tekobo

We had our August banquet yesterday. It was a Turkish theme and we started with veal shish kebabs, followed by slow cooked lamb shoulder and spiced rice and we finished with grilled pears and pistachio ice cream topped with roasted pistachio pieces. It was a great afternoon/evening and I clean forgot to take pictures of the meat on the KK. Here are some random photos, taken when I did remember. This was early in the day when I was grilling onions for an onion salad to go with the veal shish kebabs. My OCD friend threaded the onion layers on in opposite directions to maximise surface area exposed to the fire. Messy shot of the onion salad, roasted hot green pepper relish and yogurt, after all the meat had been eaten. The shredded shoulder of lamb was accompanied by this rice dish, a parsley salad and garlicky yogurt this time. This picture of the roasted pears and the pistachios being toasted illustrates perfectly why I need a 42. The fact that my 23 was warm and could easily have done the toasting job is beside the point... And a gratuitous second photo of the roasted pears. They were that good. A meatless Turkish banquet? No, but lack of photos of the meat attests to the fact that we were just too busy getting into it. The recipes came from Oklava other than the perfumed spiced lamb which came from Persiana and the rice which came from Moro.

Hi @remi. I think you might just need to cut a bit off the shaft. The length of shaft required does vary by motor and sometimes the play in the brackets is not enough to compensate for that. I had to get The Husband to cut a bit off for one of the motors that I have - I think I showed the fact that I needed a shorter one in the video but I can't quite remember. The good thing is that the play in the bracket means you do not have to be as precise as before when it comes to deciding how much to cut off. Just don't take off too much and before you do, check that you have allowed for the length of shaft required to seat into the KK and into the motor. I think that is right but would be great if someone else sees something different to be fixed.

Why is it that the only thing that mattered to me was the fact that the price of the 42 isn’t going up yet? 🤪

No better recommendation than that. I will put this on my list to do soon.

Thank you very much sir! Having it fall on a weekend was a great excuse to line up another banquet. Just planning it now...

Congrats @jonj! I suspect I won't live long enough to make a 46th wedding anniversary. We celebrate our 18th this weekend. Gentle but satisying cook last night. I have tried to cook lamb chops tandoori style quite a few times and have not got it right. Largely because I have left the meat exposed to the flame. The smell of burning fat is not great and I finally gave up after The Husband said my previous attempt tasted of petrol of all things! This time I used a drip pan and cooked the chops for longer. Much much better result.

Welcome to KK cooking @Tuck. Your wagyu steak on the other thread looks great. I too have the rolling cart for my 16 and I like it. That said, you were wise to build a platform if you don't expect to move your 19 around. I did a very foolish thing - I tried to adjust the position of the 16 with the lid up and the inevitable happened. Humpty Dumpty as Dennis called it. He had already warned me to be careful when rolling so that was all on me. Happily, just bust a few tiles which I have now repaired. So...I hope that helps you confirm that you did the right thing by building that pretty platform.

That looks great @Troble. Your dedication paid off!

I am looking forward to this cook @C6Bill. Keen to get more tips about getting skin crispy. I have a small suckling pig rolled belly in the freezer and will be following you soon!

Hey @RokDok, it was great fun to visit and it is always a pleasure to cook on a KK. We could start a world tour of the UK, visiting KKs and getting fat. @Basher, yes the trout was delicious. Cooked it with Indian spices and served with plain boiled rice and a nice thick curry sauce. Yum.

I didn't get the memo about beef ribs and so here are the veal loin chops that I cooked on @RokDok's KK this weekend. He kindly gifted us a brown trout that he had caught. Here it is on the KK when we got home last night: and looking super tasty having been brushed with some melted butter:

Tee hee. I thought the same but didn't say it. @Tyrus was the one who said he had his own foolproof MEATER - his forefinger.

Not going to pretend that I yet know what I am doing wrong or right. I am struggling with my bread making at the moment. Someone posted recently asking whether you needed a full basket to get to high temps with the 32. I had achieved it without any trouble with a half basket but thought I would try out with a full basket this last weekend. Woah. Managed to get the KK so hot and heat soaked that I burned my bread from the radiant heat from the dome way before the bread was properly baked. So my next trial will see me lowering my bread cook to the main grate. I am using a KK baking stone with an aluminium pan with aluminium billet in for creating steam and so heat deflection from the bottom is not an issue. Good luck with finding the answer to your question @S. Give us the gift of your explanation when you do!

Looking forward to following the progress of your reno @Basher. Loving your parilla and KK cooking too.

Very nice looking drink @Troble I can just taste it. Shame it is too early in the day to do anything about that urge!

Yummy looking food, one and all! Trouble is, I am now totally indecisive about what to have for dinner - wings, pizza, fish, chicken, steak...?

What a lovely aspect and dinner @braindoc. Those sides and your sorbet sound really good. Bravo.

