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.

Banana bread unplugged

Given that my sister has recently baked Jade Jagger's wedding cake, you might think that I could have some genetic affinity in the cake department. No.

But even with my poor record in this area I was keen to see if you could indeed, bake cakes in a Dutch oven. I thought I would start with something simple and with a teeny bit of goodness - banana bread.

I decided on a recipe I found on Jamie Oliver's website recipe, but added a bunch of chocolate chips we found lurking in one of the food boxes instead of the nuts the recipe calls for.

I made up the dry ingredients at home then bunged the mix in a freezer bag. So, come Saturday afternoon in the South Downs it was time to make cake. I mashed up 3 bananas and added them to 2 beaten eggs and the 1/2 cup butter (I guessed this - about half of a normal pat of butter). I melted the latter in the bread tin on the fire to save washing up (always important when clean hot water can be hard to find), then mixed all the ingredients together. You need mix everything together very gently - otherwise the bananas go very rubbery  - so go easy. Then bung the mix in the bread tin.

Having googled dutch oven baking it seems that a crucial point is to remove the baking pan from direct heat, so I found 4 bits of brick to act as feet under the baking tin. I chose brick rather than stone, because some stones like flint can explode when heated - at least with brick you know where you are. 

I then placed the bread tin on the brick feet, put the lid on the Dutch oven, then placed the oven in the firepit over a few embers and heaped some burning pieces of wood on the lid.

Using wood rather than charcoal or even better, charcoal briquettes, makes it really hard to gauge temperature. What you want is a steady moderate heat. What I got was something more like a mini version of the Wicker Man. After 45 minutes I had a soggy middle and a 'well done' outer. 15 minutes later - the skewer came out clean. After I had pierced a thick carapace of carbon.

After the hour

After 45 minutes

Once I dug the cake from the tin (which is pretty much ruined) and hacked off the burnt parts (removing about a third of its mass) the end result was pretty tasty. Not rubbery - but light and moist (a good word in cakes, a bad in the weather we had which was shocking). And, it all got eaten, which with an audience including 9 children, is no bad result I reckon.

And next time I will use charcoal or charcoal briquettes - and see if that takes the guess work out. 

Or maybe I should just ask my sister to do it?

Any of you, any tips on Dutch oven baking? Let me know.