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Early anniversary dinner, screw going out. 8 times out of ten I’m thinking I could have made something better at home. Only thing is the cleanup, I’m exhausted! Those oysters were monstrous and delicious. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Couple of racks of baby back pork ribs. 225F for first 2hrs. 275F last 2 hrs. Pulled glazed and wrapped in foil. KK smoke worked great and used my rechargeable pump . Yeah, someone will see in this cook setup, I used the stones for indirect deflectors. They are far enough away from firebox on lower grate, I have not noticed any difference compared to foil and pan. Will do some beef ribs and a 7hr cook and try the foil and pan at 300F and see if there is any difference. IMG_1986.mov

Rotisserie lamb, dirty rice, Mediterranean salad, tadziiki

Hope the Easter Bunny was good to all y'all! 🐰 Easter lamb dinner here - tenderloins, direct @ 325F. Plated, with rosemary & garlic roasted potatoes and haloumi "fries" (cheese coated in crumbs and baked), side salad, and nice Merlot.

I was inspired by @remi cook of my Peruvian polo a la brass so decided to make it tonight. Never disappoints @tony bi ate at a good Peruvian place yesterday and struck up a conversation with the chef who asked me where I sourced ingredients in San Diego…told him I grow my aji Amarillo and we got to discussing the Peruvian green sauce…the real stuff used a herb called Huacatay and I purchase a plant yesterday https://thegrowers-exchange.com/products/huacatay?variant=40098478522449&currency=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&utm_campaign=gs-2019-12-19&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj-iu7pTDhQMV0MzCBB1mJQ-HEAQYASABEgLDnfD_BwE I am going to make it my mission to nail down the authentic version of this sauce this year. The jalapeño substitute is fine but the real deal is so much better. This chef used jarred Huacatay but he asked me to bring him the real stuff along with my fresh aji Amarillo which I’ve already started growing this week….stay tuned for updates but I’m gonna figure this out this year….going to Peru for two week over Christmas so I will get this “Peruvian crack” recipe nailed down this year

Flat iron, carrots, air fryer potatoes

My parents are visiting us and the kids from interstate. Whipped up @Troble’s Polla a la Brasa on the Roti, with pickles, coleslaw, roasted smashed potatoes, salad and green sauce. A big hit as always! IMG_8326.MOV

smoked dry rub ribs from the hybrid aged pork rack. i ate a few pieces and took a nap..😴

Happy Easter All! Yummy day of eating here. White sprouting broccoli and blue cheese tart. Japanese black cod. First time cooking it on the KK. Lost the skin but the flesh was much moister than it normally is when cooked under the grill indoors. Cooking one steak well done for our guest. Apple pie chaser.

Most of the time, if I’m doing “2-zone” in the 23, I’m fudging indirect by grilling on the main grate with a full basket below and with or without a sheet of foil on the middle grate. Then remove those grates and go low for the sear. Not a true 2-zone, but distance squared works pretty well. Turns out I used to do rocket science. I wish the rocket folks would think a bit more, and the grilling folks think a bit less.

Low and slow sauce making on the 32. The first is a simple beef ragu that I cooked for eight hours and the second is some soffritto that cooked for four hours. The latter came off the KK at close to midnight, too late for me to care about taking any more pics! And yes, there is a lot of olive oil in that soffritto. It takes on an amazing flavour from the vegetables and imparts a lovely unctuousness to the ragu di corte that I will be making next.

Had some family over for dinner tonight. Cranked out a Bistecca Fiorentina for the adults (each steak around 900gram)… sausages and burgers for the kids. Made some home made chips, salad, some no-knead bread… amazing. Everyone happy.

