Garden Chef

Best braai toy ever?

The 'coolest' rotisserie ever?

Quick chicken breast with chilli, honey and rosemary glaze

After a week of rain, much like Wimbledon, the sun has come out and its time to get out on centre court.

Saturday, desperately tired after a long week so just a quick one, but what a winner. You will need:

• 4 Chicken breasts, bone in and skin on.
• Black pepper, two or three teaspoons ground
• Paprika
• Salt (the kind you can grind)
• A few tablespoons of Honey
• One red chlli
• A handfull of fresh rosemary
• Olive oil

Preparation:

Prepare the bbq for indirect cooking, while the coals are getting themselves ready there's more than enough time to do all the prep below. 

Set aside 3-4 tablespoons of honey and a helathy glug of olive oil in a small mixing bowl. Finely chop the chilli and rosemary, adding to the honey/oil mix.

Grind the salt and pepper in a mortar and pestle, mix in a few shakes of the Paprika. Slash the chicken breasts diagonally across the skin and rub the pepper, salt and paprika mix into the cuts and over the skin.

Once the coals are ready pop the chicken on to the bbq, close the lid and leave for approx 7-10 mins depending on the size of the chicken breasts. Lift the lid and paint some of the honey glaze on to the chicken, lid down again and repeat after a few minutes, perhaps about 5. The chicken skin should start to darken and even blacken slightly as the honey catches. I'd usually keep a close eye on things at this stage to make sure the breasts dont burn.

Served this with a green salad and some excellent Springfield 'Life From Stone' Sauv. Blanc.

Smoked shoulder of pork & one small chicken

Sometimes you just dont get to taking a photo or even registering the recipe until its all done. So a photo of a chicken carcass, and a third of a mid size shoulder joint of pork really only tells the end of the story. Hopefully, it looks like a happy ending..

This is what went into the mix (approximately):

Smoked shoulder of pork

• One shoulder joint of pork
• Steven Raichlen's 'Java' barbecue rub
• Head of garlic

Smoked Chicken

• One mid size free range chicken
• Rub, as above

Process

• Make sure the fat of the pork is scored all the way around
• Make a number (how much garlic do you like?) of deep slits in the pork and stuff them with slivers of garlic
• Pat the chicken and pork dry and apply the rub liberally to both
• Get the smoker going. I used Weber 'heat beads' this time as they seem to burn hotter and longer than the ordinary variety.
• Once the coals are ready to go, put the pork on the bottom grid, the chicken above (assuming you're using a ProQ smoker in a two stacker configuration, although this will work with any variety of vertical water smoker you may have).
• Sprinkle a good handful of Jack Daniels smoking chips over the coals
• Put the stackers together, pop the lid on, and sit back for the afternoon
• Add another handful of chips through the bottom door after about 45 mins/1hour of smoking time

I took the chicken off after 3 hours at a consistent 125C which was just about enough. The temperature gauge Ian gave me as part of my smoker starter pack is really useful here as it takes out all of the uncertainty around when its done or not. The thickest part of the chicken breast should be 75C.

Pork came off after 5 1/4 hours. This was by far my most successful smoked pork dish, beating my first attempt at the ribs (which were also good, but not stellar). Succulent, not overly smoked, but perfectly cooked through. Even the girls who normally eschew anything as 'fatty' as this particular pork cut (where is the flavour supposed to come from without it??) were able to get through a few slices.

Success!

Demo: Rolled & Stuffed Chicken Breasts, Sirloin Skewers

Recently I attended a master smoking class given by bro' Ian. Well, actually it was a demo for suppliers of his ProQ smokers. And look at this, I think we had four on the go at one stage - collective noun for smokers? A 'smog' of smokers? No, thats not right..

You can do a lot of food on this many smokers, and we did! Everything from chicken to big pork joints, and fantastic ribs - but more about those in later posts.

Ian had prepared a couple of items that were a bit out of the ordinary:

Rolled and stuffed chicken breast

The demo catered for many, bit for a family bbq I'd probably recommend two fillets per adult (always more than less, you can always eat leftovers, but you cant just decide to not be hungry if there's too little).

You'll also need:

• two or three red and green peppers
• goats cheese/brie (we chose brie)
• string to tie the rolled and stuffed fillets
• bbq rub (some paprika, mixed herbs, salt and pepper) or buy a rub of your choosing. I've tended to use Steven Raichlen's (of BBQ Bible fame) rubs.

