Too Hot for Fire!

It's bee quite a while since I posted on here.  That doesn't mean that I haven't been cooking with fire, I have but just haven't either deemed it worthy enough to post about or it was simply a repeat of previous successes.  I mean, how often can I post pictures of bread coming out of the oven?

When we designed the outdoor kitchen we decided to include a back wall of open work bricks.  The idea being to allow heat to escape.  During the summer we experience temperatures up around the 40C mark on a regular basis and on these days cooking in the house becomes problematic (i.e. it raises the temperature in the house to unbearable levels) and it should in theory be more comfortable to cook outside. Here you can see the open work bricks let the beetles in too!

This has only been partially successful.  The bread oven is simply too hot in summer.  Open work bricks or not I am now not baking bread at all.  This is a bit sad because I do prefer my own home baked bread but I find that not only is it too hot, working in front of a raging hot oven is not something I can cope with at the moment, but also it is sooo hot I have very little inclination to do much beyond some very basic cooking.

Fortunately the BBQ really comes into its own now.  Simple grilled meats and veggies from the garden accompanied by a salad make for the best of summer lunches.  Here the sweet corn are steaming inside their own natural covering (the outer leaves) only seconds from being harvested in the garden.  Pork chops sprinkled with a little salt and paprika will be teemed up with a warm lentil and pea salad (sage, oregano and spiced vinegar give it a summery lift).

The spiced vinegar is left over from making pickled cucumbers and will be fine used in salads.  The little pot is full of butter, a little smoked salt and some cumin, this will be mashed together and then smeared on our warm corn on the cob.  What could be simpler?

No not a Molotov cocktail that's the vinegar bottle that doesn't have a cork!

Yum!

What I did right... What I did wrong!

No two fires are the same.  This I am finding out.  I am trying to learn from my mistakes but it seems that each time I use the oven I correct a previous fault but find another completely new one!

Today, Cave woman built the fire up nice and hot using all the wood in one go.  It worked.  The dome turned white after only about an hour.  Hooray.  Cave Woman did notice that the cracks in the exterior of the oven appeared worse when the oven was hot.

This is worrying but after a little research on the internet apparently this is normal, it can happen and many people judge the temperature of the oven by the width of the cracks as the dome heats up.

 I find this scary.  But after close investigation Man just shrugged and walked away.

The dough for bread was already rising.

Learning from previous errors Cave Woman left the glowing embers in the oven right up until the moment the bread dough was ready to be baked.

To utilise the fierce heat from the embers I baked (roasted? Smoked?) a couple of aubergines until the skin turned very very burned, and the inside was as soft as butter.

The aubergines were then left to cool in a colander before skinning and squeezing gently to remove excess moisture.

When quite cool they were whizzed up in the food processor with some olive oil, garlic, yoghurt, cider vinegar/lemon juice, salt and pepper.  This is the starter for our lunch.  And will do for snacks later.

I should really have made flat breads to go with the aubergines but I didn't remember the aubergines until after all the bread dough had been made and instead we have Bridge Rolls.

Well.  The first mistake was that I didn't wash the oven floor - because the last time I did that the oven cooled far too quickly.  But this time I did remember to close off the chimney after the embers were removed... but ... I forgot that the bridge rolls are made with egg and milk and the sugars in these are inclined to burn.

The bottoms of the rolls are a bit burned, and the top is very brown but the insides were definitely not cooked.  So Cave Woman used a cake cooling rack on the base of the oven to lift the bread up a bit and hopefully stop it burning further.  The rolls were replaced and continued to cook without browning any more.  Bread can be very forgiving.  They turned out perfectly edible, including the burned bottoms.

The newest bit of kit acquired for use with the oven is the pair of welders leather gloves.  They are a little large for Cave Woman's delicate hands but definitely do the trick.

The rest of the bread cooked in the normal 30 minutes or thereabouts time even though the thermometer on the door didn't rise above 100C.

