tekobo

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Yum. Do you sieve out the seeds or do you whizz so well that they disappear @tony b

I agree David, we live by the sea and it is hard to beat the super fresh seafood we can buy from the fish market by the harbour. That said, I have got into buying some frozen fish for convenience. 4kg of frozen black cod (sable fish) steaks arrived this morning and my mouth is watering at the thought of the delicious meals we are going enjoy from that haul. No chance of getting that at our local fish market. I also found that when you cook super fresh flat fish like Dover sole it turns out like a rubber tyre. Apparently it needs to rest and relax for a few days before eating so the dry ager comes in handy there. You are so right - a konro grill would not enjoy the rain. Mine lives under cover in our greenhouse and has survived many a wet winter although it is always used under cover or sunny weather.

Veal chop for dinner yesterday.

Lovely @Syzygies. I have a load of chillis still ripening in my polytunnel and this looks like a nice recipe to try out.

We used the chicken fat and juices as a sauce. It was lip smackingly good!

Chicken cooked on top rack of KK. All that fat came out of the chicken and was super yummy on roasted potatoes. Cooked for 45 mins at 210C and reached internal temp 89C.

The cauliflower dish from Friday was from Ottolenghi's book Flavour. Link to an online version here: https://www.irishexaminer.com/recipes/?c-recipeid=4124 Some of the Persiana recipes are here:https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/apr/12/persiana-recipes-sabrina-ghayour-cookbook The rice on Saturday came from the Moro book. A version of the recipe is here https://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-mororec19g-2009aug19-story.html And, especially for @C6Bill and his lady friend, here is a link to a very close version of the aubergine dish. I promise you won't taste the purple! https://saffronandherbs.com/2021/10/23/mirza-ghasemi/

The products of Friday's cook went into dinner last night. Here is the aubergine dip with walnuts on top. It was a hit, with some naan bread. We had five courses, each matched with a cocktail. Here is the fleet of limoncello sour drinks. Followed by roasted poussin and saffron rice with barberries and crispy onions. Luckily there was a break in the weather and I was able to get the poussin off the KK without getting soaked! The gluten free carrot, pistachio and coconut cake, half cooked in the KK and half in the IDK oven turned out nice. We finished with poached dried apricots stuffed with clotted cream and topped off with walnuts. Simple(ish) and tasty. All but one of the recipes came out of the book Persiana. I will try to find and post the recipes that are available online.

Cake ended up in the IDK oven to finish off while I cranked up the KK to cook the chicken and warm up the cauliflower. The chicken came out great after one hour on the top rack at 200C. Crispy, crunchy skin and juicy inside. Super yummy. Reminds you why it's good to have a KK.

As you can imagine, I have been a bit busy today. What with cooking, chatting and eating with my Aunt, running in and out to the KK and making up the next dish to go in. Now got to get out of daytime clothes into something more presentable for when our guests arrive in 15 minutes. So... recipes will need to wait until Sunday but here is a bit more on progress today. The legendary KK skill at keeping food moist worked against me with the cauliflower. After the first 30 minutes it was lovely and soft but no crisping, not like when it is cooked in the oven. I cranked the KK up after an hour and it was cooked a half hour later. Probably a bit too cooked, some of the onions were quite black. But it was all very tasty. So tasty that I am going to abandon the idea of cooking potatoes tonight and we will have the cauliflower with the chicken instead. KK legend is that you should not overshoot your temp or it will take you ages to get it back down. I have never really bought into that legend. To lower the temp today I wound the top hat down to just off the seat and closed off the bottom air supply to about a quarter. Here are my timings: At 15:12 the temp was at about 215C Half an hour later it was down to 200C. An hour later it was at 180C and finally, at 17:00, a full 1 hour and 48 mins later, it was down to my target 160C. So yeah, I accept that it does take a while to get the temp down when you have heat soaked a beast as big as a 32 but it is not impossible. Dark outside so I took a picture of the cake indoors before it went into the KK beside the pot with the lamb shanks in. The only problem that I have now is that the cake is cooking slowly and I need to raise the temp in the KK to put the chicken in. This is where I wish I had followed @ckreef's advice. If you have more than one KK or piece of BBQ kit, just light both, all. You will likely need it and it is better to have it hot in time than not!