The brassero is good for long/big cooks, especially if (like me) you're not good at estimating how much wood you'll need. I like my grill design over Santa Maria store grills since the high back and sides help block the wind while the fold-down front makes it easier to play with the fire and is handy for cleaning ash out. I'm not sure how much heat retention is helped by the fire brick since I've not cooked without them, but the grill definitely holds heat well. The tilted Argentinian-style grates are nice but do make grilling hot dogs more difficult! This is still my favorite way to cook.

i used my rib rack for the first time today. i've had it sitting in my shed since i bought the 19. i don't think it was made for beef ribs, but i couldn't get the single bones to stand up without falling over. i also used wood chunks right on the coals. still works great this way and less hassle.. used only half a basket of charcoal and for almost 8 hours i only burned through half that. what a charcoal miser..

So I did the jerk chicken cook yesterday. The smoke pot filled with Pimento wood, Pimento leaves and allspice berries worked great! I did the marinade as mentioned and I think I need to kick up the seasoning and flavor a bit. Otherwise the texture and cook went very well in spite of the very crappy weather here yesterday!!! I look forward to continuing to work on the marinade and seasoning. Cheers, IMG_4468.mov

Turkey Breast top grate 325F pulled at 158F wrapped in foil and butter. This time tried stone deflectors on lower grate for indirect cook and seemed to work fine as they are still far from fire box and top grate. Also used KK cold smoker which worked great with rechargeable pump. Deep crust came from mayo binder under rub. Not very thick however, they cooked very fast and crust did not set well. Perhaps a lower temp and longer would have worked better.

dinner from last night. didn't bother putting on a plate just ate off the baking sheet..

Don’t think you understand. It’s not a question of whether you’re actively making bread. It’s a question of…do you have this toy, just in case. 😈 Here is today’s loaf of 40% fresh milled white sonora which will be going to my wife’s co-worker. She happens to have prolific chickens, so we’ve been the recipients of excess eggs. Quid pro quo.

@MacKenzie yep, it is Celsius:-) you can actually see it was close to that temperature (590° Celsius) when I did the photo. Highest I got on the Gozney Dome was 640° Celsius so far. To achieve this it needs to be fueled with wood though. Propane gets it to something like 400° Celsius "only". This things burns like a hellfire... 👹 @David Chang old Dome. I am very satisfied with it. Attached some more pictures of earlier pizza sessions last year. It's really fun cooking pizza with the oven.

We raise our own beef, pork & chicken, so some sort of meat is almost always on the menu. We also live in the middle of nowhere and love pizza, so I'm usually making that once a week, along with baking all sorts of breads. With that has come an accumulation of assorted outdoor cooking appliances that includes two gas grills, two vertical smokers, an offset smoker, a pig roaster, a BBQ pit, and a cold smoke shack. While sitting out back enjoying my morning coffee the other day, I was suddenly reminded of an old Frank Lloyd Wright quote that sticks in my head; that "many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions", and while far from being wealthy, let's just say that I had an epiphany at that moment, as a comfortably retired janitor. I had already primed wife number last that we might be able to include some sort of pizza oven in a planned addition and backyard makeover this year, but the outdoor kitchen part of the project was growing out of control. Her sister had purchased one of those egg things, that I immediately dismissed as ridiculously small and impractical, but she enjoys cooking with it, so I sensed a bit of sibling rivalry a brewin'. Our assorted cooking gear was mostly older stuff that was not particularly efficient, nor especially fun to cook with, so I was already secretly planning on replacing a smoker or three, as well as a roaster, but here's the thing. A value line offset smoker for my brisket, by the time I mod it out and upgrade some particulars, was gonna run close to a grand, and if I wanted something much larger or more efficient, I was very quickly going to be looking at spending several thousand dollars for something that was still gonna run me ragged when I smoke. The small pig roaster is an older eye sore, but it works, and here again, any sort of acceptable replacement is more good money after bad in terms of still taking up space for a fairly singular use appliance. The big ass gas grill has pretty much always been nothing special beyond being a convenient way to cook outside of the kitchen, 'cuz I mean, what's so special about gas cooked meal, the grill marks? And then there's the pizza oven. Building it is within my skill set, but the older I get, the more stingy I've been getting with my time. The alternative of course is to just buy one, but here again, anything that'll do a decent job on a 16" pie is going to start at another thousand dollars and up, so where does this leave me? "Look honey, that new Old Country offset smoker is gonna be two grand with crating and shipping from Texas" (we're in Delaware) "And a decent pizza oven is gonna be another $1,000, for something that's gonna look kinda cheap and just sits on a counter". "Carl's Hot Box pig roaster is another $1,500 by the time we add all of the doodads and have it shipped," (a friend makes and sells them) "And a decent sized ceramic Kamado Joe is three grand, plus almost another $1,000 for a rotisserie, a pizza cooking attachment, and assorted geegaws. All of that for grill space that can only hold one brisket or a single large pizza." "That's over $8,500 to basically do little more than we can do already, but wait!" "We (this is part of the psychological warfare, where I turn 'Me' into 'We') can buy this here Komodo Kamado Big Bad that can cook twice as much food with a whole lot less hassle, AND you get to pick from all of these amazing colors and finishes, AND it'll save us over a thousand dollars!". "Best of all, it's a whole lot nicer than that silly egg thing that your sister bought at Lowes. You know, the one that's exactly like a million others on patios all over the country..." "The garden club girls are gonna die!" "I can sell all of this other crap while we're at it." "How can we not buy this?!" Yeah, this is not a luxe item, this is just common sense (or at least that's how I'm trying to sell it). lol Not a want, but a need. lol Anywho, looking forward to ordering one up later this spring, but first I have to build a place to put it. :)

