Category: Techniques

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know !

I have to say that until I got into this Kamado Joe thing, I had no idea that I had barely scratched the surface on outdoor cooking techniques, or indoor cooking techniques for that matter. There is no end to the amount of learning here.

B.K. (“Before Kamado”) barbecuing for me meant grilling sausages or burgers. Roasting, smoking, rotisserie-ing weren’t things that normal people did in their back gardens. I thought investing in a gas grill put me in the professional league, but how wrong I was.

I couldn’t possibly list all of the techniques this thing has opened my eyes to, but to add to the above, I’d have to talk about Dutch Oven cooking, vertical skewer cooking, Cast Iron cooking, Discada, steaming, curing, deep frying, slow cooking, sous-vide, grilling (of course !), “3-2-1” / “2-2-1” / “3, 2.5, 1” etc methods, reverse searing, and so much more besides. Some of the techniques rely on new tools and gadgets; and hopefully all of the techniques result in better food !

Sous-vide. Not “outdoors” but a place to where I was led…

Learning is important – that’s how we keep developing and improving – and you can never be too old to pick up a new trick…

Siôn’s 72-hour pizza dough

I only call this mine because I can’t attribute it to any single source and the list of contributors would be too long. It’s technically more accurate to claim to be the editor of this recipe rather than the author. I’ve taken a few ideas on techniques from different places and this seems to give me the best results. Neapolitan pizza dough, naturally.

Brit(-ish) Bacon

…well, technically “Canadian Bacon” as far as the cut of meat is concerned, but the end result looks, tastes, sounds and smells exceedingly British. A hit with the family and really easy to do. The biggest challenge really is in the slicing !

Siôn’s Over the Top (OTT) Chilli

Another Internet Hive Mind concept that does have some real benefit when smoking. The idea is that the meat mixture (a kind of mega-meatball) gets a chance to absorb some of that great smoke in the Kamado while the juices just pour into the veggies beneath…

Three “K.I.S.S.” Experiments

“Keep It Simple, Stupid !”…the natural flavours of classic steak and potatoes grilled on the KJ Classic…but as always with a twist or three !

Spinning winning wings – first go

THIS morning, in the middle of a Chicagoan Heat Warning, I thought I’d take another crack at wings.

Eleventh Hour Ribs

A last minute decision to cook ribs, almost scuppered by bad weather, but rescued in the end by more conventional cooking means…

Quest for the perfect Neapolitan crust…

Real Naples-style (Neapolitan) pizza is hard to recreate, and a measure of success is what the crust looks like underneath. There are many tools and gadgets in my arsenal to get me there…

First American Thanksgiving

Well, obviously not THE first American Thanksgiving. That was a Pilgrim Fathers thing, allegedly in 1621. This was all-out Thanksgiving Dinner at our place, complete with turkey and all the trimmings … courtesy of Kamado Joe, family and friends.