Big Green Egg Live Cooks with Meat Smoke Fire

Saturday 23rd August 2025 – Chinese Stir Fry

Who doesn’t love a takeaway? This whole series of live cooks started with fakeaways, so with our longest absence from live cooks looming, lets do our last cook until mid-October with a takeaway theme.

We’ll cook:

• Crispy shredded beef – one of my favourites, but not necessarily a cook my family would choose. They can eat the other two dishes.
• Sweet chilli chicken – another favourite and my fakeaway of Wasabi’s dish (Wasabi the restaurant). It was always a treat on the way home from London if I’d worked late.
• Singapore noodles – another winner with just about everyone. We’ll do a prawn and chicken version.

Saturday 9th August 2025 – Kebabs and Loaded Fries

We invited Grace, who’s cooked with us before, to set the theme for this week and come and cook. She came up with kebabs and loaded fries.

We know that Grace’s Dad Tony can cook, so challenged him to join in, and set this cook up as a competition between the three of us.

We each cooked a portion of loaded fries and a kebab:

• Grace’s Dirty loaded fries and chicken kebab
• Tony’s Greek loaded fries and Pork Souvlaki kebab
• Nic’s Japanese loaded fries and duck kofta kebab.

Side dishes from the cook:

• Pickled Carrots
• Grace’s Hot Sauce
• Grace’s Garlic Mayo
• Grace’s Pickled Red Onions

Saturday 26th July – Caribbean Cook Out

We fancied a bit of Caribbean spice.

We cooked:

• Jerk Chicken Thighs – spicy, moist, a real winner.
• Fried Plantain with Smoked Scotch Bonnet and Lime Salt and Mint Mojo sauce.
• Caribbean Grilled fruit with a spiced rum butter sauce.

There was a lot of interest in the half moon pans we used for frying the plantain.

Saturday 12th July – Stir Fry Special

We were joined by some university friends and our goddaughter for this cook.  Ollie kindly took on the mantle of camera person and what a great job he did. We did some quick dishes for a win in this hot weather.

We cooked:

• Miso Chicken Thighs – fermented soybean paste, mild and full of umami
• Korean Stir Fried Pork – using gochujang paste, fermented chilli paste, a favourite staple ingredient
• Mushroom Fried Rice – think egg fried rice with some ginger and garlic to mirror the pork and packed full of veggies

Saturday 7th June – Duck, duck, and duck

On the previous cook, Mama asked us to cook some duck. It seemed like a great idea to cook not one duck dish, but three. And I have to say, this was one of my favourite cooks to eat following the live cook.

We cooked:

• Chinese Five-spice duck served in bao buns with spring onion, cucumber and Peking duck sauce – if you love crispy duck pancakes, you will love these.
• Tandoori duck served with a paratha, a red onion and pomegranate salad, raita, and a tamarind chutney – possibly the best street food dish I’ve made.
• Korean duck skewers – spicy, sweet and the perfect canopé.

Saturday 31st May – Crispy, crunchy, sweet and savoury vegetables

We’ve been loving the warm weather and the change in seasonal vegetables. It inspired us to cook these two vegetable dishes and a dessert to enjoy in the sunshine.

We cooked:

• Leek tarte tatin – a savoury take on this dish that is well worth the effort.
• Crispy feta and spinach spirals – using rice paper wer created a vegetable spiral, crispy onn the outside, gooey in the middle, full of salty feta and wilted spinach. It’s a dish you have to try.
• Cantucci – cooked in the same way as a biscotti, these are crunchy almond twice baked biscuits. A delight as a dessert.

Saturday 10th May – Steak Dinner

We were super lucky to have James from OFYR and House of Charcoal join us for the live cook, and so we decided to do the full cook on the OFYR 75.

We cooked up four different protiens for our ‘steak dinner’:

• A Jagyu Beef rib-eye
• A Pork rib-eye
• A Galician ex-dairy sirloin
• A duck breast – amazingly tasty and such great value (much cheaper than steak).

We also cooked four sides:

• Black garlic brocolli
• Mini roasties
• Garlic field mushrooms
• Grilled asparagus with garlic oil and goats cheese

We talked a little about the OFYR and what it brings to grilling, and also about british lumpwood.

The video is in two sections as we overheated the phone and it cut out half way through. Luckily we had a second phone to hand and could continue.

Saturday 19th April – Salads

Five years since our first live cook! I don’t think anyone was expecting salads this week.  

