Recipes
During the day we cooked the following:
- Slow roast pork belly, slightly smoked – we cooked this at 110°C overnight and then finished up at 230°C in the morning. The slow cook helps break down the connective tissue in the pork. We’re aiming for an internal temperature of 88°C to 92°C before we move on to crackle the pork.
- Plancha cooked cauliflower steaks with a black sesame and truffle oil dressing – here the back of the plate setter is used to roast the cauliflower. This technique could be applied to other veg including leeks, fennel….
- Griddled asparagus with smoked mayonnaise – we used the burning charcoal to lightly smoke the oil used to make the mayonnaise. The cast iron searing grid was then used to griddle the asparagus. This recipe would work really well with asparagus wrapped in prosciutto.
- Seared rib-eye steak – the first steak we cook was done on the cast iron griddle. Remember this is two sided so use the wider bars when you’re cooking fish and veg.
- Dirty rib-eye steak – we got the Egg nice and hot, between 250°C and 300°C and then raked the charcoal to knock off the worst of the ash. We then cooked the rib-eye directly on the coals. This vaporises the fat and make it taste so meaty.
- Plancha cooked rack of lamb – lamb cooked at 180°C on the back of the plate setter. This works really well when the lamb has a lovely thick dry fat layer.
- Roast Chicken – we roasted one of the chickens at 180°C. We could have added wood chips but remember, smoke poultry is one of those dishes people either love or hate. You’ll also get a pink outside layer to your meat (smoke ring).
- Planked salmon – salmon cooked on a cedar plank. Remember the bottom of the plank will be smouldering so don’t put it on to anything that will burn.
- Reverse Seared Rib-Eye joint – here we reverse seared a whole rib-eye. We cooked this at 110°C until the temperature internally reached 48°C. We then seared the outside before resting and serving.
- Griddled radicchio – these were cooked directly on the cast iron griddle at about 250°C.
- Smoked Chocolate Brownie – cooked at 160°C with a few wood chips to add a very subtle smoke.
We also tried a couple of experiments with:
- Coal baked beetroot
- Coal baked potatoes
- Chicken balantine
Useful links
- www.nicwilliams.com – my other site. I’ve not moved all of my recipes to MeatSmokeFire.co.uk yet so have a look here too.
- amazingribs.com – a great site with a huge amount of pages on knowledge. Search on ‘The stall’ to understand the plateau and also look up techniques such as the texas crutch and the 3-2-1 method for ribs.
- biggreenegg.co.uk – the UK Big Green Egg site. Linked from the site are:
- The Big Green Egg UK YouTube Channel including the excellent Tips Series
- Big Green Craig – an excellent chef. He’s on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/biggreencraig), Twitter (@BigGreenCraig) and Instagram (@biggreencraig)
- heatermeter.com – a bit geeky but if you felt inclined this is the BBQ controller I talked about that I made.
Technique
The techniques we covered were:
- Direct cooking
- Searing – steak, fennel, tofu, radicchio
- Dirty – steak – agree probably not suitable for guests unless you’re doing root veg (celeriac, beetroot for example).
- Indirect Cooking
- Roasting – chickens, pork belly, beef
- Reverse sear – beef although due to time we rushed it so it was more of a roast
- Plancha cooking – cooking on the plate setter (feet down) – cauliflower
- Smoking – chicken thighs
- Low and slow – pork belly (cooked at 150°C before being ramped up to 240°C to crackle the skin).
ProQ Cold Smoke Generator
This is a great device for cold smoking your food. We talked about you getting one of these for Christmas. If you do buy one buy some extra wood dust. Use code MP10 at the checkout, if it still works it’ll get you 10% off your order at HotSmoked.co.uk.
Food DIY
Food DIY is one of my favourite books. Tim Hayward is a local restauranteur to me and a complete outdoor cooing nut.
