresh for ages and you will get more out of the jar. Enjoy.

Firefoodie's Christmas Chilli

2009-12-03T23:01:00.000Z

I've been waiting all year for this. Since discovering that whole fresh chillies last forever in the freezer, I've been collecting them in preparation. This batch was made from about 3kg of chillies from various markets and enthusiastic friends with a few pots in the garden.

Collecting the jars is a year long task. I'm constantly making sure that the jars and lids I sneak into the dishwasher don't end out in the recycling care of our enthusiastic kids. I'm sure I'm short this year and have already started thinking about buying jars in bulk heaven forbid.

Label adhesives. One of my bug bears. There needs to be some international legislation governing what type of glue manufacturers use to stick labels on to jars. I soak my jars in water, and this is ok for about 2/3 of them, but the remaining ones need either oil, white spirit or methanol to remove the adhesive from the glass. I've almost become an expert on the chemical make up of various adhesives, and even worse, have started to select brands in the supermarket based on how easy the labels are to remove! Retailers out there... take heed. Glass is great and needs to be re-used, but don't make it so difficult that no one bothers. Enough ranting.

This method is a good way to preserve chilli for the pantry which literally lasts for years. Once opened keep it in the fridge and it will still last a month or so if it's not all eaten by then. We put ours on toast with cheese, in sandwiches, and generally just on the table to add to anything for a bit of a kick. The unique garlicky taste is quite addictive. It is freshly 'peppery' in the capsicum sense of the word and the bit of olive oil used to finish it helps spread the heat and aroma when used.

It's labour intensive, but totally worth it. It took me about an hour and a half to trim the stalks off each individual chilli before putting them in 15 x 200g batches in our food processor to roughly chop them up. 4 bulbs of garlic were then separated, squashed, peeled and finely chopped (in the same food processor) before adding to the chilli in a large pot.

I added a cup of olive oil, 1/4 cup of malt vinegar, 1/4 cup of cider vinegar and a tablespoon of salt. The mix was put on a low heat with a lid and stirred occasionally until the liquid released from the chilli and the mix then steamed in it's own moisture. For this amount it took about about an hour or so before it was ready to distribute into jars.

Then I tasted it. Beware if you have some (you will know who you are because this one is batch no. 1, and it's written on the label). I put a half a teaspoon on a water biscuit to test it and just barely survived. It's hot, so use sparingly and with love. The longer it lasts you the happier you will be. This batch made a mere 11 jars, about 250g net each, which is a lot of happiness. Upping the quantum is my next challenge, I mean 3 hours, 11 jars, 3kg chilli, that's about 20 minutes and 300g of chilli per jar. Commerce this is not.

Once in jars I placed them with the lids loosely on in a large baking dish of simmering water for another hour before sealing them for the long term. Once the lids are sealed, the contents then cool and create a vacuum in the jar with the minimum amount of oxygen and living organisms. Garlic is of course one of natures best preservatives, so you cant go wrong. I've had jars in the pantry for 2 years and they taste as good when opened if not better than when first made. Keep it moist with a bit of olive oil as you use it just to keep the nasties at bay. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas from Firefoodie.

Perfect Christmas Turkey on the Weber

2009-11-15T19:27:00.000Z

This simple recipe is the result of many Christmas’s experimenting with turkey and other poultry in a kettle barbeque in both the English winter and Australian summer.

On this particular Christmas, we served an 8.5 kg (20 lb) turkey for a late afternoon Christmas dinner. The plan was to have plenty of leftovers for turkey lasagne, turkey pasties, cold meat and stock. It worked a treat. I managed to feed 9 with one breast, stuffing and one thigh (loads of trimmings and vegetables helped). The next few days were spent preparing and storing the remainder of our every-two-year turkey delights.

One advantage of the kettle barbeque is that it frees up the oven and you can cook a much larger bird than you would be able to in the kitchen.

This is from my archive and what really happened a Christmas (or two) ago.

CHRISTMAS EVE:

Collect your pre-ordered turkey from your local butcher. Enjoy the queues and conversations that go with it.

Pre-prepare in advance everything possible… like the bread sauce and stuffing for example, so all that is left to do is to cook the turkey and prepare and cook the potatoes, parsnips, brussel sprouts and carrots.

This year I planned a pre-dinner snack of home made sausage rolls and devils on horseback which were also prepared on Christmas Eve.

CHRISTMAS DAY:

Juggling catering obligations with gift opening demands of the kids and family is always a challenge. I write out a schedule a few days before so it is easier to judge the timing and arrange tasks on the day. The main job for the morning is to prepare and cook the turkey. Once the turkey is on the charcoal cooking fire, the preparation of the giblet gravy, vegetables and other compliments then simply falls into place.

I tried a new method for the giblet stock and gravy this time. The neck, heart, liver and kidneys were sauted in a dob of butter with a few whole carrots, bay leaves and peppercorns until lightly browned before adding water and a couple of unpeeled onions.

The stock simmered on the stove for almost as long as the turkey was in the Weber. Masses of gravy was produced, enough for the meal and plenty left over for the turkey pasty filling.

A 20 lb turkey will take about 3¼ hours to cook in a kettle barbeque and then a further 30-60 minutes to carve and serve. Having it ready early is fine as it will stay hot carved or un-carved under foil for an hour or more. The fire will take 30-40 minutes from scratch to mature, so you need to work out at what time it needs to be lit to ensure that your meal will be on the table when you need it to be. Remove the turkey from the fridge early in the day so it returns to room temperature before cooking. This is important especially in the winter as the barbeque will be under enough stress to keep hot as it is.

