tekobo

Ah. I didn't know pork collar was also the famous secreto. It gets sold in high end restaurants here as the cut to have off an Iberico pig. I generally use pork collar to make delicious cold smoked bacon.

Thanks for asking the question @obanker. I am not mad about halibut given the range of other, more instrinsically tasty fish available. However I am tempted to give it another try with this range of recipes on offer.

Yeah, you are right, it is difficult to compare without being able to do a side by side comparison. I have not had the opportunity to use Dennis' cocochar but am happy with the cocoshell briquettes that I have found in the UK. One day, I might make it over to Indonesia or to one of your places in the US to see how the good stuff burns. As for binchotan, it still holds a mystical appeal. The fact that you can quench it in water after use may mean that it lasts quite a long time. I'll be working on that angle to justify value for money if I ever get to the point of buying some! We appear to have a similar back order problem here. I placed an order with a company that isn't answering my emails and I may end up filing for a refund through Paypal. There is another, more expensive, source here https://www.chefslocker.co.uk/konro-grill.html. They do have some interesting additional grill sizes on offer and so I might, in the end, bite the bullet and get one from them.

I agree with your husband, that looks fabulous.

That looks great @ckreef. Looking forward to seeing the final set up!

Based on previous questions about running a KK indoors, I sort of expected this response. I agree, it is logical to avoid starting a fire indoors if you don't have to. However I am still interested in the possibility. First thing is to get hold of a grill and see how much it smokes and how well my re-constituted binchotan dust briquettes actually work. We do have fireplaces indoors and keeping the chimneys swept and providing good ventilation is key to avoiding CO build up. I will take your counsel and look into getting a CO monitor if I do decide to try the grill indoors.

Well, the guy selling the grill said I could potentially light the fire outdoors and then cook indoors (under a hood I presume). It really depends on the smokiness of the coal and of the cook. Getting the coals to glowing before bringing them in could make all the difference. Imagine...indoor barbecuing in the winter!

I'm really excited about your new grill @ckreef and it is, partly, @Syzygies' fault. When I was running through my KK purchase options Syzygies slipped in an off the cuff comment about buying binchotan if I was really rich. I was intrigued about a charcoal that required you to be rich and disappeared down the rabbit hole in search of this mystery coal. Way too expensive for me but it led me to yakitori and the konro grills. It seems like an amazing art, making binchotan and then cooking wonderful morsels of meat over it on the konro. Whenever there is a TV programme on BBQ and someone eats really good yakitori it seems like it is a tranformative experience. How far am I on the journey? Well, I have had some sumi bincho briquettes in our basement for some months now (poor man's binchotan at a tenth of the price of the real thing) and am still waiting for my konro grill. Hoping it will come in the next few weeks so I too can spend a leisurely evening eating meat over super-hot coals.

Tee hee. Cheesy Mac!

Lovely photo of the finished ribs. And yeah, foil is your friend when it comes to getting your ribs just right. Yum.

That method of hatching the skin looks good, must try it sometime. Looks like a tasty cook. How to solve the problem of not enough meat? Wait until everyone is out and eat it on your own!

Bruce, the name of the recipe is a bit misleading. It should really say tomato roast cauliflower. You only add 2 tablespoons of "hot" Turkish tomato sauce to 4 tablespoons of normal heat tomato sauce and the hot sauce isn't particularly hot. The swamp venom on the chicken was OK too. The Husband isn't as heavy handed as me with the rubs and the chicken came out with a gentle heat. Yes, working my way through my La Chamba purchases. Loving them and the food. I think the grill was over temp. Can't get to my MEATER log as the phone has run out of power but I remember that the temp was still rising at the end of the cook and had hit 268C. I didn't bother to throttle it back at that point because the cook was almost over. In future I will do more looking - I have started to rely on what the MEATER tells me and forgotten that you need to take a peep or two to make sure everything is on track.

Thanks, I hadn't considered using the upper grate that way. That will create more space on the main grate too, bonus. Yes, I would normally have softened the butter but ran out of time. The interesting thing is that some of the butter stayed liquid, trapped beneath the skin. It came out all nice and oozy, like that 80s favourite chicken kiev, when we cut into the chicken. Definite do again.

