tekobo

Thanks @MacKenzie The ragu di corte turned out super tasty.

I forgot to respond to this point about olive trees being expensive. Mine was free! A friend gave it to me many years ago because she thought it needed to be in a greenhouse. It was taking up too much space after a couple of years and so I planted it outdoors in the garden. It hasn't looked back and keeps reaching for the sky. Our escapologist cat used to tut at my husband whenever he pruned the tree to keep the kitties from using it as a bridge to the outside world. What's even better than home grown olive wood? Single varietal smoking apple wood chips, that's what! I had a good giggle, thinking about labelling up bags of apple chips with the name of the variety, the tree's pet name and selling them at a premium to people with more money than sense.

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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.

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

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!

I think you are right about the olive wood that we chipped @Tyrus. I will keep shaking the bucket and it should be dry quite quickly. As you can see from the picture above, the wood that we harvested is a relatively small haul. Just one cook's worth I reckon. I was going to throw away the leafy twigs on the right but I am wondering if they would do well on the fire once dried. I love the idea of food flavoured with a wonderful, gentle Mediterranean smell.

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!

That sounds great @skoell! I suspect I can smoke the wood chips sooner than I can burn the logs. Looking forward to that.

Yeah, I am thinking it is a candidate for the smoke pot @Tyrus. When you used the grape vine cuttings @Syzygies, were they fresh off the tree? From what I can find online it sounds like I need to leave the wood to cure for 6-12 months before burning it. Not a problem although that will mean I cannot report back on this thread for about another year. We also cut some apple and other fruit trees on the allotment so we will have some fruit wood to try out to. Looking forward to seeing if it makes a difference to the flavour of the food.

We (my husband) did a severe prune on our olive tree last weekend. I rescued the larger branches and we ran them through the wood chipper to make chips for low and slow in the KK. We kept a few pieces to dry and use in the wood fired oven. Has anyone else got experience of using olive wood for cooking or smoking? From what I can glean from the internet it should be good for lighter meats like chicken and pork.

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.

Sounds interesting. I have some wagyu fat I haven't figured out what to do with. Maybe beef fat fried chips/fries? How do you render your tallow?

I suspect you have taken off more fat than you need to @David Chang. I tended to have a bit of a fat cap left on the few briskets that I have cooked and that helped with the taste too. I just did a search for an Aaron Franklin brisket prep and he cleans the underside off well but leaves a fat cap on top. Is that the same for you or are both sides of your brisket clear of fat per your photos above?

Shame to have to box up such a pretty thing. Maybe they can offer an update that lets you turn the light off.

This site talks about the use of Huacatay in the green crack sauce. You need to scroll down to H to see their recipe. Looking forward to trying it (and @troble's variations) out. https://www.realseeds.co.uk/herbs.html

Perfect! I am just sowing my seeds here in the UK so I will track down some Huacatay and maybe the Aji Amarillo so that I have the ingredients ready for when you reveal your new and improved recipe. I do already have a LOT of chilli plants underway so I am less sure about the Aji but we'll see if we can fit that in. Looking forward to joining you on this journey!

Not at all. The genesis of my plan to go to my local bakery was seeing an ad for sourdough starter from California. "Wow" I thought, Tartine starter, here in my kitchen. And then I came back to the real world and realised it made much more sense to walk the five minutes to our bakery, get theirs and start using it asap with no yeast or other intermediate stage. Good to see that the KK shopping channel still lives. Congrats on your purchase.

Beautiful loaf @Pequod. I still think you need to learn Italian - Bonci is a genius. I am holding fast at the edge of this rabbit hole, nose twitching. For some people, not at all. I do need longer intervals between feeding because I am not always around and/or I don't bake or eat bread as often as I used to. I suspect a very important variable is the viability (or not) of my starter. We have a good sourdough bakery nearby and I think I will go and ask for some of their starter when I decide to get back on the sourdough horse. Until then, I look forward to hearing what others make of this interesting tool.

Wow @CaptMorg82! Marry me!

That is odd but it may be that semantics do matter. I can light my KK but if the fire doesn't take properly I can come back in 10-20 minutes to a cold KK. When you say half the charcoal basket was lit, was it actually burning away and then just stopped? Yes, getting the quality of cook that you are looking for is indeed a big part of what matters but we do worry about other stuff too - we wouldn't own a KK if we didn't care about getting good quality and service. If my KK was using too much lump or didn't hold a steady temperature I would worry. I don't worry about uneven burn and actually like the fact that I can light the charcoal in one spot, get to the temp that I want, snuff the fire out and come back the next day to a largely unburnt basket.

That's super exciting. Congratulations. The only blessing or wish I can offer is that she should grow up to love and enjoy food. Look how much fun we get to have!

You are a bad bad boy @PQ! I have looked this up. Good reviews. Expensive in the UK and out of stock in the US. As I noted to a friend who said he thought it seemed a bit clinical: there are two ends of the spectrum in the sourdough world - nerds and naturals - and both make excellent bread. I am in neither group sadly. All of the above is just stalling activity, I know. If/when I ever get back into making sourdough bread this would be a good tool. In the meantime I am going to focus on my pizza game this summer. There are some awesome doughs to use up those grains of yours in this book: https://amzn.eu/d/03mX8pi You will just have to brush up on your Italian. Or use Google translate.

That is a high pressure cook you are going for @jeffshoaf. Here is hoping your supplier gets you what you want the next time around, if only to reduce some of the variables. Good luck and we look forward to seeing the results!

Different strokes for different folks. I am not sure that it will make much practical difference to the outcome with the meat compared to foil but I suspect that it takes more fuel to get the KK heat soaked if you are also having to get the deflectors up to temp.