A small but perfectly formed inferno

Well, the wonder stove I was talking about earlier has turned up. 

It's a gadget and it involves cooking, what's not to like? And even the £11.16 customs charge that I needed to pay to get it out of the sorting office didn't dent my enthusiasm to put it through it's paces.So on a bright cold morning I was out in the garden frying sausages. I'd seen the stove on Twitter. It's proudly made in America apparently and called a Firebox fromfoldingfirebox.com. 

Out of the box and what struck me was how neatly it all stacks together, like some kind of intricate elaborate greeting card - but made out of steel. And really intuitive to assemble. Simply slide out the two bars, and open like a book. The ash plate falls away to reveal the four walls of an asymmetric cube and the fire base neatly drops to lock everything down. Then simply put the bars at the height you like and bob's your auntie, ready to rock and roll. From the excellent videos on their site it's clear that the design will accommodate a whole range of fuel - including hexie blocks and an alcohol burner like a Trangia. 

As a small aside, I think that sustainability is going to become more and more important in everything we do. The days of using, then dumping, gas cylinders in some of the most remote parts of the planet needs to stop. And in that sense this stove scores highly.

But I was most interested in good old fashioned sticks, so went out in the garden to see what was lying around in the shed. A range of sticks and cuttings - bits of old grape vine, bay tree twigs - you name it.  Crumpling up a couple of sheets of newspaper in the base and then dumping in sticks pretty randomly, one match later and we had lift off.  Sadly time was pressing, so my cooking was limited to frying up some chipolatas for lunch - hardly a real test.

But one thing it did show was the build strength. My frying pan of choice was the upturned lid of my trusty dutch oven. Made of cast iron, it distributes heat really well. But of course is a little on the heavy side! The Firebox was perfectly stable and even with quite an overhang it was pretty easy to add in extra fuel with burning fingers. Even a few twigs throws out a decent heat and the walls ensure that that this is directed where it needs to go.

So 20 or so minutes later and a dozen chipolatas plus a couple of field mushrooms were ready. 

Where I think this stove will really come into it's own is when I'm trying to travel light. The thought of being able to leave behind fuel bottles and just use a few sticks I find on the way is really appealing to me (and to my wallet). It does of course mean that I will need to check that my route includes a copse or wood, but I think even my navigation skills are up to the task.

I'm intending to write about the Folding Firebox later, but initial impressions are pretty good. Not sure I could cook Christmas lunch on it though......but you never know. 

Instant warmth

Like most blokes who claim to hate shopping what I really hate is certain types of shopping - clothes, furniture and the like. 

But show me a food market or an outdoor shop and it's a different story. I can spend (or do I mean waste?) hours prodding, poking and generally fooling around. And occasionally I might actually buy something. This week I saw a link on pinterest to a wood burning camping stove called a Firebox Stove. It looks pretty good with a lot of useful stuff on their site to help you get the most out of it. I've ordered one; and I'll review it later on the blog. 

This weekend I'm in worms head, with the surfing dads - 5 of us in our 40s - trying to look cool on a plank of fibreglass. We're no Kelly Slaters or Laird Hamiltons, but we try. And today, despite the driving rain, has been fantastic. Even I, with the broadest yellow streak imaginable, found myself out back hammering down a steep slope of steel grey. Its what the word stoked is designed for. 

But after over 2 hours, even encased from neck to feet in 5mm neoprene, you get pretty cold. And while llangennith beach is probably one of the most beautiful in the world, let's be honest, the walk back up the hill in driving rain and a howling wind is a little soul destroying. 

My wonder stove hasn't turned up yet, but even if it had, I don't think that my chances of getting a roaring fire would have been high. Instead, like the middle-aged man I am, I'd packed that most uncool of outdoor gadgets, a thermos flask. The very phrase makes me think of family trips to the beach in the past, with my grandparents wrapped up in blankets behind a striped windbreak, pouring tea from said device. Hardly rock and roll and not really right for the cool camper I like to think I am.