Get your pre-prepared stuffing ready (I use a well seasoned mixture of sausage meat, fresh breadcrumbs and a bit of grated lemon rind - see Chapter 3) and then put your hand in the neck cavity and carefully work apart the skin from the breast meat with your fingers. Then, a bit at a time, push small handfuls of stuffing under the skin and squash it down to create a thick (up to an inch or so) layer over the whole of the breast. The main cavity is best left open to allow the heat from the fire to cook the turkey from the inside without interfering with your cooking times.

Rub the whole skin with some olive oil and sprinkle with salt before placing the turkey on a large baking dish on the rack of the barbeque. The baking dish will ensure that you safely reserve cooking juices and fat for basting during cooking. Open the lid of the barbeque every 45 minutes or so to check the fire and allow it to re-oxygenate while you baste. You will probably need to add just a chunk or two of charcoal to each side of the barbeque during these times to keep the temperature fairly steady. Don’t worry if the breast starts looking a bit overdone, this is just the stuffing layer doing its job of protecting the white meat during cooking. If the turkey is just gently sizzling, you will know that the temperature of the fire is just right.

Once cooked, serving the turkey should be easy. Cover it with foil and let it stand for half an hour or so, and then with a pair of tongs and a short sharp knife, carefully remove an entire breast in one piece and set it aside. Then remove a thigh with a bit of wiggling and a bit of help from your knife. Remove the thigh bone before slicing the meat across the grain of the muscles. Slice the breast in the same way, across the grain in ¼ - ½ in slices, leaving a thick layer of aromatic stuffing on the outside of each slice. The stuffing may be a little burnt on the outside, but this has only helped to protect the more delicate breast meat from over cooking and drying out.

Protect the uncarved turkey with foil to keep it moist for later. Place the carved meat onto a warmed tray and cover with foil to give you time to serve the vegetables and trimmings onto hot plates before serving the turkey slices and finishing with piping hot giblet gravy.

Merry Christmas!

P.S. For some photos of our 2009 Christmas turkey have a look at Perfect Christmas Turkey in the Weber - Chapter 2. I'm already planning the 2010 version, it's just a few weeks away...

Ben's Boerewors Braai

2009-10-28T16:29:00.000Z

This is the South African version of good old bangers and mash.

A few weeks ago my South African friend Ben gave me a proper boerewors made to his Mum's recipe by our local butcher and mutual friend Clint.

A blustery, wet autumn Saturday with the (false) promise of a dry evening was enough to inspire me to fire up the brazier. My Mum was with us from Australia, and all of the kids were away except for our youngest, and I know how he loves a fire.

The boerewors had been in the freezer for a couple of weeks, and once I decided it was to be our meal for the night, I rang Ben for some advice on accompaniments. I had forgotten that he was on holiday in Croatia, so the rest of the afternoon involved much texting. Including suggesting I go to Waitrose for some Mrs Ball's South African Chutney. Which I did.

Our brazier has recently been enshrined in a circle of slate, and this was the first time a meal has been prepared there since I laid the paving. The fire was started with paper, twigs and kindling, and once established, charcoal was piled on top. Luca couldn't leave it alone despite my reminders that this was a 'cooking fire', and not to mess with it. My trusty braai tool was deployed and the sausage grilled nicely as the evening set in. Luca experimented with toasting some stale baggettes which had to be relocated each time the brai tool was turned over. Once cooked, I kept the boerwors warm in the oven so I could finish off the vegies and red onion sauce.

On the hob, the red onions had been cooked slowly in red wine and butter for a good hour, and the potatoes prepared for the mash. Some frozen petit pois added some nice colour and Mrs Ball's chutney was a super-sweet experience. Made only from fruit, spices and loads of sugar, you can see how most of South Africa is addicted to it. In Ben's words, 'the only thing it doesn't go with is ice cream!'

So thanks Ben, the boerewors was delicious.

Crayfishing at Minster Lovell

2009-09-27T22:07:00.000+01:00

These bad boys are Satan spawn. Intelligent or stupid I can't work it out. A 150mm critter will think it is worthwhile to attack me for example. Super aggressive, cannibalistic, and pillagers of our environment, American Signal Crayfish were introduced into the UK in the 1970's to supply restaurants with their exotic flesh.

This titbit from The Telegraph published in June 2008 says it all:

"...SIGNAL CRAYFISH FACTS

The female breeds from the age of about two when it is 40mm long.
She breeds once a year and averages 275 eggs.

The eggs are fertilised by the male in October/November.
They are carried by the female folded within her tail until May when the young are released - if they can escape her jaws.The Signal is bigger and more aggressive than native crayfish.
They are less fussy in what they eat and more successful and rapidly colonise new areas.
The Signal carries a fungus which is fatal to native crayfish.
They can live up to 12 years..."

Therefore, I delight in pulling them from the rivers and plunging them into boiling water alive.

One humane way to kill shellfish is to freeze them, so they enter into a dormant state before they die and then boil them, but watching them swim in boiling water just proves their resilience and warrior like temperament.

