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tekobo

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Everything posted by tekobo

  1. tekobo

    23 or 21

    The stock answer to your question is, "go as big as you can afford to, you won't regret it". An equally good answer is, "get what suits your pocket better, you won't regret it and you can buy some good meat with the savings". The main thing is you'll do well either way. You would think I would be the ideal person to help with this problem, given I own a 21 and a 23, but it is not that easy to come down on one side or the other. I have not yet cooked pizza on mine and I have never been in a situation where I had to use just the 21 or the 23. However, I think I should be able to help to settle the grill space concern. I can't do it just now but when I next have a big meat delivery I will lay out say, a bunch of wings or a number of rib racks on the 23 and then the 21 so you can see the difference. I suspect the answer is "not enough to matter". The big step up is with the 32" and that was not in my reckoning and doesn't seem to be in yours. Others with the 21" may be able to reassure you about what they can fit on it. Whatever you choose, welcome to the community and I hope you get your hands on a KK soon!
  2. I sneaked a look at the guru site this morning. The reveal was very funny. Mainly because KK fooled them so well even though all the clues were there. I guess they will get to understand that getting a KK is indeed an Obsession and once someone jokes about it it is sure to come true, sooner or later. What fun.
  3. Serena's a feisty kitty and won't stay still long enough to become a break-in cook! She's limbering up for her second favourite activity of the summer, aside from sleeping in the sun, which is catching and eating flies and bees in mid air. She's a real ace at it. Yes, cooking is the point of all of this. No plans yet. I need one of the pans to speak to me and say they want to be the first into one of the KKs. I've never made flat breads over a BBQ so the comal might be the one to take the prize. Or maybe 'taters in the roasting pan. Or...
  4. Thanks @Bruce, me too! Quick update: Charles at My Toque just got back in touch about the broken piece. No messing around with postal insurance, just a straight refund to my payment card. Great service.
  5. I have been looking jealously at your posts about La Chamba cookware for some time. Postage to the UK looked prohibitive until I got into a conversation with Charles at My Toque. Their postage charge looked the most reasonable and he gave me a discount for buying a few pieces. The pieces, finally, arrived today. Well, they didn't so much as arrive as get rescued from the local Parcel Force depot when I got fed up waiting for the paperwork to get sorted! Box full of polar bear poo, as The Husband calls it. Beautiful artisanal ceramics. Looking to use the pots to cook up dishes in real time and also in the residual heat when I have finished my main cook. The lids don't all fit tightly but well enough for my purposes. Here is the large roasting pan (Their model no SPX) in the 23". I ordered two of these. One broke in transit. It was the only breakage and I am in touch with them about insurance. And the 5.5qt RS6 oval roaster fits just fine in the 21" The 10qt RS15 didn't fit in either KK but, happily, does fit in my indoor oven. Here is Serena, looking grumpy about being asked to give you an idea of the scale of this enormous pot. She looks small but actually weighs 6kg. I am convinced she swallowed something heavy somewhere along the way. And yes, the sun does shine in the UK. Sometimes.
  6. Yet more great food @MacKenzie. I think I will avoid the forum first thing in the morning - making me too hungry!!!
  7. Sooooo unfair! Today is one of my twice weekly fast days and your cook has got my taste buds going. Might have to "postpone" fast to tomorrow. Really good looking cook and, I imagine, really tasty too.
  8. Thanks @MacKenzie. Worth a try. The micro greens look lovely and fresh against the rest of the dish. And really easy to eat at that size!
  9. That looks like a beautiful setting you are leaving. I hope you have found a good place to settle in Scotland. (And some winter protection for the KK!!) Welcome back to the UK. Happy to share information about sources for charcoal and other things I have found over the last few months.
  10. Wow, well done. It looks great. The best measure is in the eating and it sounds like that was a great success. Kudos.
  11. I think it is utterly beautiful. I hope you had a good first cook. Welcome.
  12. @MacKenzie, digging those micro greens. Cheering accompaniment at this lean time of year. Do you just use the same seeds as for big greens but just closer spaced and harvested (much) sooner? Can you cut and come again?
  13. Tee hee. Maybe the Aussie cricket guys should have used one of those Tip-Piks on their balls. They could have claimed it was an official performance enhancing tool, as endorsed by Mr B!
  14. Lovely pink lamb. And good sticky out bones for hanging on to. Yum!
  15. Thanks all. I did look up @wilburpan and @tony b's posts about duck and saw that you worked hard for your great results. i worked a little less hard to make more time for dessert and drinking adult beverages. I am still not keen on trying to fry a whole/half bird in a wok or deep fat fryer. May adapt the standard recipe to tea smoke early on in the KK, steam in IDK and then finish in the KK at a high heat. The Chinese skin jabby thing is awesome. If used on pork skin it gives you wonderfully thin, crispy crackling. Go searching in a Chinese catering store near you. My first one was given to me by the chef in my local Chinese takeaway and my back up was bought in the Bowery in New York.
  16. Gosh, they look good @tony b! Got to get that into my rotation too. Off to the shop to buy some 'taters!
  17. Interesting. Will try this method and compare. Here to do roast potatoes we parboil for about 10 mins, drain water and then shake the potatoes around in the pot a little to fluff the outsides up a little then put them in a pan with hot fat, usually goose, before roasting at about 180-200C for up to an hour. Key features are crispy outside and fluffy inside. This sous vide method may well be completely different. Will have to buy some potatoes and give it a try.
  18. And I'm lucky that you're mine! I was looking for a good recipe for Easter lunch and came across five different recipes in my books for tea smoked duck. The trad method required a 6 hour marinade, followed by a 6 hour air-dry, then 30 minutes smoking over tea leaves, then steaming for about an hour before leaving to cool prior to a deep frying the whole or half duck, depending on your capacity! In spite of my love of deep frying I didn't have the capacity or the inclination to be frying half a duck while my guests hung around so I opted for the Pitt Cue Co adaptation. Brined the birds in a tea brine overnight. I quadrupled these quantities for two birds: 1.5 litres water, 50g tea leaves, 2.5cm ginger, 1 bulb of garlic (just used one), 2 star anise, 100ml soy sauce, 60ml honey and 50g smoked Maldon salt. They only called for one hour of air drying but that just didn't seem like enough so Mr and Mrs Ducky got a blow dry for about 8 minutes each. This great Chinese implement is used to puncture pork skin to make it easier for the fat to leach out and become wonderfully crispy. I figured it couldn't do any harm with a duck so I used it, more gently, on these two. Rubbed with a home made rub, again from the Pitt Cue Co book, 100g Maldon sea salt, 38g maple sugar, 12g black peppercorns, 5 g toasted fennel seeds, 5g star anise, 5g stick cinnamon and zest of half an orange all blitzed in a blender. Then onto the KK to smoke over cherry for about an hour and a half at 170C (ish) until internal temp got to 78C. The drip tray was essential and I added a bit of water periodically to reduce the duck fat smoke. Finger licking good with a gravy made with chicken stock, duck giblets and finished with the pieces of foie gras that were too small to fry. Not the same as the traditional tea smoking but very good nonetheless. I am not really into dessert but we had some Maraschino cherries to get rid of so I looked up a clafoutis recipe. This one https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/basic-clafoutis-51208430 was nice and simple and recommended using a cast iron pan. it was perfect for a KK and they tasted great. A lot of similarity with Yorkshire puddings and I will definitely try this again soon.
  19. Hi @MacKenzie , do you guys have roast potatoes out there and if so, are they similar to these wedges? The look and sound similar. Really must get around to trying them myself. Grow, potatoes, grow!
  20. tekobo