But let me tell you, when you're cold and wet, nothing, and I mean nothing, is more welcome than a cup of hot coffee being put in your hand. And I don't mean a flat white or latte, but instant coffee ready mixed with dried milk (Kenco 2 in 1 if you're interested). 

On days like this I'll take instant warmth over instant cool every time. 

All I can carry is all I can eat

Just back from a very different kind of dining to the usual combination of Waitrose and the Farmers Market - and my feet and legs are still reeling from it.

The annual homage to outdoor exercise in extremis that is the Original Mountain Marathon.

I've being doing this off and on ever since I was 18 and the recipe doesn't really vary: take about 2,000 like-minded people; find some desolate part of Great Britain where sheep outnumber humans by at least 10 to 1; pick the last weekend in October when the weather is always vile and combine. Put the people into teams of two; give them maps with  checkpoints many miles apart and tell them to find them all over two days carrying everything they need on their back. 

Simple but effective.

But while the format's not really changed over the last three decades my ability to handle it certainly has. 

This year the location was the Howgills - the most western part of the Yorkshire Dales. My partner in grime was John. I've known John since I was seven. And now many years later we have the same routine we had then: he does the navigating and thinking; I do the joke-cracking and moaning. 

And this year I was mostly whinging about food. In order to run around the hills for up to seven hours a day for two days, you need to take on a lot of calories. And by a lot I mean thousands. Which means that in addition to tent, sleeping mat, sleeping bag, stove, spare clothes and first-aid kit etc you need to carry quite a bit of food. This is what I carried:

• 2 X 200g bags of jelly babies
• 6 homemade flapjacks (see earlier post)
• 4 SIS energy gels
• 1 beef and potato dehydrated camping meal (bizarrely called Travel Lunch
• 1 'creamy cheese' mugshot
• 2 instant hot chocolates
• 2 instant white coffees
• 300g of trail-mix
• Several packets of powdered energy drink (or gack as we call it)
• 1 experimental porridge pack: 5tbs porridge oats; 2tbs readybrek; 2 tbs powdered milk; 1tbs of hot chocolate powder and 1tbs of sugar

The drill is simple: eat relentlessly. Every hour stuff some sickly sweet something down your gob and swill it down with what is basically kids squash with some kind of science apology on the outside of the packet. And when you get to your overnight campsite pitch your teeny tiny tent, get the stove going and eat some more; boiling up water that is the colour of weak tea

using a stove that is simply a blowtorch with legs and a pot stand. After over 24 kms of stumbling around in the mud, luckily the cooking instructions are simple: add boiling water to it, stir, let stand for 5 minutes, then eat with something called a spork; the lonely orphan of the cutlery drawer.

For someone who prides himself on being a bit of a foodie, the weekend is really nothing short of a culinary disaster. The food of the go is all sugar and the meals at camp all bear a family resemblance to lumpy wall paper paste. 

So you might ask, why?

It's a fair question and one I ask myself quite regularly over the 48 hours.

And I suppose the answer is threefold.

Firstly the scenery is never less than amazing (even if seen fleetingly through mist and rain squalls). This year was no exception.

 Saturday dawned, bright, clear and cold. We could see for miles and because of the sub zero night before the ground was frozen and not too muddy. You could see clear to Carlisle. Sunday was heavy rain and low cloud, but even then the landscape has a weird bleak grandeur.

Secondly, I take some perverse pleasure in jolting myself out of my comfy London existence.
Carrying in excess of 10 kilos up hill and down dale, wading streams, knee deep in mud and over scree and slippery rock can be quite a jolt. Which is no bad thing to my mind.


And finally I do it because of friendship. Over the 36 hours, John and I become kids again: bigger questions like mortgages, pensions and caring for your kids (or parents for that matter) recede. The big problems are things like finding a ruined sheepfold (we didn't) and farting in the tent (we did - a lot). So we focus on those and work as a team to get round the course. And friendships that can stand over 45 kms of running yourself ragged, torrential rain, and sub-zero temperatures are worth holding on to.

it's not always about the food.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

So here we are in october. The rain has been heavy and the wind gale force. What better time to spend a couple of days tearing around the Howgills? Well, aside from a half marathon that's what I'm preparing for. The Original Mountain Marathon 2012 to give it its full name. 36 hours of relentless navigating, running (or walking to be fair) in some of Britain's most beautiful scenery.