Last Saturday, myself and my good friend Cai took our seven year old boys down to the river by the ruins of Minster Lovell Hall near Witney for some crayfishing fun. In just over an hour we landed over 20 using a simple technique involving raw meat tied to the ends of pieces of string. I have a lump of venison in the freezer that gets dragged down to the river's edge, then chunks get cut off it, and it is re-frozen after each time we go crayfishing. This lump must be at least three years old. Amazingly still fresh and just pungent

enough to act as perfect bait for these unfussy eaters.

Between us we laid five lines along the river bank, and after ten minutes or so, were pulling one if not two from each line. By the time the five lines had been worked, more crayfish would be nibbling on the first line to start the process all over again. We managed 20 in an hour, and if it weren't for time pressure, I could have kept going all day.

I use white kitchen string with a 2 x 2 cm piece of venison tied to the end. The bait sinks slowly to the river bed, and the colour of the string makes it easier to see if the bait is being nibbled at. I then slowly pull the string so that the crayfish follows the bait until I can get it close enough to the bank to scoop up the catch with a hand held net. So much fun, especially when you get more than one at a time.

A group near us were using small net bags (the type that you put washing tablets in a washing machine), filled with some kind of meat. I have to say that my method intuitively feels better, as the crayfish can properly nibble away at it for a while until you start to pull it towards the net, so they perhaps feel more like chasing it. Who knows. Great fun all the same.

I gave my share of the catch to my friend Cai, mainly because I didn't have the time this particular weekend to shell and prepare the meat. Not much flesh comes from each critter so you need a lot for a meal, at least 15 for a starter or as many as 30 for a main course for one person. There is a good couple of hours de-shelling for this many so make sure you have plenty of time. If you're up for it here goes:

FRESH CRAYFISH

15-20 live crayfish per person

Humane method: Put the catch in a bag and freeze before plunging into boiling water

Sadistic method: Plunge the catch in a very large pot of boiling water (one at a time or the water cools too much and they stay alive for a bit too long)

Once the crayfish have turned orange and the tails are coiled up into a tight ball, remove them from the cooking water and let them cool (or cool them under cold running water).

Break off the claws and remove the body from the tail.

Discard the body, and remove the shell from the tail, pulling out the tube running down the tail as you go.

Using a small hammer, gently tap the claws to crack them so that the shell can be removed and the flesh inside recovered.

Put aside the flesh in a bowl, and gather the fragments of shell (not the bodies) together and rinse them under cold water.

Melt a tablespoon of butter in a frying pan and gently saute the shell fragments in the butter. Strain the shells from the butter and drizzle the shell flavoured butter over the crayfish flesh.

Serve with warm bread and a green salad.

American Signal Crayfish flesh is quite bland in flavour, but this method extracts the crayfish flavour from the shell. A squeeze of fresh lemon or dash of vinegar helps too.

Buon appetito!

(See this article in "theblogpaper")

Roxy Joins the Family

2009-08-26T19:01:00.000+01:00

Roxy is our newly aquired 1972 VW Dormobile camper van. I've been commuting to Oxford in her for a week or so now and have started to become more used to the details and idiosyncrasies of the 37 year old camper. Having been a teenager in the late 70's really helped, this type of driving was normal then and it really makes you realise how you come to expect the luxuries of modern motoring. She has a top speed of about 55mph and we are busy researching great locations within a couple of hours drive from home.

We're still doing a bit of work restoring her original interior fittings, so meanwhile, I dream of days out and weekends away with Roxy and the 'go anywhere' Weber barbeque. The rotisserie will definitely feature in future outings too.

Paella Cooked Over an Open Fire

2009-07-26T23:22:00.000+01:00

It's been almost a year since my Paella on the Beach (A Fantasy) article. I have been seeking an opportunity to cook paella over an open fire ever since being seduced by a story in one of my long lost Time Life cookbooks in the eighties. The origins of the dish have been explained in more detail in my earlier article (above) but it is enough to say that it was originally an inland dish in Spain, cooked by farm workers for lunch over an open fire, and made with whatever was available.

The experience began with us taking a short weekend camping break to the New Forest. This meant travelling 'light' and making the decision NOT to take the ever faithful 'go anywhere weber'. We were to rely on the butane fuelled camp cooker for everything. On the first night I realised my cock-up. I had a mis-matched gas regulator, so no camp cooker, and no other means of cooking anything for the weekend. I realised this just after we finished setting up camp on the Friday afternoon before making our way to visit some family friends for a meal not too far away.

The general air of panic subsided as I started to formulate a solution in my mind. This was focused around how on earth would we be able to cook breakfast the following morning. No gas, ok, accepted. No shops open early enough to get a new regulator in time to cook breakfast, accepted. A way out began to emerge.

We needed to get some diesel for the car and I thought that one of those (heaven forbid) disposable barbeques might do the trick, at least to get over the breakfast hurdle. So I fuelled up the Kia en route and collected two disposable barbeques and a 5 kg bag of lumpwood charcoal from the forecourt (hellishly expensive) to relieve the family's anxieties about breakfast on a campsite with scant facilites.

A few campsite rules were niggling as I was driving. No barbeques on the ground for example. So I asked our fabulous hosts that evening for a few bricks to keep the container of charcoal off the ground. We left with a large concrete block and two clay bricks. The obvious components for an impromptu DIY charcoal barbeque.

It was while I was cooking breakfast the next morning that I decided on Paella and how to make the most of the current barbeque setup.