    Smash! Burgers

    Dennis introduced me to the concept of smash burgers while we were discussing what accessories to get. When he realised I was completely ignorant of the subject he sent me this link: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/the-ba-smash-burger My KKs arrived and I forgot all about smash burgers until, by chance, I came across this short but fabulous post on the forum: I have now had smash burgers two weekends running and they are great. Still working on getting those edges super crispy but The Husband and I are happy with the results so far. Introducing the burgers to the KK. First batch done Topped with pan fried foie gras Second batch topped with bacon and cheese. In honour of @Aussie Ora's Wagyu fries and Dennis' foie gras fat popcorn, we fried the bacon in the foie gras fat and dribbled some on the buns for good measure. Yummy!
  21. As I fell asleep last night I thought, surely Dennis wouldn't have bothered to design a different pizza stone arrangement for the 21" if the 23" one would fit? Well, this morning we have swapped cold and dark for cold and wet but I braved the elements for this experiment anyway. No, the 23" upper grate does not fit in the 21", mainly because of the handles on the main grate as you can see in the photo below. I guess the question to ask @DennisLinkletter is whether it is possible to make the pizza stone in the 21" bigger to better fill the area of the upper grate? Knowing the cleaning comments will come up, here are my answers: Sorry @MacKenzie, haven't got around to Kurly Kate'ing my grate, I am a disgrace to the sisterhood. @All, I tried out @Syzygies' trick for keeping the interior clean by ramping up the temp at the end of a particularly messy cook to burn off the residue. It appears to have worked so still nice and white(ish).
  22. You are probably right. It is dark and cold here at the moment so I will wait until the morning to test that out. Will report back.
  23. Oops, sorry @Bruce Pearson! @tony b, no guilt here and @MacKenzie, the first crop of potatoes should be ready in a couple of months and I am going to need all the potato recipes I can find. Oh yes, and a lot of exercise!
  24. Going to have to try this. I love the idea of pan frying with attitude. And ghee. Or goose fat. And no, @MacKenzie and the legion of people on this site who appear to have bought an air fryer (and not used it @Bruce Pearson?), you can't persuade me that an air fryer is ever going to cut it. I'd rather have fewer, deep fried chips.
  25. Having waited five years to pull the trigger, I now realise that the biggest tragedy is the amount of my life that I spent not owning a KK. So my advice is that you need to rectify that deficit, and soon. Given all KKs are built to amazing standards, it is just a question of money, size and your needs. I think the 21" would do pretty much everything that I need if it was the only KK that I had. The three layers give you so much more capacity than you get with any other single layer cooker and I use my 21" in preference over the 23" for low and slow. I can't say that I have noticed any difference in fuel usage or in time to heat up between the two but I have not paid much attention to that. The only issue is your pizza requirement. I suspect a 32" would be better if you want to do two at a time but I can't see that the 23" gives you much advantage over the 21" unless you are into giant single pizzas. Happy to take measurements if that would help/if they are not on Dennis' site. In the meantime, here is a photo of the pizza stones with the 21" on the left.
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