The recipes were:

• Fattoush Salad – using stale flatbreads to bring the crunch and we added some cripsy chickpeas
• Pea, Edamame, Asparagus and Goat’s Cheese Flatbreads – This is so simple but so delicious, using our favourite veg, frozen peas and edamame (soya) beans.
• Chicken Caesar Salad – a classic salad, inspired by the Big Green Egg Dealer Day.

Saturday 12th April – Lamb and sides for Easter with Grace

We had the lovely Grace with us to cook two dishes to go with a rotisserie cooked leg of lamb.

The recipes were:

• Minty peas and pancetta – an Italian twist on minty peas, served with salty, crunchy pancetta.
• Marry Me Butter Beans – There is a series of recipes called ‘Marry Me’ recipes. They are supposed to be so good they could get you a marriage proposal. We’ve changed a couple of little bits on this recipe to make them even better.
• Rotisserie leg of lamb – studded with garlic, rosemary and anchovies. Served rare, it’s absolutely delicious. You won’t taste the anchovies, they’ll just add an umami taste to the whole leg.

Saturday 29th March – Mexican

We’ve made three different recipes, all fairly simple. 

The recipes are:

• Al Pastor Pork Tacos – pork shoulder cooked on the rotisserie with the vertial spit holder
• Chicken Tinga Gringas – shredded chicken in a smoky, chipotle sauce
• Potato and Chorizo Quesadillas – crispy potato and chorizo with melted cheese in a folded crispy tortilla

Saturday 8th March – Chicken and bread

We’re going to prepare three different chicken recipes and then load them into breads.

The recipes are:

• Chicken shawarma – served with Turkish pickles, garlic sauce, pickled onions, and tahini, this Arabian kebab packs flavour.
• Crispy chilli chicken with avocado – we’ve been making these for years and they’re so good.
• Chicken Parmo – a breaded chicken breast with bechamel sauce and melted cheese.

Saturday 22nd February – Six Nations and Sausages

This week we have theme of the Six Nations and Sausages. We cooked three different dishes as usual, one had two variations. SCRUM DOWN:

The dishes were:

• Pea and potato galettes – representing France, we have a puff pastry snack. We’re sure these will be a CONVERSION.
• Sausage rolls:
  • Marmite, cheese and sausage – representing England, you’ll either love or hate these. Have you ever taken Marmite to get foreign friends to taste it? Maybe we’ll CONVERT you.
  • Pork and Leek – representing Wales, a winning combination? You should give them a TRY.
• Italian sausage and cavolo nero pizza – representing Italy, everyone loves pizza but how about this combo, will it PASS the taste test? Drizzled with hot honey, it’s a winner.

Saturday 8th February – Indian with Grace and Nic

This week, we were joined by Grace, whom we met at Highgrange Devon during one of their superb feast nights. Grace worked with Luke and Sara for a year and is a very talented fire chef. Roll on a year, and Grace asked if she could come and cook with us, and of course, we were delighted to host her. Based on this performance, she’ll be back soon.

Grace came up with this week’s recipe ideas with the exception of the Roti:

• Tandoori spatchcocked chicken – we roasted this on the OFYR but the recipe would work just as well in the Big Green Egg.
• Tandoori curry dipping sauce – a lovely sweet curry sauce, and not too spicy as Grace isn’t a massive fan of chilli heat.
• Roti – simple wholewheat flatbreads, perfect for eating chicken and sauce with your hands. They contain just three ingredients.

Whilst preparing for the live cook, Grace and Nic decided to have a ‘Bhaji Off’, here are their recipes

• Red Onion Bhajis – using red onions and her own spice mix
• Onion Bhajis – stuck with this original recipe, which has proved very popular in the curry classes

Saturday 25th January – Savoury tarte tatin, breakfast in a potato basket, and a mini pizza.

We cooked the following:

• Beetroot and goat’s cheese tarte tatin – earthy but so simple and amazingly delicious.
• Crispy potato baskets with bacon and eggs – breakfast in a bite. These are so good.
• Margherita puff pastry swirls – the three colours of the Italian flag, in a puff pastry swirl.

Saturday 4th January – Winter Warmers

Our first cook of 2025 and it was freezing. We had to defrost the Eggs in order to open them.

We cooked the following:

• Flat basket rotisserie chicken – rotisserie chicken everyone loves, done the easy way. 
• Ratatouille – we’ve been meaning to do this one for a while and it didn’t disappoint.  Chunky veg with tomatoes.
• Chilli and lime roast potatoes – a dish we’ve been making for years. It’s a lovely twist to standard roasties.