The spirit soaked briquettes in their foil container had more

bark than bite. I was hoping to boil the kettle on the first intense part of the burn, and then follow by putting my pan on the embers to cook the bacon, tomoatoes and eggs. What a pain. A handful of briquettes (10 if I counted correctly) got hot quickly but not for long. The kettle took forever to boil and the breakfast was more stewed than fried, but it got me thinking about the rest of the day.

After a late breakfast we went into a camping shop in Lyndhurst for a new regulator and then to the coast so the kids could enjoy the beach. Nice and sunny but far too windy so we decided to go back inland to the campsite near Brockenhurst.

We gathered some provisions from Waitrose in Christchurch on the way. I had already by then revealed my intention to make paella at the campsite for dinner and what better a place to get the ingredients: (enough for four adults)

- Fresh clams (no mussels available)

- Cooked king prawns (shelled and easy to eat, raw variety too expensive)

- Chorizo

- Saffron

- 8 chicken thighs

- 1 large onion

- 1 Green pepper

- 1 Bulb of garlic

- Salt and pepper

- Basmati rice (2 cups)

- Water for the stock

- (forgot to get lemons but they would have helped)

Paella die hards will probably wince at my choice of rice. Traditional paella rice is firm and stodgy, where basmati rice is light and fluffy. I first used basmati rice because I thought that I had paella rice in the pantry when I hadn't. It's different, but it works really well. It allows more of the other ingredients to fill the bowl, and the rice is a richly flavoured but not overwhelming accompaniment.

The whole afternoon was spent in the sun at the campsite. Firefoodie heaven. I managed to stretch out the making of the paella for the best part of three leisurely hours.

I took the bones out of the chicken thighs for the stock and diced the flesh for the paella. Then I chopped up all of the vegetables and chorizo for the dish (with some help from our Kitty) and then prepared a structure from the 3 brick items for the fire.

The breakfast episode taught me that extra charcoal was the answer to the measly fire from a disposable barbeque. I piled up a good kilo or more of lumpwood charcoal on top of the alcohol soaked briquettes and constructed a brick home for the tray of charcoal that would also suit my paella dish. The large concrete block formed the base and the two bricks were placed either side as supports for the handles of the pan.

To cook paella this way, first you need to make a good stock. This takes lots of heat and a fair amount of time. I got the chicken bones, some of the garlic, half of the diced onion, a few pieces of the diced chorizo and some salt and pepper for the first stage of the meal.

The extra charcoal worked and the pan was good and hot. I browned off the bones and other ingredients in a dash of olive oil, and slowly added enough water so that I would have about 4 cups of stock. After half an hour or so, I removed the bones and discarded them before transferring the stock and all the bits in it to another pan and set it aside.

Then the remaining vegetables, saffron and chorizo were browned in the paella dish over a high heat from the charcoal before I added the diced chicken thighs. After about 10 minutes, I added 2 cups of rice and 4 cups of the stock prepared earlier. Then the clams and prawns were laid on top, the pan was covered with foil, and then checked every now and then for the next 30 minutes or so before serving.

Towards the end the cooking needs to slow down, so I removed some of the charcoal from below as my fire was still a bit too hot.

This meal went down a treat and my paella over an open fire fantasy was finally fulfilled.

(Photography by Kitty)

Beetroot Braised in Vinegar and Mint

2009-07-22T22:19:00.000+01:00

This is great side dish to accompany any main course menu. Wrapped in foil, this simply sits below the rotisserie, baking slowly for up to 2 hours.

Fresh beetroot seems to be everywhere at the moment and I can't resist a bargain at the markets on a Saturday. I ended up with loads of the stuff which is fine because it lasts for ages. For two consecutive weekend dinner parties I served it as a side dish and it almost out did the main event.

Peel each beet and if too big, cut in half. Bunch the pieces up on a large piece of foil, turn up the edges so you can pour in a few dashes of cider vinegar (or any other vinegar), dump in a handful of fresh mint leaves and seal up the parcel. An extra layer of foil helps just in case there are any tiny holes for the liquid to escape.

I put the parcel between the charcoal fires under the rotisserie, but you could put them anywhere where they would benefit from a long slow cook near embers. Basically, the equivalent of a medium oven for up to two hours.

The beetroot ends out soft but firm and the flavour of the vinegar and mint absorbs into the beets beautifully. Aromatic, pretty and delicious.

The Best Roast Pork Ever

2009-06-30T23:33:00.000+01:00

My second experiment with the garden spit roast gizmo gave me something very special recently. We had invited a few friends over on a Saturday night and a 3 kilo rolled pork shoulder had been loaded on the spit by my local butcher in preparation.

Pork comes into its own on the rotisserie. The self basting and high temperature radiant heat from the charcoal makes crackling to die for and perfectly moist pork within. This one was studded with loads of garlic and sprigs of rosemary and took about two hours over the fire. Our guests loved it and I will be definitely doing it again.

In the past weeks the cooking fire has been getting a hammering, almost too much so to keep up with posting articles. A few revelations have occured however:

1. THE GAS BARBEQUE: Mine is knackered. A wedding present from my Mum nearly 9 years ago, and the burners have corroded beyond repair. My obsession with experimenting with charcoal is now making me flinch at the idea of getting a replacement. Given that it takes 20 minutes to prepare a charcoal fire I am struggling to convince myself I need another one, but hey, it is the middle of summer. They definitely have their place 'though as a great way to cook outdoors (Viva the Gas Barbeque).