I do my bread baking in the 32 KK at about 250C using a half basket of coco briquettes. I usually let the fire establish itself, minimum half an hour, before adding in the racks and baking stone. No trouble at all hitting 250C and more when I need to. Reading through your post I do similar things to you but I generally only need to light in one location and I do not need to pull out the lower vent, I just set it to fully open. Your suggestion that you will wait longer for the KK to heat soak before adding in the stone etc seems like a good one to try.

That looks gorgeous @johnnymnemonic. Super nice to be re-creating, and bettering, a recipe from your childhood. Your post sent me on a very quick trip down a rabbit hole. I have a range of "chemicals" that I call on when curing meats. Prague No 1 and Prague No 2 are both pink salts. Checking on the ingredients from the brand that I use, No 1 is mostly kosher salt as you say but has 6.25% sodium nitrite. No 2 contains 4.75% of potassium nitrate as well as the sodium nitrite. The former is for short cures and latter for long cures. I also have some saltpetre that I keep in deep store and only get out to use and measure on my drug dealer scales when a recipe calls for it. Saltpetre is the stuff that gets you noticed by the police if you order it in any quantity as it is a component in gunpowder. All of that makes me wonder why I am putting any of this in my food?! Eek. All good. Measured carefully and consuming the resulting cured meats in moderation hasn't killed me, yet.

Well done! I'm jealous. I am working out and getting fitter but haven't worked on reducing what goes in my mouth. I might have to settle for my rude but good friend's description of me - "you are the fittest fat person I know". Cheeky or what??

Great solution. No belt notches to bear witness to one's expanding waistline.

I don’t think so. Salt petre is potassium nitrate and not salt as we know it NaCl or sodium chloride. Really interestingly, when I did a google search just now I found reference to the use of salt petre as a thickening agent in West African cooking. You learn something new every day. Here I am in the UK debating how safe it is to use small quantities of salt petre to make my salt beef come out pink in the middle when there is a chance that I consumed it in larger quantities in comforting childhood stews!

It was a hectic weekend in the end, hence the delayed post. After about four hours the next stage for the brisket was to put it in a pan with a bit of water and to slather it in chimichurri sauce. Basted with more chimichurri roughly every hour with a brush fashioned out of rosemary. I added more water to the base, probably too much but I was worried about burning. Cooked for a further six hours or so to get to the right temperature on the point (88C/190F) and then wrapped. Now I know why he leaves the brisket on the bone. It was soooo soft that I needed to wrap my hands under the meat and get further help with a big spatula to move it without having it fall apart. Resting time gave me the chance to go and dig up some potatoes and harvest some beets. I followed three recipes from Mallman on Fire for the sides. Here is an adaptation of his grilled endive recipe, using red chicory instead: Potatoes parboiled and then roasted with rosemary and olive oil: I was meant to roast the beets on the KK for the beet, arugula and orange salad but I didn't have enough time and ended up pressure cooking them. I also used pink grapefruit segments in place of the orange. They are in the top right corner of this picture. The brisket was delicious. One modification I would make would be to baste with some more fresh chimichurri sauce at the point of serving to brighten things up in taste and colour. We finished with grilled peaches and figs topped with mint, amaretto and lemon zest. Another Mallman on Fire recipe. Matched with plum ice cream I enjoyed the day. My normal mode is to throw a party for a minimum of 50 people and to spend ages making a variety of protein dishes. A COVID aware 20 made this much easier all round and everyone got the chance to sit around and chat late into the night.

No matter what time I start a brisket I always feel like it is not early enough. I got up at 0530 to start the fire and things seem to be running smoothly at 145C/295F. I just looked up other posts about hot and fast brisket and I see that folks go up to 350F for that method. Here is hoping that things go well today. I am following a recipe in Adam Perry Lang's book, Charred & Scrubbed. His brisket was on the bone. Mine is about 10kg/22lb and off the bone. I aged it in the dry ager for about 2 weeks. Looked good when I got it out this morning. Very little to trim off. I made up and applied his four seasons blend https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/four-seasons-blend-51103210. He encourages you to create a "meat paste" by wetting your hands and working the seasoning in before leaving for ten minutes or so for the meat juices to form a crust with the rub. He says this is a good starter crust that then develops further as the meat cooks. I have used his blend and method with other meats and like it. I am never sure about cutting against the grain when the brisket is ready and so I have tried the trick of cutting the end of the joint before cooking to help me with slicing the cooked meat. Not totally sure that I have got the right angle but it's close enough for Govt work. For once, I did make the dough ring to go round the top of my smoke pot as I was keen to make sure I got good, clean smoke. I used a mix of apple and oak pellets - I just want a gentle smoke flavour. The recipe calls for the meat to be cooked with strips of fat above the meat to baste it as it cooks. I laid out the the trimmings from the brisket on a rack above. More stages to come but all looking good for the moment.

Like @Dono I have a pair of gloves for loading charcoal and moving grates around. I don't generally use gloves for food prep but sometimes use the cheap blue ones that come in a box of 100 when I am handling very hot chillis or doing something stupid, like trying to stuff a baby squid. Good news for me is that I saw someone using a piping bag to stuff squid the other day so I won't be doing that by hand ever again.