A Revelation

I’ve stumbled upon a hell of a cobombo here. In a hurry after work? No time for any serious prep or marinade? Take anything, crappy plain burgers, sausages, chops, owt you want and sprinkle on some of these (while still raw)!

Tabasco and Worcester Sauce. Those two there must have been best of mates for years but I’ve just realised they knew each other. Really well. Honestly, this makes anything taste better. Try it on some stuff.

I Have Achieved FUSION!

(Wrote early, posted late)

After an unusually long winter (it’s only just starting to warm up), on the first of May of the year of our lord 2013, thanks to the combined meteorological and astronomical events of a sufficiently close sun and still air surrounding our garden, the first barbie of the year could commence. And I did something special. I’ve always liked burgers and I’ve always liked sausages; to combine the two successfully has been somewhat confounding. Just chucking sausages into the bun with the burger didn’t work. They rolled out the sides and the thing didn’t hold together properly. I’ve tried mixing sausage meat and minced beef. This was actually very nice and I’d recommend it but that’s not what I meant when combining burgers and sausage. One of the things I like best about sausage is the fact that the skin holds in the juices and gives a satisfying pop when you bite into it, so that won’t do.

Then it came to me one cold windy night when I couldn’t sleep properly. BEHOLD!

Health and Safety

Today I saw this on the net and thought I'd do a bit about staying safe while enjoying a bit of roofless grilling. Why even have one of them? The job it does on the grill is cosmetic at best and in this case could have killed someone. If you chuck your grills on while the fire is burning in before cooking, the flames and heat will destroy any living microbe on that grill rendering it completely clean without doing anything. Just because its black, doesn't mean its dirty. Bloody hell. I bet these same people have loads of allergies and poor immune systems.

Easy as that.

Building the Smoker Part 2

The build is still progressing and is so far going well. Last week, we added fire bricks to the fire chamber. Here you can see them through the hatch:

Last Thursday I was in the pub when I got talking to a mate about the smoker and how I need some pipe for it.

Rastaboat

Remember that £30,000 affront to the spirit of outdoor cookery? Here's how it's done properly. A mate of mine from work and his mates did this, the Rasta boat.

They entered it in a regatta of some kind up in Scotland and came third. Well done lads! This is the real spirit of aquatic grilling. A handsome craft  knocked up by mates in a few weeks complete with authentic Jamaican thatched roof, cans of Red Stripe and a little bucket barbie to get the jerk chicken done on. Don't think it cost £30,000 somehow though and all the better for it.

Building the Smoker

That's the first bit done, the masonry. There have been some changes to the design since the 3D model. The fire box at the bottom now has a smaller door to make it easier to make a door for and reduce excessive air intake. The fire chamber will now be lined with fire bricks from an old storage heater to stop the brickwork from falling apart in the heat. Stainless steel lugs have also been added to hold the rack rails inside the smoking chamber and hold the grill at two different levels for cooking instead of the sideways bricks you see in the model. Fire bricks will also be on top of the big slab to stop it smashing under the hot coals.

Caribbean Style Pork Skewers

It's nearly time for the build to start on the smoker. The brickwork and that is getting done tomorrow an the metal work as soon as possible after that. Meanwhile though, I did these the other night - Caribbean Style Pork Skewers.

I used:

Pork loin steaks

Reggae Reggae sauce

Red sweet chilli peppers

Sweet potato

Red onion

Ground chilli flakes

Ground roasted garlic and herbs

I chopped up the pork and mixed up some Reggae Reaggae sauce with some water, put it all in a dish and left it in the fridge covered up with cling film for a few hours. If I'd thought of this before I went to work it could have sat a lot longer and ended up stronger tasting but it was ok. I half boiled the sweet potato and chopped up all the other stuff into big chunks. All of this was then stuck on skewers and seasoned with the above mentioned chilli flakes, garlic and herbs.