2. SELF LIGHTING CHARCOAL: I used some tonight. Basically charcoal soaked in wax wrapped in paper soaked in wax in convenient (and clean!) 1kg bundles. Provided that you let the fuel burn for the full 20 mins or so, there is nothing wrong with this. There is no smoke from natural wood tinder or smelly firelighters and once the wax has burned, there is no residue or smell to affect your cooking. Go for it. More expensive than pure lumpwood charcoal 'though, the only disadvantage I can think of. It could even be mixed with normal charcoal to make it more economical but would then be as messy as using lumpwood.

3. THE BRAAI TOOL: This has also had a beating lately since its maiden voyage during the Surreal Sub-Zero Boerewors Braai. This baby is fast becoming one of my preferred tools for grilling sausages, chops and thinner cuts of meat. It means I get to sit by the fire and keep an eye on the food. Perfect for using over the embers of an open fire or a brazier, but keep a few bricks or rocks at hand to rest it on to adjust the height over the coals. When clamping sausages between the two racks, leave a gap between each one to allow the heat to cook them from all sides.

Garden Spit Roast - Chapter 2

2009-05-31T22:34:00.000+01:00

What happened next was so unexpected. I had spent the morning in the sun digging up turf preparing for a new patio and spent most of the time mentally planning the next phase of the DIY garden rotisserie for the same evening. A 2 kilo piece of topside beef had been defrosting since the morning and I went on a hunt in town for some 60cm heavy duty skewers (3 to be exact) so I could try out my next DIY rotisserie experiment to follow Chapter 1 posted last month.

A recent and much awaited addition to the high street in our town, the Steamer Trading Cookshop, was my first port of call. No long skewers sadly, but my conversation with the delightfully helpful and subtly inquisitive person serving me led to a most unexpected result. I explained that I needed the skewers for my DIY garden rotisserie experiment, and was almost sent to the local Countrywide outlet for a steel fence post before I was informed that they had rotisseries in stock.

Over the last couple of years my Fire Food research folder has accumulated dozens of links to websites selling various rotisserie accessories, all very pricey and mostly from America. But here it was, the ultimate garden spit roast companion. Affordable, versatile, battery powered and there for the taking. I did a double take on the price (£18.47) as it just seemed too good to be true. It was as much a novelty to the person serving me when we opened the box to check the contents. Everything, heavy duty 60 cm steel spit, motor, holding forks, all the things I had been drooling over on various US websites for ages. It was an intoxicating experience and I thank Rose at the Steamer Trading Cookshop in Witney for subtly cajoling me into divulging my intentions.

My long suffering family smiled wryly when I returned home beaming, with my new acquisition, my intoxication even further heightened by then as more time had passed to reflect on my result.

Without delay, the charcoal fires were prepared in the brazier. The topside was then butterflied, stuffed with garlic, green olives and oregano from the garden, rolled up and tied with string for the spit. So as not to waste the opportunity I had also bought a free range chicken to share the spit for a meal the following day when there wouldn't be the time for such indulgences.

Around 2 hours later, we devoured the beef and the chicken was wrapped in foil for re-heating later. Everything worked perfectly and the meat looked and tasted fabulous.

I managed to get the rotisserie brackets to connect to my brazier without too much hassle. The kit is sold as an accessory to the "Hotspot" branded charcoal grill, but will work with any Weber or other kettle barbecue or brazier without too much difficulty. I'm now thinking of a design for a portable steel bar frame so it can be used in the wild over an open fire. Watch this space. Spit roasted goat is next.

Firefoodie.

PS (March 2010): For some extreme DIY spit roasting, I found this recently. I was well impressed...: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/125444-my-first-spit-roast/

Grilled Mussels with Garlic Butter and Parmesan

2009-05-30T08:43:00.002+01:00

This delight was prepared in honour of a visit from our beloved (pesco-)vegetarian daughter on a glorious summery spring evening. It was served as a very moreish appetizer and was followed by mackerel tempura and salmon and swordfish yakitori.

I had something similar to this for the first time when visiting friends in Cape Town. They were made using pre-cooked frozen mussels in the half shell, which cuts down on the preparation a little. This version is made with fresh live mussels.

I hand selected two dozen large mussels from my favourite fish monger at the covered market in Oxford (Haymans Fisheries) during my lunch break. As an appetizer, allow about 6 large mussels per person.

Simply put the mussels in a pot with a lid with about 50ml of boiling water for 5 mins or so, or until all the mussels have opened. Allow them to cool enough to be able to be handled.

To prepare the garlic butter, put 2 or 3 large cloves of crushed garlic in a small bowl with about 50g of butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds or until the butter has just melted. Grate about 50g of fresh parmesan cheese.

Pre-heat the grill, then remove half of the shell from each mussel and using a small knife, detach the cooked mussel from the remaining half of the shell. Lay

the mussels in their half shells on the grill tray, and using a teaspoon, dress each one first with a bit of the melted garlic butter and then with a sprinkling of grated parmesan.

Place them under the hot grill for no more than 3 or 4 minutes before transferring them to a serving dish and passing them around to your guests. Guaranteed to make you hungrier.

(Click here to see the newer article - Better photos and cooked using charcoal in a Weber - July 2011)

Garden Spit Roast - Chapter 1

2009-04-28T22:29:00.000+01:00

This is a simple and small scale introduction to creating your own DIY spit roast or rotisserie barbeque at home. It captures all of the principles of a charcoal spit roast and gets the imagination going for more.