The thermometer lies.  It never shows the correct temperature in the oven and I am learning to trust my bare hands.  A quick wave about inside the oven and I am getting to know whether it is too hot, not hot enough etc...  A laser thermometer is on the next christmas list.  The loaf from the tin had browned nicely on top but the free form loaves did not.  The reason for this is a bit of a mystery.  The dough is the same, however the free form loaves went in after the tin loaf was already half cooked... could the oven have cooled that much in that short a time?  Cheese biscuits made with herbs and sun dried tomatoes went in next.

I put the hot embers on the bbq and once again we used them to cook lunch.  A couple of pork steaks sprinkled with paprika and a pot of lentils.  The aubergine and rolls were eaten as a starter.

Finally, as usual, a pot of soup is placed in the closed oven and left for several hours, it will do lunch for tomorrow along with the last of the rolls.

I have discovered that no matter how organised I get there is a point where cooking with fire becomes frantic.  Once you start loading up the oven you are constantly checking to make sure things don't burn.  If you have meat on the BBQ at the same time it is impossible to leave either to go set the table or prepare a salad... needs must share the joy of cooking with Man.  Who to his credit had barely set foot into the outdoor kitchen from the moment I claimed it as my territory, but now is happily poking and prodding and turning the meat as it sizzles.  Ah, its the little things!

Cave Woman tired.  Man happy happy happy.

Great Fire!

I am still suffering from an awful cold.  I haven't had a cold like this for ... mmm must be three years.  Hey ho.  We need bread so after having put it off for a day while I cuddled down on the couch I decided that the cold wouldn't get any worse if I actually tried to get on with stuff.  So I did.

I am learning about fire.  I am not quite so scared of lighting the fire now... I've done it a few times to date.  Adding more wood while its raging is a bit scary still but I am coping.  The trick with the fire is that you need it to burn hot.  How hot it burns varies with the type and condition of the wood you use.

I had kiln dried this batch of wood in the cooling oven the last time I used it.  So in theory it should be really dry - its already at least a couple of years old so is well seasoned.  Mediterranean oak.

I also discovered eco friendly fire lighters.  They are made from compressed cardboard and they work really well.  I got a lot of smoke at first.  And then a bit of flame Hoorah!

The flame was encouraged by use of a hairdryer.  It sort of worked.  And then when I added more wood it reverted to smoke again.  mmmmmm.

You see I figured that I need to have all the bits of wood put on the fire very early on so that they all catch alight around about the same time and it makes a BIG hot fire.  If you let some of it catch and then you keep adding more wood in small amounts it seems to retard the flames and you revert back to the smoke stage.

Well... to cut a long story short... I got the fire to go really well.  It was big and hot.  The flames shooting up the chimney and very little smoke.

And the dome turned white after only about an hour or so which is really quite quick.  I was very happy.  I had already made the bread dough before lighting the fire.  You see if your bread dough is fighting to get out of the bowl like this....

You just knock it back with a light kneading and put it back in the bowl to rise again.  This gives you roughly another hour before it needs to be baked.

Taking longer over the dough improves the flavour so you could in theory keep doing this all day long with no ill effects to your finished bread.  I expect there is a limit... but I haven't found it yet.

The embers are really hot and the oven is so hot I can't put my hand in it... this is more like it!  I love it when the dome turns back to white... it looks so clean.

Too hot for bread of course but I decide to clean it out properly and wash the floor of the oven with a cloth in water.

This will cool the oven to the temperature that I need for bread.  At least that's the plan.  I put the glowing embers into the bbq tray and later (they stayed warm for several hours) used them to cook a couple of steaks for lunch.

A short wait.  Not long.  Maybe fifteen minutes and the bread and rolls were ready to put in... but.... the oven now was really cool. Grrrrrr.  It had started to rain and the ambient temperature was quite cool but it shouldn't have made that much of a difference... should it?  I could feel the heat through the oven on the outside but inside I was able to put my hand in really comfortably for ages.  Sigh.  At some point I shall get a laser thermometer but in a perverse way I am enjoying the excitement of not knowing and just trying to use my experience to guess.  It gives bread making an extra dimension (anxiety over wasting ingredients and time is acute!)

