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tonight was a series of high temperature bakes starting with: 1. levain chocolate chip cookies. baked on two levels. https://www.joshuaweissman.com/post/levian-chocolate-chip-cookies this was underbaked but i finished them in the oven. tastes good, but tastes better from the original levain bakery in nyc. 2. originally we planned on making pizza using vito's double poolish dough, but we changed it up to turkish pide. this was the wrong dough to use. i need a thinner, less leavened dough. although i took the kk to 550, i pushed it to 650 because it was just taking so long. at the end, i think i will leave these types of bakes for the wood fired pizza oven. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Hd6ZzKgBM 3. sourdough loaf. didn't want to deal with ice cubes so i used my trusty ceramic cloche. not enough clearance on the upper level so i used the main level grate with the baking stone underneath. came out ok. bottom got charred a bit. probably would have been avoided using upper grate..

Non Americans like me find the concept of chicken fried steak just plain weird. That said, I had the chance to get my own back with this recipe. We have these really lovely chickens from Italy that drip a really lovely yellow fat when when they are being cooked. I collect it up and there it is in the bowl to the right in the picture below. My very own chicken fried schnitzel is actually fried in chicken schmaltz. Yay! The fixings in the big white bowl to the front are what you find in a Caesar salad, including anchovies. Schnitzel frying. I was going to grill the lettuce on the 16KK but it took too long to heat up and I ended up cooking it on a griddle in the IDK. Yummy salad. Super tasty chicken fried schnitzel and grilled Caesar salad. Making me hungry.

I am mad about a couple of chefs in Wales - Nathan Davies of SY23 and Gareth Ward at Ynyshir. Gareth is my meat hero. My visit to his restaurant a couple of years ago and his subsequent feedback got me ageing a lump of sirloin for 198 days. It was delicious! I am now looking forward to visiting SY23 which is run by Nathan who used to work for Gareth. We rarely eat out because we can cook and eat and drink much better at home but I am sure that Nathan's restaurant will be worth the pilgrimage. He mentioned in an interview that the best thing on his menu is turbot cooked over fire, Basque style. I could not resist. I had a "spare" turbot in the freezer and so I hunted down the clamp that he uses to cook his. Here it is cooked over wood fire on my, sorry the Husband's, Argentinian barbecue. I don't like the fact that the wood burns with a lot of smoke in the Argentinian BBQ and so I burned the logs to embers in my Solo stove first and then transferred them to the Argentinian BBQ. First time trying that and it worked well. Cooked the sides in my 23 KK And ate at table with good friends the Dr and Mrs RokDok. It was soooo tasty. Nice smoky turbot, picked over by hand. Recipe? Didn't really use one but I took inspiration from Lennox Hastie and this recipe online: https://www.seriouseats.com/basque-style-grilled-whole-turbot Great to break away from treating turbot like a sacred piece of fish that can only be served on a fancy plate with a fancy sauce. The clamp is super good. Allows you to cook and turn the fish without sticking to the grate. Will take a pic of the clamp in the 32 in daylight so you can see how it fits. Hurrah.

Feast to famine! Took advantage of the weather yesterday (cooler than the 62F we had on Saturday, but I could have done without the tornadoes - 7 dead, including 2 kids! 😢) to do a nice Prime Sirloin. Direct, lower grate, mesquite wood chunks. Plated with a nice 2x baked spud, sauteed mushrooms and chimichurri sauce. Nice side salad of cherry tomatoes - the yellow ones are off my hydroponic plant! So now to the famine part. This is what I woke up to this morning! Welcome to Springtime in Iowa! Folks, THIS is why you buy a cover for your KK!

That's cool David. I rate those chicken butts like I do the hard no-meat part of the wing. It taste better overdone and crispy. But I wouldn't want to make a meal of it. On the other hand, the picanha looks delicious.

a guest of mine asked for grilled chicken ass. i never refuse a challenge.. and grilled picanha for the first time today . it was delicious..

I started with a full basket and after 14 and a half hours, this is how much it burned. An interesting tidbit is that I used a Looftlighter to start the coals right in the front center. That's the only spot I lit. As you can see, it burned from center to the left. I had a controller/fan for the cook. Lots of smoke wood didn't get ignited but I allowed for that by covering the top of the lump with smoke wood since I'm never sure which way the fire will burn. The brisket had a great smokey flavor.