Inspired by the beautiful spring evening sun, I found this to be an opportunity to test a few theories using tools already at hand.

I'm embarrased to admit how much research I have done over the years on spit roasting. It is thought that Peking man may have roasted meats (c. 700,000 BC), but from whenever it began, spit roasting was virtually the sole culinary technique used by our ancestors during the Paleolithic period (Old Stone Age). This was until, the Aurignacian people of Southern France (c. 30,000 BC) began steaming food by wrapping it in wet leaves. Today spit roasting has evolved to become anything from the global doner kebab to rotisserie chickens and whole hog roasts.

There are a number of (fairly expensive) spit roasting gizmos on the market. Clockwork, battery or mains powered, none of which are particularly easy to get hold of in the UK. I prefer the DIY approach: Easily found, ready made objects, and lots of care and attention. Regardless, the principles of spit roasting remain the same;

- Self basting and slow cooking from constant rotation

- Indirect heat for cooking

Keeping the meat rotating means that the fats and juices remain on the surface longer and cook the meat evenly. The sugars caramelise without burning creating that wonderful sticky, rich tasting surface.

Indirect heat means not having any fuel directly below the food. Inevitable drips would otherwise ignite and create seriously unwanted flames from a fat fire below. Keeping the heat source to the side(s) means that drips can be caught in a tray if needed and used for extra manual basting.

This is so simple anyone can try it. I used 1 kg of chicken wings, cut into segments (discard the wing tips) and spiked them onto two pairs of metal skewers so they could be easily turned.

I prepared a charcoal fire in my trusty 'Go Anywhere Weber" and waited for the fire to mature before aranging the embers into three rows. I then placed the two chicken wing kebabs between the rows of embers and turned them every 30 seconds or so by hand. The chicken wings had been marinating for a few hours in crushed garlic, olive oil and rosemary. The smell was amazing.

30 minutes later, the chicken wings were ready.

The garden spit roast requires only one special commitment. Stay by the fire and don't stop rotating the food until it's cooked. This might seem extreme, but let's face it, why would you want to be anywhere else?

If this does it for you, the coming chapters will up the scale somewhat. This spring and summer look forward to whole chickens spit roasted in the garden, and then finally some big chunks of goat.

Firefoodie

PS (March 2010): For some extreme DIY spit roasting, I found this recently. I was well impressed...: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/125444-my-first-spit-roast/

Aussie Damper Bread on a Stick - 1974

2009-04-06T19:04:00.000+01:00

Shortly after posting my most recent article, Aussie Damper Bread on a Stick (see below), a memory emerged of a photograph I had in an old and treasured album from the 1970's. My picture of it was a bit hazy, but I knew there was one of me with damper bread aged 10 or so.

I trawled through our bookshelves, asked my Mum in Australia to do the same, and eventually found the album in a box buried deep in our loft. The photo's were there, but did not look quite like I had remembered.

They were taken one weekend (of many) in the Australian winter at my best friend Pete's farm near Margaret River in the south west. The slightly strange tint can be credited to the Kodak Instamatic I also treasured at the time. Pete's older brother Andy has his state of the art transistor radio proudly placed in the foreground. I had placed my damper carefully on a rock (to the left) so I could take the photo.

The photo at the top is me firefoodie, in my formative years, subconsciously preparing myself for this article some 35 years in the future. The dual exposure effect is one of those unexpected treats only a Kodak Instamatic could deliver.

Aussie Damper Bread on a Stick

2009-03-24T21:30:00.000Z

I've been making this since I was a kid. Winter weekends spent on my friend Pete's farm in the Australian south west often involved burning off the felled trunks and roots of massive eucalypts in open paddocks and sleeping outside warm and dry by their radiating heat. These logs would burn for days. What could be more perfect for a 10 year old than whiling away the hours gazing at the southern night sky and cooking bread on the end of long sticks against a wall of glowing embers. I'm fairly certain that these experiences are responsible for the pyromania that I enjoy today.

Traditionally damper bread was baked as a loaf in a cast iron camp oven by drovers moving large herds of cattle across the outback. It is a very basic yeast free bread, made with self-raising flour, milk and bit of salt and scone like in taste. This version is more hands on and creates individual bread sticks that are delicious hot with lots of butter. This batch was made by our little beaver scouts at a weekend sleepover in Oxfordshire. A few teary eyes from woodsmoke, lots of burnt damper, but no burnt fingers!

Prepare a simple cooking fire using evenly sized smallish pieces of wood about 2-3 cm thick. Then prepare the dough while you wait for the wood to burn down to embers before cooking.

The dough (enough for 10 dampers):

4 cups self raising flour
1 1/2 cups milk (or water)
1/2 teaspoon of salt

Sticks:

8-10 sticks about as long as your arm and as thick as your thumb.

Method:

Mix the ingredients into a soft, light dough by adding the liquid to the flour slowly, constantly mixing with a knife, then knead for 5 minutes. Divide the dough into balls slightly larger than a golf ball. Work each portion of the dough onto the end of a stick in the shape of a sausage, making sure to cover the end of each stick. Cook each damper over the embers, turning constantly so as not to burn . After about 15-20 minutes, the damper should be golden on the outside and have doubled in size. Remove the damper from the stick, break it open and butter it generously. Seriously addictive.