Decided to cook up some pork roasts, i slice them and vac seal for later use. Great for sandwiches and salads. 250 for 2 and a half hours or so, until internal temp is 140 or 145. Then a nice long rest before slicing, they stay really moist and tender.

made a pizza for lunch with spicy salsiccia. i'm not a fan of the donut pillow cornicione but i need to remember cold dough doesn't want to stretch as much...

Thanks @Tyrus. I looked up "burning olive leaves" and got lots of hits for Cypriots burning olive leaves to ward off evil spirits. That would seem to tie in with your view about acrid smoke - evil spirits are unlikely to like a cloud of smoke coming at them. I might just abandon that idea without ever trying it!

Sourdough English Muffins with 10% fresh milled spelt. No idea what these are called in England. Muffins? Crumpets? Little hunks o’ bread? I should look that up.

First I must compliment Jeff for the great pics and display for what his grill is capable of...good show and that's an understatement. On the flip side though I use mine for much smaller cooks or I'll have the Kamado helping me with another entree'. When I first started out looking I had in mind something smaller, versatile and capable of doing it all. I use wood, lump coal and briquettes depending on what I'm preparing, but generally I'm tossing in wood over the top in moderate amounts because my roof line is close & made of a polycarbonate overlap. I only use on most occasions one or two grate sections or a small fire centered below when using the roto, on some occasions I've used both...however nothing like Jeff is doing although if he'd let me borrow it for a weekend I know I'd love it too. So here are a couple of pics, they're self explanatory but show the roto and coal bed grate on mine, sorry I should have done so beforehand. So, they all acomplish the task, they get you to the finish line, just in different ways.

made some sauteed carabineros sauced in its own head fat and a5 yakitori's. the taste of these prawns is out of this world. it comes pre-seasoned from the sea, meaning you don't need any salt...

