tekobo

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.

Hey @Poochie I feel your pain. I bought all sorts of books, tried different recipes and kept ending up with complete dough fails or sad looking pizzas. That is until @MacKenzie shared this pizza dough recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016230-robertas-pizza-dough Super simple. I mix it in my Kenwood Chef with the dough hook, leave to rest for four hours, shape and cook. Gave me confidence and tasted gooood. Good luck!

I am the exact opposite to you on this subject David. It seems a waste to me to heat up and heat soak a grill to the high temperatures for a bread cook and not finish off with a follow on cook but not the opposite way round. Residual heat from most cooks won't be enough and you will be burning up more fuel to get up to and hold the temps required for bread. All of that said, i can see from other threads that you are not new to the bread game and I am sure you will be teaching us some new tricks as you explore bread making with the KK.

Welcome fellow black tiler! Looking forward to following your cooking journey and finding out how you find the KK compared to your Big Green Egg.

Gosh, some really lovely looking cooks. I remember @Basher had a view about why your chickens were coming out with a colour gradient @Troble. No sign of that on your most recent cook. Did you work out a reason? @David Chang, I love your Indian meal. Laughed at the thought of you getting a 32 up those stairs of yours, hernia by hernia as you said when you hauled the 19 KK up with your mates. It may be that having two 19 KKs will work for you. For my part I like the flexibility of being able to run two grills at different temps for different parts of a meal.

I think the 32 is the ideal size KK. You, @Gweesh, have hit the jackpot. Congratulations!

It’s a deal!

I recognised Salt Lick from your photo @Troble. Here is mine from 2015. I did not have a KK then and didn't have much to compare the food with. I enjoyed the meal, liked the BYOB aspect and it was easier to get into than Franklins. Maybe next time I am in the US I will have the patience to wait in line to try their brisket.

I like your thinking @skoell. Prost!

@Poochie, I was puzzled by this when I first read it but I didn't get around to asking. Why did your KK come with the lid in a separate crate? Is that standard for the US/these days? So far I have had five KKs delivered and they all arrived with their lids on.

Wow! What an entrance. KK baby delivered by Crane. Nice one. Also good that you already know that this won't be your last KK. Once you catch the bug there is no escape. Congratulations.

That looks lovely @Poochie. I have not used my tagine in years. Since I got my KK I tend not to cook with covered dishes in the KK, on the basis that the KK lid is my cover. That said, the beauty of a tagine is meant to be the recirculation of the steam into the dish and your cook illustrates that nicely. One to try!

Good to hear that you are on the mend. Getting a bout of COVID seems to be inevitable these days, particularly with small people around!

Congratulations! Lovely, cheerful cobalt blue. Shame you went for pebbles but you are forgiven.

I am not retired so I need you folk to do the experimenting so I can benefit from your findings. Looking forward to the next instalment @CeramicTool. I don't have any pork chops to hand at the moment and so cannot try them out but they will be next on the list. That or a lamb chop. Both are fatty and prime candidates for testing this method.

Lovely to hear from you Bruce. If I lived close by I would come round to play. I just know that you have every gadget going and I would be able to try before I succumbed and bought my own. Get grilling, you can't let all that lovely Dennis char go to waste. Think of all of us deprived Brits who can't get hold of it this side of the water!!

Oh my!

I keep coming back to this picture. Just the right level of cooking for me. Soft bread and some wasabi mayonnaise. Heaven.

I tried out a boned and rolled suckling pig on Sunday evening. There was much less smoke than normal and I managed to get good, crackly skin. Definitely a good way to do rotisserie of fatty meats on a KK. The black marks on the outside of the meat came from the wet stuffing that leaked from the inside of the piggy roll. Part of an Indonesian style meal. \ Gratuitous shot of my current obsession - madeleines.

Be radical - start your own thread. Fire, fire!

Tee hee. Yes, smokin’ hot Aussie! The recipe/method I was following said to slice them. Reason was to maximize the smoke flavour as you suggest. https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/preserving-chili-peppers/how-to-smoke-chili-peppers/

I wanted one too. It was a beautiful red one on a stand in a cheese shop in Brighton. We soon tempered our expectations when we investigated the pricing. That said, we are off on a road trip to Italy later this year. You never know, a beautiful bargain may await. Ha ha. I think the guy or gal in the deli can do that job pretty well without you having to shell out at all!

Smoked some Scotch Bonnet peppers in the KK. Low temp, about 100C with maple pellets in the hot/cold smoker attachment. I put them in my dehydrator afterwards and plan to grind them in small batches for some good smoked chilli flavour. The singed peppers at the top came as a result of overcorrecting and letting the temps get away from me for a short while. That said, opening up the top hat helped the smoke pull better through the hot/cold smoker and it stayed lit for all of the cook after that.

Hi there @Durangutan. It would be great to hear and see more about your cooks on fire pits. I love the unpredictability of cooking over fire and, happily, even KKs remind you that you are not fully in control. The mix of variables: the coal you choose, where you light the fire, how you set your top cap and bottom openings, what the weather is like, how impatient you are, what you are cooking etc all make.a difference and any of those variables being a bit different to last time means you need to keep in touch with your cook to get the best results. Getting to know and love fire is such good fun.

He came by to measure up and then delivered the finished product. It fit first time, no problems.