Lemongrass and Chilli Creme Caramel

2009-03-08T17:25:00.000Z

I was given a Wagamama Cookbook by our fabulous friends Emma and Marcus for my 40th birthday (not as recently as I hoped I realised). How appropriate it seemed to prepare a Japanese meal for them when they came to stay with us this weekend.

The two most memorable and talked about items on the menu were the agedashi tofu (from Harumi's Japanese Cooking), served as a starter, and the unexpectedly spicy creme caramel. This incredibly aromatic dessert, once experienced, is something that stays with you for good.

I bungled something in the method. The caramel was more like rock hard toffee and stuck to the ramekins when I turned them out. This was fine as Marcus just hacked away at the ramekins afterwards. Luckily they still looked good on the plate and tasted delightful. Emma's advice (a mega queen in the kitchen herself) was to make the caramel separately and spoon over when serving. Next time definitely.

Hot sake with the meal followed by red wine by the brazier afterwards. A great evening.

For 4 serves:

- 400ml milk
- 4 lemongrass stalks, slightly bashed
- 2 dried red chillies
- 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) sake
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 2 star anise
- 100g white sugar
- 2 eggs and 4 yolks
- 4 x 150ml ramekin dishes

For the caramel:

- 8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) water
- 100g white sugar

Method:

Infuse the lemongrass, chilli, sake, star anise, and cinnamon in the milk by heating until just before boiling, stand aside, cover and leave to infuse.

Preheat the oven to 150 deg C. Whisk the sugar, eggs and yolks in a mixing bowl, then strain the infused milk, mix well and pour into the ramekins. Place the ramekins in a deep baking dish filled with boiling water to half their depth. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until set. Allow them to cool completely.

For the caramel, put the water and sugar in a small pan over a low heat until the sugar dissolves. Turn up the heat and boil until golden.

To serve, turn out the ramekins onto plates, and spoon over the caramel.

Grilled Asparagus with Mustard and Chilli Vinaigrette

2009-03-01T15:22:00.000Z

This tasty starter was served last night to our friends Annette and Les as a simple and quick prelude to a fairly intense main course of beef and guiness pie. The only fire involved with this one was the ceremonial lighting of the brazier in the garden after dinner.

Ingredients (for four):

- Large bunch of fresh asparagus spears (at least 6 spears per person)

- 4 slices of prosciutto crudo or parma ham

For the vinaigrette:

- 1/2 tea spoon of English mustard

- 1/2 tea spoon of finely chopped fresh chilli

- 1 tea spoon of mayonaise

- 3 table spoons of extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tea spoons of white wine vinegar
- salt and pepper

Break off the woody ends of the asparagus spears by bending them to find the natural snapping point, then trim with a knife to neaten them up. Parboil the asparagus in salted boiling water for no more than 2 minutes and then rinse them in cold water to prevent them from over cooking. The spears should still be firm, and only just starting to wilt.

Dry the asparagus with kitchen paper or a tea towel before wrapping them up in bundles with the prosciutto.

For the vinaigrette, whisk all of the ingredients in a bowl and keep at room temperature.

Place the asparagus bundles under a hot grill for 3-5 minutes, checking to see that the prosciutto is sizzling nicely before serving. The prosciutto shrinks as it cooks which helps to hold the bunches together.

Serve onto warmed plates and drizzle the vinaigrette dressing over with a spoon.

Light in quantity and intense in flavour, this starter whips up your appetite for any hearty main course.

Surreal Sub-Zero Boerewors Braai

2009-01-12T22:40:00.000Z

The first Friday after arriving back in the UK from our jaunt in South Africa and Australia and we were just recovering from extreme jet lag on top of enduring a cold snap of sub-zero temperatures. Desperate to light the brazier and hankering to re-live some of our South African experiences, this was an evening driven by pure obsession.

Bizarrely, not far from us there is a post office/general store at Farmoor near Oxford where you can get hold of almost anything exclusively South African, thanks to the slightly eccentric post master (Farmoor stores).

I called in on my way to our office in Oxford and couldn’t believe my luck when I actually got hold of a proper braai tool (grilling rack), the last one in the shop. I also picked up two one kilo coils of boerewors from the fridge (made in the UK by another entrepreneurial South African) and started planning the detail for the evening.

Wanting to make the most of the experience, I trawled the web for the best accompaniments and ideas for a boerewors meal and managed to find what I was looking for. A fellow blogspot member had an article titled The Ultimate Boerwors Roll; hot dog rolls filled with boerewors, a range of condiments, fried onion, avocado and cucumber. Perfect.

On my way home that Friday evening, I picked up some freshly baked rolls, English and Dijon mustard, a jar of tomato and chilli chutney, plus the avo and cucumber.

The temperature was approaching minus 3 degrees when I prepared the charcoal cooking fire in the outdoor brazier. It was cold and dark, but beautifully still and dry with an absolutely clear sky.

The boerewors cooked perfectly over the embers in my newly acquired braai tool and the family enjoyed hot boeries around the table with condiments of their choice simply served on a piece of kitchen paper.

A wine top up was required so I walked to the local Co-op and found (for the first time in this shop at least) a couple of bottles of Spier red from the winery at Stellenbosch that we had visited only weeks earlier. Even stranger that as I was browsing the shelves I was humming lines from the new Goldfish CD we bought whilst in Cape Town.

After our meal we were joined by our friend and neighbour, Caroline. The charcoal embers were used to start a proper fire fueled by well dried English larch from the local sawmill that I had been keeping in the garage.