Aside from the mental stress of planning a route (we use a piece of string) the other big problem is energy levels. 13 hours of running, then walking, then stumbling over 2 days is pretty energy intensive. And as the rules mean we have to be entirely self-sufficient for the whole 2 days, energy to weight ratio is crucial. There are of course a lot of gels and bars you can buy, but they have two drawbacks: cost and taste. Spending over a quid on something that has the consistency of gritty putty and the flavour of effluent from a Hershey factory seems all wrong.

Hence my baking homemade energy bars on Saturday. I say energy bars, but let's be honest, these are nothing more than flapjacks with a chip on their corners. I borrowed the recipe from a cycling blog and used what I had in the cupboard.

Ingredients
2 handfuls of raisins 

1 handful of dried apricots

1 handful of dates

250g unsalted butter – a whole UK-size pack 

2 pints of oats, roughly measured in a glass
300g of honey or similar syrup (I added some molasses I had spare)
3 heaped tablespoons of brown sugar
2 heaped tablespoons of sunflower seeds
4 crushed digestive biscuits

The recipe is as simple as the ingredients, really.

1. Gently melt the butter in a microwave. This just makes it easier to get all the ingredients stirred together and sticking in one lump.

2. Put all the dry ingredients into a food processor and pulse until they are chopped up a bit. You don't want fine powder, but breaking everything down a bit makes the bars less likely to crumble or break, which is important if you're eating them on the go. 

3. Combine the melted butter, honey/treacle and dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir well

4. Take a baking tray, line it with greaseproof paper, and pour in the mix. Cook for 20ish minutes or so at 200 degrees Celsius - you're looking for a deep golden colour.

 5. Remove from oven (don’t worry if it is still a bit soft) and leave to cool on the side. Once it’s at room temperature, throw it in the fridge for a couple of hours. After that you can chop it into bars.

At the same as time as making these dense lumps of congealed calories I was also using some left over egg whites (the joys of an ice-cream maker). I only know of two ways to use these up, and with no ground almonds to hand, it was another meringuatang moment.

But this time I opted for safety - swapping rosewater for chocolate as flavouring.

Adding a combination of cocoa powder and finely grated plain chocolate to a standard meringue mix creates something that is very chocolaty but not too sweet. 

I don't think the meringues will ever make it into my rucsac for a mountain marathon, but the girls liked them.

But as to whether the energy bars work, well I'll let you know in a few weeks time.

Heavy rain? Time for ce cream

Summer is officially over here in Balham. The rain is lashing down and our creaky guttering simply unable to cope. So naturally my fireside inclinations are somewhat dampened. 

Confined to the kitchen my thoughts have been turning to the instant gratification of making things that don't require a fire to be lit. Such as ice cream. 

Who'd have thought that egg yolks, sugar and cream could combine to create an amazing piece of alchemy with the addition of cold? And that the simple addition of a double espresso to the above could create a really great coffee ice cream? of course I can say all the above because I have an ice cream maker. Without it all the beating involved would make the instant gratification part a total lie. 

I have to say that the rose water and pistachio meringues (from my ottolenghi recipe book) made with the left over egg whites were considerably less well-received. However, I'm inclined to think that was less to do with the cooking and more to do with the fact that rose water is a little too floral for most. That's hardly surprising I suppose - although saffron doesn't seem floral at all to me. Go figure.

But to paraphrase the aptly named (well for a food blog) Meatloaf, one out of two ain't bad. 

So that's it - a short post with absolutely no real relevance to the title of this blog. Though of course if I could rustle up a gelato, or even a semi-freddo under canvas, that truly would be a fireside feast.

