Big Green Egg Live Cooks with Meat Smoke Fire

Saturday 7th December 2024 – Smoke salmon, home-cured bacon, and a lighter Christmas Pud

With storm Darrah howling across the UK, we didn’t want to cancel, so instead we came up with three recipes that we could do and spend the majority of the time inside.

We covered the following:

• Smoked salmon three ways – a normal cure, a fennel cure, and a beetroot and gin cure.
• Home-cured bacon – again, we did this three ways with a standard cure, a fennel cure, and a black treacle cure.
• A lighter Christmas pud – for those that don’t like loads of fruit, we use the Charlie Oven to steam a Rumtopf and apple, steamed sponge pudding.

Saturday 30th November 2024 – Christmas Canapés

We’ve come up with some recipes to use up leftovers, some hacks using Christmas ingredients, and a couple of recipes that are just out and out lovely.

We went a bit mad this weekend and cooked seven different dishes. They used three techniques though.

They were:

• Wonton poppers – a take on jalapeno poppers or ABT’s.
• Wonton prawns with a marie rose sauce – almost a prawn cocktail but finger food.
• Wonton baked camembert with nduja – a campfire favourite brought to the Christmas party.
• Peking turkey parcels – using leftover turkey and making a duck pancake substitute.
• Curried potato and pea parcels – a great way to spruce up some leftovers.
• Smoked salmon crispy rice paper crackers – stunning home-smoked and cured salmon with a horseradish and dill dressing.
• Thai turkey crispy rice crackers – use up the leftover turkey, or cook some turkey mince to make a Thai influenced dish.

Saturday 9th November 2024 – Jalapeños

This week it’s all about jalapeños and showcasing that these little peppers can be used multiple ways and they aren’t as hot as you might think!

We cooked:

• Jalapeño Cornbread – a very light and moist cornbread flavoured with diced jalapeno
• Jalapeño Candied Bacon Bites – a heavently combination of salty bacon, sweetness of sugar and honey and some heat from the jalapeños
• Crispy Stuffed Jalapeños – think croquetas with a little fire in their belly.  These were amazing and one of our favourite recipes ever!

Saturday 26th October 2024 – A few autumnal dishes

Following on from the previous cook, we wanted to make the most of the pheasant breasts we had, and cook some autumnal dishes to go with them

We cooked:

• Pheasant casserole with some herby dumplings – a must try. It’s simple but so tasty.
• A celeriac and turnip dauphinoise, then added cheese to a second one to make it a celariac and turnip gratin – both were lovely, the gratin was the winner though this time.
• Cavalo Nero with Garlic and Chilli – a great side dish to go with the previous two dishes.

Saturday 12th October 2024 – Game and squash

Last week we were asked to cook some game and also some squash. We were gifted some pheasants and some partridges. We came up with the following three cooks on the Big Green Eggs:

• Rotisserie roasted partridge – simply seasoned and roasted
• Squash and pearl barley risotto with sage and lemon – pearl barley adds nuttiness and textrure to this dish
• Dirty veg including beetroot and leeks

Saturday 5th October 2024 – Wings for EGGtoberfest

We cooked fifty wings, five different ways to join in with Big Green Egg’s World Record Attempt:

• Fish Wings – brined overnight and marinaded in buttermilk before being deep fried with a fish sauce caramel.
• Korean Chicken Wings – we love the sweet, hot and tangy flavours from the soybean and chilli paste.
• Liz’s Bingo Wings – tumbled in the rotisserie basket, will you hit the jackpot with a wing that’s been injected with hot chilli sauce.
• Deboned Stuffed Chicken Wings – whole wings with the bones removed. You then stuff the wings with the filling of your choice, we used spicy Thai sausage meat on the live cook. 
• Ed’s Wings – the classic wing from Ed Fisher, the founder of Big Green Egg. 

