The X-Grill Barbeque

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

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

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

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

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

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

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