I'm hoping to rotisserie roast a whole hog for a family gathering this summer, but since I'd never done one I decided to do a practice pig. I ordered a 70 to 80 lb one from a local meat shop last week with the plan to pick it up Wednesday afternoon, dry brine it overnight, and have it roasting by 10 am yesterday (Thursday). My brother and I went to pick it up and things went a bit awry: not only was the pig 93 lbs - it was also frozen solid. Evidently, the supplier didn't have any pigs ready to slaughter in the sight range I'd requested, so they sent the closest thing they had. The front legs were frozen straight out by the head and the hind legs were straight out from the back of the pig so it didn't fit in any of the coolers we had available so we loaded it in the back of my pickup truck and carried it home. It was wrapped up tight in plastic; when we got it home, we suck it in a couple of industrial garbage bags (one over the front end and the other over the back end tapped the open ends of the bags together with duct tape, and lugged it upstairs and dumped it in the bathtub on top of a tarp, then filled the tub with cold water. My brother got to my house before 8 am Thursday morning and the pig was thawed so we lugged it back downstairs and opened up the plastic to discover that the pig has been butterflied - very good if you're wanting to smoke it in a smoker or open pit, but not for spit roasting. The spine had even been split open on the inside so it would lay nice and flat. We cleaned it up and washed it, then seasoned the inside and got it on the spit the best we could, tying it on with heavy twine. Neither of us is good with knots so we tied a lot. Got the motor mounted on the spit and the spit on the tripods. It was very damp here so I started two chimneys of lump charcoal to establish a good bed of coals while my brother applied soy sauce to the pig's skin. When the charcoal was burning good, I dumped it in the fire pit, added hickory, and we started up the rotisserie at around 9:15 am (about the same time a couple of cousins showed up to help). Most of the pig was done by 4:45 pm or so, so we stopped the rotisserie and focused on getting heat on the areas that weren't quite to temperature. We took it away from the fire about 5:15 pm and let the pig rest while I hunted for a 10 mm wrench to remove the spine clamp; the wrench had evidently wandered off on is own adventure after I'd used it that morning. Due to the pig being butterflied, it flopped around a lot and because of that and shrinkage, we had to stop and add additional twine to secure the pig to the spit. Also, with the legs tied up stretched out in front and behind the pig, the pig was wider than the firepit so the legs didn't cook very well. We also burned a few patches of skin. I had invited friends and family to come by and get pork to go; the general consensus was that it was very tasty except for the burnt patches of skin and the undercooked legs. I fire up the big grill to finish up the legs after most everyone has left. So, the verdict: I think things went pretty well considering it was my first attempt; I certainly learned a lot. A lot of the issues we encountered were due to the pig being frozen and butterflied; I have some ideas for handling those issues if they reoccur. I think we can handle the undercooked legs by bringing the hind legs up under the pig to shorten up the total length instead of leaving them stretched out behind. Oh - we also had a major grease fire when the oil in the propane deep fryer my brother was using to fry french fries at lunch caught fire, but that's another story. We also had a few rain events and some pretty strong wind gusts, plus a tornado warning after the cook was done. PXL_20240411_150948483.TS.mp4 PXL_20240411_172236138.TS.mp4 PXL_20240411_183900220.TS.mp4

I had a severe craving for a nice sandwich yesterday. The scratch that cured the itch... roast beast, turkey, hard salami, swiss cheese, onions, tomatoes, olive tapenade, oil and vinegar, on pumpernickel. A nice cucumber tomato salad on the side.

i don't understand pan pizza, but here is an attempt at it. it did not taste like pizza hut..

Recent loaf of whole grain sourdough, don’t laugh but I made that for my dentist. They made me some spaghetti sauce that was absolutely amazing!!!!!

Top rack, even with lip, not upper rack. 235 till 165 then wrap and pull off at 202 degrees. But at last count there are 3427 different ways to cook brisket 😁

Even these upmarket supermarket muffins don't look anywhere as tempting as yours @Pequod. For reference, some crumpets. Great when dripping with butter.

Those are definitely English muffins @Pequod and they look delicious! I now have a craving. Will get you a pic of a crumpet when I next make it to the supermarket. Crumpet is also slang for a good looking lady but I won't be posting a pic of her!