Saturday 24th August 2024 – Spicy Snacks & Cookies

We cooked two indian inspired snacks and some cookies as Lexie was joining us for the weekend:

• Indian Potato Cakes – spicy crushed potato cakes, fried until crispy and gold, served with chutney and sweet yoghurt dip
• Vegetable Masala Rolls – inspired by Higgidy vegan rolls, this is our version, filled with cauliflower and chickpeas
• Chocolate Chip & Raisin Cookies – quick and easy snack or treat with Lexie’s favourite ingredient, chocolate, ready for her belated birthday trip to  Gripped

Saturday 10th August 2024 – Skewers

We cooked three different sets of skewers:

• Jumbo Prawns with Vietnamese Green Seafood Sauce – having recently completed our World Street Food classes with Nick from Kab, we loved this dish and wanted to share.  Prawns sourced from J&M Oriental Supermarket
• Chicken Heart Skewers – This ingredient will divide the crowd.  Give them a go, we’re confident you’ll be pleasantly surprised!  We bought our chicken hearts from IQBRO.
• Pork Neck Skewers – using up some left over pork neck, we added some harissa and hot honey.

Saturday 27th July 2024 – An Olympic Lunch

The Paris Olympics kicked off on Friday 26th July 2024. We thought it would be nice to recognise it with a dish from Greece, one from France, and a dish from the UK.

So here they are:

• Ham and cheese mini croissants – when we travel through France, it’s become a tradition that as I drive, Helena will prepare ham and cheese baguettes. It’s a messy affair, but we love it. Fresh baguette with ham and La Vache qu’il Rit cheese (cheese triangles). The croissants are a slightly more elegant version.
• Lamb and peach kebabs, with za’tar flatbreads – lamb is so Greek, as are the flatbreads.
• British curried pit beans – OK a bit of an odd one. I always joke how I would be happy if someone cooked me beans on toast. Well this is it but crossed with our national dish, currry!

Saturday 13th July 2024 – Chicken Katsu and Fruit Cones

Inspired by lunch cooked by Biffen’s Kitchen, we cooked Chicken Katsu.  The savouy cones from the previous cook were so successful, we thought we would give a sweet version a go and they were equally as popular:

• Chicken Katsu Curry – mild curry served on rice with crispy breadcrumbed chicken and pineapple, red onion, carrot and edamame garnishes.
• Sweet tortilla cones – tortillas, baked into a cone and topped with spicy paneer cheese. You can’t fail to score with these.

Saturday 22nd June 2024 – Snacks for the Euros

We’ve made a few really quick to prep and cook snacks, suitable for half time in the Euros, no matter what team you are supporting:

• Spicy tortilla cones – tortillas, baked into a cone and topped with spicy paneer cheese. You can’t fail to score with these.
• Stuffed flatbreads – so quick, so tasty. What will you fill yours with?
• Tear and share garlic bread – back of the net!

Saturday 1st June 2024 – Skillet cooks

We love a skillet to cook in. We’ll use three different ones for these cooks.

• Pork dumpling nachos – cooked in the Tefal Ingrenio
• Crispy Rice Paper Wraps – cooked in the Large Big Green Egg Skillet
• Thai spicy nuts – cooked in the small Big Green Egg Skillet

Saturday 25th May 2024 – #NationalSandwichWeek and a couple of new products

We decided with two new products, not to cook on the Big Green Eggs at all. Instead we cooked on:

• DeliVita woodfired oven – our favourite British made pizza oven.
• Skotti Grill – a super portable gas, charcoal and wood fired grill.
• OFYR 75 Corten – the brand new grill from OFYR.

We cooked:

• Chilli Halloumi Sandwich – we cooked this on the OFYR 75 Corten.
• Steak and Onion Sandwich – we cooked this on the OFYR 75 Corten.
• Grilled Aubergine with Tahini, and salad in a homemade pitta – we cooked this in the DeliVita woodfired oven.
• Korean chicken poke bowl – we cooked the chicken skewers on the Skotti grill.