OK so rolls that normally take fifteen minutes took half an hour and even then were a bit pale looking.  The loaves of bread took an hour.  Still very pale but cooked.  So... not perfect.  Next time I shall not clean out the oven until the bread is ready to go in straight away and I will try and do it very very quickly.

Taking advantage of the heat still in the oven I made a stew - just chopped veggies and some pork pieces, a little bit of seasoning and then topped up with stock and popped it into the oven.  It will do for tomorrows dinner.  Which was a blessing since I am still under the weather and the less I have to cook the better.

 The rolls were delicious for lunch with the steak and some green beans and bacon on the side.  A good learning day I think.  

Alfresco Lunch 1st December

Sometimes its great living here in Spain.  Yes it was cold this morning and it is going to be cold tonight but during the day the sun shines bright and the sky is blue and so why not light the BBQ?  There is a reason why so many people love barbecued food.  The direct heat and smoke from the coals caramelises, and flavours the outer skin of the meat in a way the cooker grill just isn't able to.

Woman had defrosted some belly pork and coated it with a mixture of treacle and soy sauce, salt and pepper and left it to marinate in the fridge for about 12 hours.  

The coals are left to turn white hot.  Actually I should have used more.  Six belly pork slices did not fit on in one go.  Alarmingly the grease dripped from the pork onto the coals and huge flames shot up.  At this point Woman moved the whole grill up a notch so that it was farther away from the coals.

The smoke is supposed to go up the chimney but just as much is coming out the front of the BBQ.  I am not sure this is right.  The BBQ chimney top has actually been fitted around the wrong way but Man says this isn't the issue - and Man should know.  Further investigation is needed once the BBQ cools.

Woman is starting to get the hang of this.  The knack is to have everything ready before you start cooking.  Home made baked beans in tomato sauce are warming in among the coals.

The kitchen is still not totally finished.  A bit of plaster needed in places (Man's work) and the curtains are yet to be sewn (Woman's work).  But even so... there is nothing nicer than eating outside in the sunshine.

Man Smiles ergo Woman Smiles back.

Not Hot Enough!

OK.  Day Two on the Bread oven and I am on a high after eating several slices of bread with cheese, jam and the Man had marmite.

It only took roughly an hour to get up to temperature this time.  But it took half an hour to get the fire going in the first place.  Only practice will improve that I think.

Because the fire was ready so quickly, the bread was not ready and so by the time the bread was ready I had let the fire burn out and the oven had cooled.  It was still hot but not roasty toasty hot.

The bread is a little anaemic.  The small loaves are cooked but on cutting the big one in half it was just a little underdone.  T'will make toast.

Sun dried tomato and cheese biscuits are a BIG hit - they took about 20 minutes longer than usual to cook.  Should I rekindle fire and wait or give it up as a bad job?

Some of the embers from the oven are moved to the BBQ and lunch is cooked over a small fire.  The fire goes out constantly and a certain amount of blowing is required to rekindle any heat.  Did Cavewoman's furs smell of smoke?

The food cooks.  Chilli mince with the remains of yesterday's meatballs.    Woman is messy and drops tomato passata all over the yet to be tiled kitchen floor.  Man raises eyebrows and goes to get some kitchen roll.

The chilli mince tastes a tiny bit smoky.

Followed by stewed fruit (apple, pears and plums with brown sugar and knobs of butter) which is served with a huge dollop of Mascarpone.

It's also a bit smoky.  Not sure if that's good or bad.  It tastes good but might be better minus the smokiness.  Woman learns quickly though... fire must be hotter before you start.  Man made lunch disappear quickly and then went back to finish the tiling in the kitchen.

Woman happy ergo Man happy.