@Tyrus You're welcome to borrow mine sometime, but it's over 800 lbs with the fire brick installed and is a pain to move unless it's on some sort of pavement! When I ordered it, I intended to cook with charcoal mostly and wood occasionally but that hasn't happened - I've used a chimney of charcoal to get a jump start on getting the wood started a few times but the vast majority of cooks have been totally with wood. The chicken in the pics with the stuffed peppers and skewered veggies was done over oak and was the best chicken I've ever had. Lots of excellent steaks and pork chops as well. I did hamburgers and hot dogs for a big family cookout a few years ago and had numerous attendees ask what hamburger I used and I was honest with them (frozen members mark burgers from Sam's Club, with Worcester sauce, salt, and pepper), but they thought I was holding out on them - the "secret" was grilling them over oak wood.

Yippee. Vaccuum sealing and fermenting chillis do go together, radically reducing the risk of taste tainting yeasts. So, there is a West African restaurant in London called Ikoyi and they have this recipe for fermenting chillis: Lacto-fermented scotch bonnet chillies (makes 400g) 500g scotch bonnet chillies, halved and deseeded 10g fine salt Mix the chillies and salt in a large vacuum-seal bag and toss well to distribute the salt. Make sure the chillies are evenly spaced out in a single layer. Seal the bag on full and leave to ferment for seven days at 24-28°C (75-82°F). If the bag has expanded too far, “burp” out the air by making a small incision and then reseal. Once the chillies have reached a sour, fragrant and meaty flavour profile, store them in an airtight container in the fridge and use within two months. I have tried it out and got these: They are tasty fermented scotch bonnet chillis that you can eat, sparingly, with your food. Their book also has a recipe for a hot sauce which will use these fermented scotch bonnets as an ingredient but you first have to ferment some blended chillis (I used longer, less hot chillis for this) for a couple of weeks. Watch this space. I am hoping for a delicious fermented sauce at the end of all of this.

Hey @tekobo your post made me laugh….I too have a hard time comprehending @Syzygies post and find myself reading them over so I can hopefully understand and learn from them!!!! Both of your post made me think of many topics for discussion. I’ll comment on a few of them. Freezing masa / tamale dough. I tried an experiment once where I froze a small quantity of prepared masa for tamales……my results at the time were NOT favorable. If my memory serves me right it seems like the texture was funky / not like it was before and I never went that way and scrapped that idea. Freezing tortillas, I do this often with our family tortilla recipe which uses flour and cornmeal and they are fine this way…not as good as fresh but still very good. I have not done this with homemade masa tortillas but am intrigued to try this knowing you’ve had success with this. Tamales - Fully made tamales freeze well. Our standard family recipe calls for 7lbs of masa and we yield about 100-120 tamales from this. We will vacuum seal these and if you steam them when reheating they are almost as fresh as when coming out of the original kettle. Masa is pretty forgiving so I think there is a pretty good range of viscosity that will still yield good tamales. Many years ago (mid 1970’s) my father went to Mexico to visit family. During the visit we learned a trick that we believe makes our masa lighter / or more fluffy. I will cook a cup of rice in microwave with a higher ratio of water to rice then typical. We also add some beef boullion to the water. Once done we add a little more water and blend this and add this straight into the masa. Don’t tell my family I shared this secret with you!!! I also have a recipe for taking fresh sweet corn, cooking and making this into a masa of sorts for a sweet tamale…..still working on this one but just shows you wide ranges of corn for making masa. Tamale fillings - Yes you can put pretty much anything you want for filling in these. We have done a number of different fillings, but it always seems like the family favorite is pork that is pan fried and cooked in homemade mole sauce. One funny story is that many years ago I was watching an episode of one of Anthony Bourdain’s travel food shows where he is somewhere in Mexico. In the episode (that is somewhat tequila fueled) Anthony is sampling an Iguana tamale….with a tail sticking out of the end of it…..he leans into the camera and quietly says……this is the worst tamale I have ever eaten!!!! Buying me a McLauren Spider……..Ha Ha. Many years ago we had a school / church auction in which we put up a Mexican dinner for a party of 6 that ended up in the voice auction. I was a little apprehensive ……thinking that it would fetch maybe $250 - $500….. I was shocked that we sold it for $1,200 and because it did so well they immediately asked if I would do it again….we ended up selling 2 more at $1,200 so we raised $3,600 for the kids….so to speak! Needless to say I felt very much under pressure to cook a much larger menu than I was originally thinking. No I could not cook up a meal worthy of a McLauren Spider……but hey if you want to send me one I will not turn you down!!! On a bit of a high today, as we had a video call to meet our first grandchild as my daughter lives out of state! Looking forward to meeting her soon!!! All the best, Paul