Here's to better weather for outdoor culinary adventures soon.

Anything to escape washing up

As any of my sisters will tell you, as a boy I would do almost anything to wriggle out of doing the washing up. Nigel Slater may tell you that there is something very satisfying about it, but I say that's tosh. 

And when outdoors camping it can be even grimmer than usual: the water is generally tepid; the pans are more filthy than normal; and the light (assuming we're talking about after dinner) is so poor that only a reader of Braille can tell if something is actually dirty. Which leaves only the washer uppers. Whether grown ups or children attention to detail is at an all time low and quality control is zero. 

So in preparation for a family surf trip planned for later on in the month this weekend I was experimenting with edible crockery. Years ago I went to a cafe in Fishermans Wharf San francisco that served chowder in a hollowed out sourdough roll. That seemed quite wasteful as all the insides were torn out, so I experimented with what can only be described as a shaped pizza base.

Making up 250g of normal pizza dough (ie enriched with olive oil) I used some greased upside down ramekins as a mold. I varied the thickness of the dough to see what worked best: thin (about 1 cm deep); medium (2 cm) and thick (3cm).  I put them into a hot oven (240 deg) for 10 minutes, then took them off the ramekins, sparked some olive oil on the inside and returned them to the oven for another 10 or so minutes. This makes the inside more robust - vital unless all diners eat as quickly as I do. They seemed pretty robust, but in this case the proof of the pudding was literally in the eating.

The choice of filling seemed quite important:

- more gloopy than sloppy - anything too watery might sink through too quickly

- a meal in a bowl was required - these bowls don't come with matching saucers!

In the end I made a lamb and squash tagine.

The results? Well I have to say, not bad. They held a good quantity and more importantly lasted a good time. Long enough for two of us to have seconds.

As far as size goes, the thick version really was too thick - more of a loaf with a crater than a bowl. But the thin one was pretty much perfect for the job. The base held together and  meant that at the end it could be broken up and used to swipe the last few bits of tagine from the cooking pot (a bit of a double bonus in the washing up stakes I would say).

Clearly a work in process, but I think that cooking up a batch of these, freezing them and then using for that vital first night dinner when time is short and tempers shorter.  

Anyone else tried this and have any tips? The trip is with about 26 people - I don't think I can afford for it to go wrong!

Let me know. 

And finally, don't forget to sponsor me for the Royal Parks Half Marathon I'm running on October 7th in aid of Cancer UK.

The link is here.http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/Jim_and_Alex

Mer et terre

Say what you like about the French, but there's no denying that their attitude to food is very different to the British. 

Just back from a week in the Vendee and the differences are still fresh in my mind. Which is a good place to start really, because that's one of the really noticeable ones. Your average HyperU or Leclerc is a mega-temple for the worship of shopping, with aisle after aisle of every conceiveable kind of item you might want to buy. Shelf after shelf of graphic novels, next to litre jars on Nutella, followed by what can only be described as the most kitsch tableware ever seen. While deals and special offers scream out in every direction. 

Except the fresh food area. 

Here, the mood is more serious. The wet fish counter is nearly 5 metres wide, groaning under an amazing array of really fresh produce. Behind it 3 knowledgeable staff patiently work through the queue of demanding shoppers.

The veg area has barely anything per-packed; a pyramid of Charentaise melons is sniffed and prodded by old ladies with sharp eyes and sharper elbows; sacks of Demi-sec beans are given the once over by burly men with leathery hands and only a passing acquaintance of deodorant. 

People here know what they want and will take the time to get it. 

And what we wanted were simple things for holiday dinners. Fresh sardines from St Gilles Croix de Vie and some little prawn brochettes flavoured 'au curry' and 'a la Provencale'. 

And when we got back home, the French respect for food shone through again. The people next door had given us a huge bag of Mirabelles - small and incredibly sweet plums - freshly picked from their orchard. Despite the temperature, or perhaps because of it, I decided to make a crumble. Inspired by the gift, we tried to add something of our own, in the form of hazelnuts from the one useful tree we had in our garden.