So far so good. I was not brave enough to put the aubergines directly on the coals. Wanted more control over the cooking process so put the upper grate in upside down so that I was as close as possible to the fire. Cooked at about 200C for about 40 minutes, turning regularly. The flesh came out nice and easy, scooped it with a spoon. Here are the cauliflower quarters before the chilli butter was applied Into KK to cook for an hour and ten minutes at about 180C

We had a big storm in the UK yesterday and today was meant to be dry. No such luck, it is pouring with rain. Thankfully the rain started after I had cleaned both KKs out and refilled with charcoal/cocoshell briquettes. Today I am using the 32 and have the following sequence of cooks: 1. Roast aubergines on the coals for a dip for tomorrow's dinner 2. Bulk bake my favourite cauliflower and harissa dish with my Auntie who loves it too 3. Low and slow some lamb shank (an opportunity to test how fast I can get the KK to cool down) 4. Bake a carrot and pistachio cake for tomorrow's dinner 5. Roast some potatoes and a spatchcock chicken for tonight's dinner I have listed all of these now so that I can't opt out and run for the Indoor Kitchen (IDK) when the weather gets too bad. Timing should mean that I should be able to keep the KK going all day without having to re-light. Wish me luck!

So glad you are enjoying your dry ager @Basher. A lot of meat at once is difficult to process. The restaurant I visited in Wales who dry age for a long time use tallow and also vac pack some of the longer aged items and also wrapped smaller items in butcher paper and then vac'd them to stop them drying out. I wasn't sure how/whether you were genuinely ageing something if it was in a bag so it would be good to learn from your experience.

Yeah, after I posted I thought, "hey, you've got cheek, telling a man with Mexican heritage how to use wet masa!" That'll teach me.

Dome cooking works for me. I heat soak for up to an hour so that the dome is good and hot before I put the chicken on the top grate. I then only cook for about an hour max at 220 C. Will check the timings next time I do it but I tend to cook chicken hot and fast - keeps juiciness and you get crispy skin. That said, I usually dry the chicken skin out for a couple of days in the dry ager before the cook.

I have the standard grinder and it works really well for me. You won't regret this choice. Wet masa is the way to go! Don't forget though, that when you grind wet, it is usually too wet to use and you need some dry masa to firm it up.

What is better than one flat crispy KK cooked chicken? From KK to table. Delicious!

Hi @BalconySmoken, good to hear from you. Your description did not say anything about what you have done with your vents so I will ask the obvious question about how you have set them. For my part I close off the bottom vents and open the top vent/hat. My logic is that this means the air has to flow through the smoker attachment. It works for me...

Sometimes I see a recipe and I think "really, what mad person dreamed that one up?". So it was with this Italian fish recipe. It was entitled Orata mezza cruda e mezza cotta - Half raw and half cooked sea bream. You take a whole fish, lift one fillet off the fish. Cook the remaining half of the fish on the bone on the KK slowly for about 30 minutes. I used a heat shield and kept the temperature below 150C. Slice the raw fillet thinly and marinade it in oil, lemon and season for ten minutes and dress the top of the cooked fish with the raw fish. Weird concept but it was good to eat.

That all looks very yummy. No danger of me becoming a vegetarian any time soon. @Troble that lamb looked good and moist. I'd eat it any day.

🤪😛😄 Beaner schnitzel. I can't stop laughing! Looking forward to hearing how your sister and her family enjoy your Al Pastor. It's been another great contribution to the forum from @Troble and, once you have sourced and mastered the achiote, it is a doddle to make.

That does look like a great plate of food @PVPAUL. And I wouldn't have minded a taste of that tequila! Soo..given you are of Mexican origin you must know more than any of us about how Al Pastor should taste. Was this authentic from your point of view? I see that you put a stone underneath the pan. Was that to keep the meat tender? I usually try to get the base as hot as possible towards the end so that the meat that I have cut off, crisps up a bit in the pan. Is that what you did too or should I be doing less of that and taking the meat off sooner? Thanks.

Looking forward to seeing the results @PVPAUL and hearing about how it went. My hope and expectation is that it was a hit.

Just to close this out. I did use the meat hanger to hang the bacon for cold smoking. I took @jonj's advice and dropped a hot coal in amongst the pellets in the cold smoker unit and it burned for hours on end. The only problem is that I chose the windiest day of the year and it appeared to disrupt the flow of smoke into the KK. I gave up after about 8 hours and only had a slight hint of smoke. You live and you learn. Next time! Here is a shot to prove that it happened.