Did some drumsticks on the KK this evening and I bought an order of fries from a fast food place when I was in town this afternoon. Heated the fries up in the air fryer. They were good but not as good as when fresh from the fast food place but better than frozen fries. This one is for you, Tony.

I ended up just brining the ham for two days instead of curing it. Sliced it up for soup and sandwiches. I requested the butcher leave the ham whole which was a mistake. Next time I'll have him quarter it to make the process a bit more manageable. Trying to work with a 20lb ham isn't all that easy.

Sorry... I just saw that the picture I shared before actually did not show the temperature... Here you go

humm, i'm not sure what breed it is but it's called bangelow sweet pork from australia. this is the only chilled pork rack of this size i can find. everything else is frozen or from china. so i decided to crack her open today. broke her down to skin, rib-eye, and bone rack. it basically tastes like dry aged pork with the taste of beef tallow. it's very good .. .

As I’ve been telling the young engineers I work with, you know it’s time to retire when you walk around an Air & Space museum and keep thinking, “I remember working on that…” 😳

You couldn't resist, could you? If I had done rocket science I would tell everyone about it too!

Pizza cooked in a Gozney Dome at 625 degrees... Celsius:)

@C6Bill Your formula yields a handsome and tasty loaf, but alas, the tang still eludes me . . .

In between bouts of rain and sunshine, and with a bunch of decent sport on the tv, today was jerk chicken day. Marinaded overnight in Kenji's jerk chicken marinade recipe, then cooked high in the dome on a bed of bay leaves and allspice berries at 200C until more or less done, then charred on the main grate to get the skin crisp. Handful of bay leaves and allspice berries thrown on the fire every 15 mins to get the right smoke profile for jerk. Served with rice & peas and corn on the cob. 2 photos: most of the way through smoke to show the bed of leaves, and the finished tray of chicken.

Hey Tony, I was able to source the Pimento wood right from Amazon. It’s pretty pricey but for my smoking pot I don’t use a lot so I pretty much have a 10 years supply…..unless I end up opening up a Jerk Shack!!! Cheers

I’ll stick with the opinion of the guy who designed it. But that’s just my opinion lol

That pork rack looks lovely, David.

Bringing back an old thread. I’ve never really made Jerk Chicken and after a trip to Jamaica last month it inspired me to work on making Jerk. In reading through some of the threads here I decided to start with an approach / recipe by @tony b. I’ve picked up some Walkerswood paste and plan to add water and dark rum. I’ve also ordered some pimento wood, leaves and berries (aka allspice) and plan to put into the smoker pot. I’m planning to target 350F indirect until mostly cooked thru and then finishing over direct coal to add char / crust. I’m also thinking of another approach / version in which I would add marinade & SV cook & then freeze so that I can easily finish on a direct grill for a remote Canada fishing trip. I’m looking for some input and suggestions for both of these planned cooks. Also, planning to cook bone in skin on chicken thighs. Ya Mon!

Thanks for posting this link Paul. I have used a cast iron smoke pot for years but rarely make the dough ring to seal the top. I have guiltily watched the smoke leaking out of the top, realising that my unsealed pot wasn't fulfilling @Syzygies design intent of pushing the smoke down into the coals to burn off the "bad stuff". I ordered my own little pot and am just waiting for a good opportunity to smoke something. Kudos also to @Cheesehead_Griller as I think it was he who originally suggested this style of pot. I will report back once I have tried it out myself.