I have to say that picking them in quantity is a pretty time-consuming process, matched only by the shelling. But once roughly chopped, they made a fantastic addition to the crumble topping. And the end result, served with vanilla ice cream was one of the best crumbles I've ever made.

Made even better by eating it outdoors under the summer stars.

When it comes to food, knowing what you want and taking the time to get it can make all the difference wherever you are and whoever you are. Non?

In praise of packaging

With the Olympics on, and so much fantastic sport to watch, cooking things quickly has become pretty important. 
So our meal last night took advantage of a lull in the stadium and the easy cook ability of seafood. It also took advantage of the fantastic ready made packaging of sweetcorn. Given the nature of this blog, my tv viewing can often seem like a collision between Masterchef and Survivor. But one of the people I really rate is Ray Mears - he seems to really care for his environment. A constant point he makes is the wastefulness of people in the outdoors with a particular loathing for the ubiquity of tin foil. But sweetcorn come with their own cooking packaging. 

Simply peel back the leaves, remove the hairs, then reapply the the leaves and soak the corn for at least an hour in water.  When your coals are hot, pop them onto the grill and carefully rotate them every few minutes. As the leaves get hot the water trapped in them will steam the corn, cooking it.  The corn should be done when all the leaves are uniformly charred. Carefully remove them, baste the cobs in oil then give them a final couple of minutes to give them some colour. We served them with some squid, lightly oiled and seasoned, then given a few minutes on each side until they are just done. Be careful though. Overcooking them will result in something not unlike Bradley Wiggin's tyre. The whole thing (soaking aside) took no longer than 15 minutes. That's not really going to scare Usain Bolt - but works for me.

Less of a torch, more of an Olympic bucket

Sometimes the quality of the cooking is less important than the time and place. 


Our efforts in the ticket lottery and the early morning card frenzy had yielded nothing for the opening ceremony so we'd decided to go for a weekend away at the start of the Olympics.


Which is how we found ourselves on a boat moored on an island in Malthouse Broad with the opening ceremony just a couple of hours away. 
Luckily we'd packed a humble bucket barbecue just in case. So with a beautiful sunset in the  making it was time for an impromptu barbecue followed by the opening ceremony on the flat screen TV on the boat (talk about all mod cons).

They are easy to start - just a couple of sheets of newspaper under the bottom plate and it acts like a giant starter unit.

Soon you'll have the coals you need and with a bit of prodding you should be able to arrange them so that you have a cool area to one side. You will need it. The thing about a bucket barbecue is that it's not really the most subtle of appliances. The steep sides direct the heat, so what you end up with is very very hot.



To be honest the food we cooked was hardly amazing: supermarket sausages and a butterflied pork joint with piri piri sauce, accompanied by corn on the cob (marinated in their plastic bag). 


Not bad, but not really in the same league as other things we've done.


But the surroundings and the moment were really memorable - the calm of the water and a truly beautiful sunset. And oddly, a really great place to watch the start of the Games. So with the sun going down, microwave popcorn on the table, we watched Danny Boyle's remarkable vision.

Is my butt smoking or what?

I've been reading a lot at the moment about restaurants like Pitt Cue and Bodean's serving pulled pork - slow roast and smoked,  so tender and juicy that it simply needs pulling apart rather than carving with a knife. A teeny bit of research (ie googling it for 5 minutes) revealed that what was needed is time. Lots and lots of time, preferably in a proper smoker.


So when the weather forecast unexpectedly indicated a whole day of dry weather and I'd tracked down a couple of examples of BBQ fiends achieving pretty good results with a bog-standard Weber, I thought I'd give it a go.


Ingredients
The websites I found urged me to accept nothing less than a bone-in Boston Butt (ooh er missus). This is half a shoulder of pork - about 3 kilos which seemed a little excessive for a family of four, even allowing for some leftovers for sandwiches. So I settled on 1.3 kg of boned and rolled shoulder.