Saturday 11th May 2024 – #UKBBQWEEK World Food Day

We’ve been enjoying #UKBBQWEEK, so it seemed fitting to use the day’s theme for this cook.

We cooked:

• Thai Grilled Chicken Skewers – Gai Yang
• Prawn skewers – we seasoned with A&O Lemon Pepper Rub
• Nasi Goreng
• Thai Green Curry

Saturday 27th April 2024 – Surf and Turf

Just one dish this week, but it’s made up of quite a few individual components. The dish was a surf and turf roll, and its components were:

• Chorizo and Onion Rolls – these were actually one of our first ever demos.
• Grilled Lobster – decadence at its finest.
• Dirty tri tip steak – tri tip, cut into steaks and then cooked dirty, directly on the charcoal.
• Smoked mayonnaise – home made mayonnaise, infused with smoke.

Saturday 6th April 2024 – Indian Streetfood

We’ll cook up these three crackers:

• Spicy Mint Parathas
• Sweet Potato with Parathas and Chutney
• Paneer 65

Saturday 30th March 2024 – Streetfood Ideas

We’ll cook up these three crackers:

• French Trimmed Rack of Lamb with Mint, Parsley & Pistachio Dip – one of our classic dishes with a new dip.
• Roasted Vegetable Couscous – we’ve been making this for years, it’s an absolute winner.
• Easter Currant Biscuits – simple but so tasty.

Saturday 2nd March 2024 – Streetfood Ideas

We’ll cook up these three crackers:

• A Crispy Japanese Chicken Burger – with pickles and a zingy mayo sauce.
• Dynamite cauliflower – spicy, sweet, crunchy cauliflower, you have to try it.
• Lebanese potatoes – crispy potatoes served with a beautiful dip.

Saturday 17th February 2024 – Chinese Fakeaway

Back to our roots with a fakeaway.

We’ll cook up three different Chinese dishes:

• Sweet and sour chicken – who needs to go to the Chinese takeaway now?
• Egg and vegetable fried rice – really delicious and perfect with a Chinese meal.
• Firecracker parcels – crispy, spicy and stuffed with goodness.

Saturday 3rd February 2024 – Getting ready for Pancake Day

Pancakes on the Egg, why not. Savour pancakes, absolutely.

We’ll cook up three different pancakes with fabulous fillings. They are:

• Chickpea pancakes with a curried potato and green lentil filling, topped with a simple curry sauce.
• Savoury mushroom, pepper and onion pancakes – the very first dish I cooked for Mrs Meat Smoke Fire in 1995.
• Jian Bing, Chinese pancakes – we’re revisiting a dish we’ve done before as it’s that good.

We have also published a recipe for American-style pancakes we cooked during the week with candied bacon and maple syrup.

Saturday 13th January 2024 – Three Mexican(ish) crackers

I’ve never cooked an OTT (Over The Top) chilli, as I thought it was a gimmick. We decided we’d test this by cooking and comparing my chilli, next to an OTT chilli and then using the chilli in all the recipes. The recipes we decided to cook were:

• Enchiladas stuffed with chilli and topped with our new enchilada sauce. Helena describes it as Mexican lasagne.
• Beef chilli burritos – tortillas stuffed with chilli, Mexican rice, black beans and soured cream, served with guacamole and salsa.
• Pasta fries with chilli – a TikTok sensation I’m told. Well, we cooked it during the week with a veggie chilli, and it was lovely.

Saturday 6th January 2024 – Paneer Masala, Mushrrom Fried Rice & Chapatis

To start 2024 we thought we’d go a little bit healthy, but keep the punch flavours. For this week’s live Big Green Egg cook, we cooked:

• Paneer tikka masala – Indian paneer cheese, with a stunning sauce.
• Mushroom fried rice – Mushroom, onion and pepper with basmati rice.
• Chapatis – Indian wholemeal flour flatbreads, So tasty but so simple.