Place the fillet between two sheets of cling film and fatten out a bit with a roller or other blunt instrument. Cut the peppers into small pieces, and slice the cheese into thin pieces. Take the fillets and lay them out, now spread some of the pepper pieces and cheese over about half the exposed fillet, maybe slightly more, but make they're not so full that they cant be rolled and tied up.

When done and on the bbq they should look like this:

They were simply superb.

Whilst most smoking tends to take quite a while, these weren't done for much more than 45 minutes or so.

For those of you who think that chicken is a vegetable, we also smoked some sirloin fillet, flattened, rolled and stuffed in exactly the same way, except we used goats cheese instead of the brie. These were good too, but the chicken won the day.

Last but not least have a look at this skewer:

This was sirloin steak, cut into strips, vacuum marinanded overnight, and threaded onto skewers that were hung within the smoker. We hung four or five skewers in one smoker - each skewer easily enough for two. Interesting bits - the skewer is flat, not round, so the meat doesnt spin around the skewer once its threaded on. As its hanging in the smoker, tie a piece of string at the bottom of the skewer to make sure the sirloin doesn't slide off.

Soon as I have been able to replicate this for myself I'll post the details of the recipe for the marinade, just thought I'd share the great idea of all this meat hanging inside the smoker.

Smokin'

Recently acquired a new toy! Or rather given to me by my brother Ian.. In an attempt to convert me to the joys of smoking he sent me one of the smokers he designed. It looks a bit like a weber, but  with the stackers in place it really comes into its own. Other than producing great tasting food, I thought it was kind of cool that it looks a bit like a small rocket.

The smoker is made up of a few separate sections: Coals in the base, a largish basin, usually filled with water when cooking, is suspended directly above the coals in the first stacking section. A grill rests above the water pan in the first stacker section. Another grill rests in the second stacker section, providing a huge amount of cooking space. Its possible I'm told to do pretty much anything and for my first gambit decided to do two chickens and a pork belly!

The beauty of the smoker is that once the coals are ready, pretty similar to usual grilling with a weber or bbq, filling the water pan, putting the chickens on the bottom grill, the pork belly on the top, closing the lid and adding smoking chips of your choice , just close the lid and leave it alone for three to four hours. No turning , basting or watching.

Actually I'm told that there's a lot more to it, but for first time around just though I'd keep it simple. 3.5 hours later it was all done. 4 hours later half a pork belly  and one chicken had disappeared.  And I'm going to have to do this again, the kids are begging for more chicken.. Beginners luck I think.

Steak and sausages for the kids

Old favourite this one , and really quick. Using the Weber to grill/roast this time..

The steak

First off pop off to the local butchers and ask whats good today (we're lucky to live in a village where the local butcher will cut steaks to order, and even better than that they're just across the road! A good butcher makes all the difference - questions about quality and provenance should be welcomed). Result: three thick cut sirloin steaks. Marinaded for about an hour or so in teriyaki sauce and coarse ground black pepper, the sauce caramelises and sweetens on the bbq and tastes great.

Once the coals are ready, white and still fairly hot, whip the steaks on. I prefer them rare so did them for about 1.5 minute a side. Any longer than that and they will quickly cook to medium - and even when taken off they will continue to cook, so I always take the steak off before I think its done (this time around I probably over did it a bit and they weren't quite as bloody as they should have been).

None the less they went down a treat. 

The Chicken

One whole large organic chicken, cut into bbq sized pieces. If you cut them up yourself you can decide exactly how large each piece can be. When cooking for two small I just cut a small chicken in half, flatten it out, bbq it and serve half each.

Slash the chicken across the meatier parts of the flesh to speed up cooking time and help the marinade. Then marinaded in Mary Berry's All Season Sauce (www.maryberry.co.uk) for about 2 hours, cooked indirectly, coals on one side of the kettle, lid on for about 25mins, then finished off directly over the coals to make sure everything is browned (blackened) up well.

The Sausages

Merguez and Pork and Leek from across the road. Half way into the chicken cooking time, nestled these in between the chicken pieces. Kept the lid on as with the chicken above and then finished off directly over the coals.

Neglected to mention that steak only goes on once both chicken and sausages done. This was a really quick bbq, but more than enough for teenage triplets and three adults. Who needs an oven when its not raining?