I then marinaded this overnight with the following:
330ml of ale 
2 tbsp Worcester sauce
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp olive oli
Half a head of garlic - cloves peeled and smashed
2 tsp smoked paprika (hot)
1 smoked chipotle pepper - chopped
Fresh rosemary - chopped
Salt and pepper


I did what I always do which is bung everything in a freezer bag, add the meat, suck out the air with a straw and then close tightly with a tie. This makes sure that all the meat is in contact with marinade.


Weber set up
This requires indirect cooking at a lowish heat, so you need to set up the dividers in the Weber and place a deep drip tray between them half filled with water. This does two things - stops drips causing flare-ups and ensures the air inside the Weber stays moist.


Once you've started the coals in your chimney starter simply pour half onto each side. It's really important that you set the bottom vents correctly - slightly open. Too much air and the heat will be too intense - too little and the meat won't cook through.

The vents - slightly open

Drip tray and coals in place

You can always adjust the top vents, but ideally the bottom vent should stay the same throughout. You need at least 4 hours for this - so you may need to add more charcoal or briquettes - open the top vent until they have caught then close again.


Finally you need smoke. You can get hickory chips quite easily - but you must soak them for at least an hour. You'll need a few good handfuls - the more you add the smokier the flavour. Once the charcoal is ready - put a handful of chips on each pile of coals - pop the meat on the griddle, put the lid back on. Check you're smoking and not too hot (place your hand over the slightly open vent at the top - you should feel heat but not so much you have to take it away immediately) - then do something else.

Smokin'

In my case it was trying to tame the garden - but whatever you do, check occasionally. By that I mean every hour or so - not every few minutes - the more often the lid is opened, the more heat you'll lose. I put this piece on at about 2.45. and added extra wood chips three times. It was ready after about 6.15, but could have done with longer. I also added more coals about half way through and suspect that the temperature might have got too high when I was getting them to catch.


During the final hour I also made some coleslaw (which seems to be traditional) and turned the leftover marinade into barbecue sauce by putting it in a saucepan with a couple of tomatoes, some tomato puree and reducing it by about half. 

Not looking too inspiring

I rested the meat under foil and a tea towel for about 20 minutes. And this is what I found. to be honest it looked a bit overdone - and I think it was slightly.  But amazingly, it did pull apart with a fork and was really juicy - with a great smokey flavour.

But actually really delicious

 As always the acid test is the family - 8/10, 7.5/10, 7.5/10 and a 7/10 from me. 

 

Clearly this is not a dish if you're camping or in a hurry - but for a big gathering, I'd be tempted to do this again on a bigger scale - it has the same kind of greasy share-ability as a hog roast but with a much better flavour. And none of that horrible sweet apple sauce you so often get with these.

Sticks, chains and lashing in the garden

Let me be clear this post has nothing to do with S&M, so apologies for the racy title.


It's actually about building a campfire tripod from a few odds and ends. I have actually bought a proper metal version, but this is both heavy and expensive. So, fitting some new lights in the kitchen (also heavy and expensive) left about 3 metres of chain spare I wondered if there was some way I could use it.

3 poles, 2 hooks, 1 chain and a length of cord.

I also had a few metres of para-cord lurking in the camping kit. What I needed was something to attach the chain to tripod and the cooking pot to the chain. Two 100mm butchers hooks for £1.64 seemed to fit the bill - literally and metaphorically.

Like me, perhaps you were never a Boy Scout, but luckily the internet can show you a whole of places to learn how to tie a half hitch and then lash the 3 poles together using a figure of 8. Once that's done, it's simple to hook your chain onto it with one of the butchers hooks at the top and attach your pot to the bottom with the other. 


There are a couple of health warnings. Firstly, anyone who's seen Long Good Friday will know that butcher's hooks are very very sharp, so a good idea is to blunt them - either saw off the point or smack them hard with a big hammer. Secondly, wood of any shape will burn, as will nylon-based para-cord, so either make sure that your fire is small enough not to get close to either or regularly douse them in water.