I am mining a rich seam of Turkish recipes from the cookbook Oklava at the moment. On the assumption that there are probably copyright issues if I simply type out the recipe, I thought I would look to see if the recipe had been published online. It has been, here https://myhungryvalentine.com/en/chou-fleur-roti-selin-kiazim-oklava/, in French. Translate into language of your choice. Here are my non-copyrighted photos. You rub large chunks of cauliflower in a mix of two bottled Turkish tomato sauces - one hot, one mild - and some olive oil. Alongside is a copy cat "road kill" cook in the style of @Aussie Ora. Two lumps of frozen tarragon butter under the skin and covered in Dizzy Pig's swamp venom. No sriracha stix yet @tony b. The chicken was cooked to the right temp but came out blacker than I would have liked. Any tips? Should I have oiled the skin? Maybe ambient temp too high? The cauliflower recipe called for blackening the cauliflower in a dry pan after cooking for 15 mins. I baked for half an hour in the KK instead and then browned on the grill bars. Add toasted pistachio nuts, parsley, onions and a sumac dressing. Super delicious.

I had a similar problem with my second pizza cook. I had got so used to being able to use a basket for more than one cook that I had underestimated the coal needed to get up to temp for a pizza. Having recognised this part way through the cook, I took out the grates, added more coal and all was well. I had read some advice from @ckreef before about max three turns to start and then down to two and that works for me. Using that method I haven't been in danger of running out of coal on an individual cook (just so long as I fill up at the start of the cook!). It is the best fun experimenting with pizzas on the KK. My recent learning is to remember to use my drug dealer scales to measure out the very small amounts of yeast required for some recipes. I was using old fresh yeast for one cook and overcompensated just a little bit too much with my yeast weight AND didn't use my small scales to measure it out. The resulting pouffy dough balls soon collapsed in on themselves when I tried to shape them. Still tasty though. Cheese, pig products and bread, what's not to like??

Wow. Have you tried them? If they are as good as they could be I am going to wish I invented that!

It looks great @Aussie Ora. I see a copy cat dinner coming up very soon. Butter under the skin, what could be better?

Wow. You got to do some really fun stuff Bruce. And I must say, you do look rather dashing standing in that aqua duct.

I don't like to say this but that was before I was born! Did you have digital cameras back then or did you get your photos digitised? Either way, that was a rather rude way of saying, yes, please post some pictures!!

Wow, 1966! I think you will find that things have changed a bit since then! It's a deal. Sounds like it's a story that will need at least a bottle, or two. Will start laying in supplies.

Yeah, the surface area available to you is definitely different but for things like ribs or whole chickens I think the difference between the two is not so great. I am definitely in the space where I would say that if you want a good entry to the KK range and can't stretch to a 23" then you should have no regrets with the 21". The real game changer for me is in having two KKs and I am still really grateful for the advice that got me to this combination. Ha ha. You keep threatening to come over. My door is always open and you would both be very welcome. Now put your money where your mouth is and get on that plane!

That was an awesome cook AND you cooked my two favourite cuts in the whole wide world - ribs and wings. Welcome indeed!

Yeah, I might try that for a comparison of all four rubs. So far, I really liked both Swamp Venom and Dizzy Dust. The Swamp has a nice heat but it is not overpowering and the Dizzy Dust has a nice range of rounded flavours. I can't say anything more eloquent than that because I was mostly focussed on eating by the time the ribs were ready!

I bought a load of pork ribs at our farmer's market today and thought I would try out a comparison between my KKs for rib cooking capacity. 21" Main Grate Only - 4 slabs 23" Main Grate Only - 5 slabs 21" Main and Top Grate - 6 slabs 23" Main and Top Grate - at least 7 slabs, I ran out of ribs! Size of rib racks for scale

Just to close off the story, this is what happened to the pig cheeks: What did I learn? That the folk at Le Pigeon are geniuses. Their recipe makes pig cheeks taste light and summery. I also learned that cooking in a pot in the KK while it warms up is a good idea, putting a La Chamba pot in at the end of a pizza cook is not such a good idea. It was risky for the pot but I was lucky and it didn't get upset at being shoved into a super hot KK. It was also risky for the food as it dried out the contents quicker than I would have liked. A bit of extra chicken stock sorted that out and I had a yummy week day meal.