We heated mulled wine on the fire and contemplated how surreal but perfect it was to be enjoying the outdoors while several bucket loads of larch kept us warm and happy.

Johnny's Kingclip Braai

2009-01-11T19:36:00.000Z

We were privileged to be invited by our great friends John and Billie to a midsummer braai. It was a beautiful December evening and the views from their place at the foot of Table Mountain were stunning.

Their fabulous company and inspiring outdoor setting near Hout Bay was a memorable highlight of our trip.

John fired up his patio braai with some quality local hardwoods to get the embers going and started us off with a taster of some local boerewors ('farmers sausage' in Africaans).

Billie prepared another appetizer of grilled mussels in their shells, and some amazing cous cous and salads to accompany the massive fillet of kingclip.

Eight of us feasted on this delight. People, music, food, weather, dancing. You Capetonians know how to live!

Beef Fillet on the Braai

2008-12-11T16:07:00.000Z

Our first night on holiday in Cape Town and the balcony and barbeque were calling, particularly since we had just spent the previous weeks in an icy English winter.

Shopping for provisions on our first afternoon took us to a Spar shop in Hout Bay, not far from our apartment in Llandudno. The selection of fresh meat was intoxicating. I super indulged and walked out with an entire beef fillet weighing about a kilo for an immoral R150, roughly a tenner.

I cut the fillet across the grain into thickish chunks, tossed the pieces in a bit of oil and rubbed them with some freshly ground pepper. Very simply, they were grilled over the hot coals for a few minutes each side until slightly charred and then placed on a plate and covered with foil for 10 or 15 minutes until we were ready to eat.

As the pieces of fillet relaxed under the foil, some of the juices were released and used as a simple dressing for the grilled meat. I served it with sweetcorn, a small local squash also cooked on the braai, and a green salad.

Four of us devoured the entire fillet (well three really, as Luca ate very little), and I don’t feel guilty at all although I’m sure I will soon. The beef was tender, moist, and slightly pink in the centre. Truly indulgent. The setting helped, I have to say. I thoroughly recommend the apartment we stayed in. Check it out at Sunset Rocks Accommodation.

Tinder Bomb

2008-11-22T10:39:00.000Z

This mad idea came to me when I was making sure that I would 'be prepared' for a late autumn evening helping a group of 6-8 year old beaver scouts cook damper bread over an open fire.

I was splitting some kiln dried ash offcuts into tinder the weekend before (therapy in itself) when I was pondering how to transport the tiny slivers to the ruined manor house at Minster Lovell in Oxfordshire for the event the following Wednesday evening. Knowing that I needed to take newspaper to start the fire as well, I came up with the idea of making tinder 'parcels' wrapped in newspaper as all in one, petro-chemical free fire lighters.

Inside the parcels I mixed the tinder with tiny pieces of tightly screwed up newspaper. And as a good pyro should, I couldn't help but throw in a few unused matches to help them along a little. It's important to wrap them loosely so there is plenty of air inside.

And they worked. A simple and quick way to start a fire without the need to carefully place lots of small pieces on a cold, damp, winter evening.

Rack of Autumn Lamb with Strawberry and Mint Salsa

2008-10-06T20:34:00.000+01:00

Autumn is the best season for lamb. Unlike spring lambs, autumn lambs benefit from having feasted on all those abundant summer grasses.

The combination of lamb and strawberry is something else. The sweet, citrusy berry is an unexpected but perfect complement to the tender, aromatic flesh that a rack of lamb offers.

I pre-ordered the lamb from my local butcher as there is a fair amount of preparation and trimming to be done. Saturday’s can be very busy and I didn’t want to create any enemies in the queue. He packaged up the trimmings separately and to avoid waste I turned them into a Lamb Madras for later in the week. So although the cut can seem quite expensive (almost £30 for 4 racks to feed 8), the additional meal from the trimmings makes it very worthwhile.

The idea for this menu came about after trawling through my favourite books on seasonal foods, pretty much at the last minute. We had invited six great friends around and the night was destined to be large.

I was hoping to serve octopus as a first course, but my visit to the fishmonger at the covered market in Oxford resulted in squid as an alternative. Next time I’ll make sure I give them a few days notice.

MENU:

Entrée:

- Warm squid salad with fennel, asparagus and chilli

Main course:

- Roasted rack of lamb
- Strawberry and mint salsa
- Roasted chipped potatoes with garlic and rosemary
- Steamed French beans and carrots

Dessert:

- Les Colonels (this time with Polish "Debowa" Vodka)
- Cheeses, grapes and coffee

For the racks of lamb, preheat the oven to 200 deg C, place the racks in a large baking dish so they support each other, and place sprigs of rosemary and halved strawberries (1 piece per person) in the space between.

Rub a little olive oil over the skin and sprinkle with salt before placing in the oven for 30-40 minutes depending on how pink you like it. You can remove the lamb from the oven and cover with foil for up to 30 minutes before serving to allow time to finish off the vegetables and it will stay hot enough to serve.

The salsa can be prepared an hour or so in advance. Chop up a punnet of strawberries and a large bunch of fresh mint leaves. Mix together in a bowl with some castor sugar (2-3 teaspoons) and sprinkle over some cider vinegar, mixing and tasting as you go to make sure it is neither to sharp nor too sweet. Cover with cling film until ready to serve.

The evening went large big time and in true pyro fashion we lit a fire in the brazier in the garden using some seasoned silver birch that had fallen in a storm earlier in June.