I've made a slightly rustic video to demonstrate how to make it. No quiet vocal this time, instead a rather groovy blues riff - thanks to Ella and Geoff.

The total cost? About a fiver - except for the poles, though I think that they are pretty easy to find so long as you have a sharp camping knife. Well that's it for now.


But tomorrow look out for my attempt to cook pulled pork. The meat is already marinading in beer, smoked paprika, garlic, honey, rosemary, Worcester sauce and Smoked Chipotle pepper (thanks dad). All I need to do is make sure it cooks under the Weber lid.....for 7 hours!


Wish me luck.

What do the dutch know about pizza?

So after the cremation of the banana bread I decided it was time to try again with the Dutch oven, but this time with a little more finesse. 


Rather than trusting to the variability of wood I opted for the consistency of charcoal briquettes. Along with them I bought one of those chimney barbecue starters - from B&Q for £12.


So armed with these I set up a slightly ramshackle platform and started cooking. 


The video I made follows.  

Before anyone says anything - I'm sorry for the poor audio - next time I'll speak louder. I must also apologise for the woeful scripting and editing. Again, hopefully I'll get things a bit slicker.

What I won't apologise for is the pizza - it really did taste great.  As food for the great outdoors goes it's got some good points: most of the ingredients can be easily bought tinned or dried; it's flexible so you can make good substitutions if needed, and it's nice to be able to cook something outdoors that doesn't automatically involve grilling the life out of something.

So that's it, applying a controllable source of heat to a Dutch oven, gives you the ability to cook things way, way, beyond what you'd expect from an open fire or barbecue.

So my advice - if you're camping soon (in the much anticipated Indian Summer!) buy yourself  one of these cast iron monsters and give it a whirl.

Finally, if you're enjoying this blog, then please sponsor me in the Royal Parks Half Marathon here. 

Thanks for reading (and commiserations for viewing).

Is rib of beef the ultimate fireside feast?

"You're going to spend £50 on a piece of beef and then burn it?" 


The butcher was clearly dubious about our plans. But no matter, after a number of phone calls, over 2 kilos of prime beef rib on the bone was ours. We bought from Hennessy's on the Northcote Road - they know their meat and they are great people to chat to (even if they are sceptical about cooking on an open fire). Four ribs worth of beautiful marbled loveliness.


Saturday dawned, and as the day progressed so too did the debate about the best way to cook this frankly unwieldy object. In the end it was agreed that two, 2 rib pieces would be the best formation for an open fire.


Next up - the marinade. So many people simply take a piece of beef from the fridge and put it straight in the pan or on the grill. 


Heresy. 


Your beef (or any other kind of meat for that matter) needs to be at room, or tent, temperature. So even if you don't marinade - take your meat out of the coolbox at least an hour before cooking. We marinated as well. It's hard to be precise, camp cooking is all about using what's available. We had half a bottle of red wine, some onions, garlic and Worcester sauce. The only thing big enough to hold them was the washing up bowl. Fair enough

So after a couple of hours, the meat was up to tent temperature (quite cold really) and we had what my friend Brett calls a 'good ember base'. The only bad news was that we also had steady rain. 

So aided by a comedy ladybird umbrella manfully three of us put the ribs on the griddle and let it grill for some 30 minutes, turning regularly. We also basted it with butter - probably not great for your cholesterol levels - and created a few flare-ups

Never stick a knife into food to test its readiness - press it with your finger. If it resists, it's probably well-done; if there is some give but it bounces back then you're looking at rare-ish. 

Finally, let it rest. Wrap in foil and let it sit for at least 15 minutes. That's what makes it tender and juicy. The result? I'm afraid I have no photographic evidence - but not a scrap was left.  And given we we feeding 15, the price of £50 didn't seem so steep. We were also lucky in that the campsite had a large barn with tables and benches we could set table under cover.

Cooking in the rain is one thing. Eating in the rain is entirely another.

But what's your favourite dish? 

Leave me a comment and I'll cook it.