(MN) Newman McMuffin

Take a volcano burger and make it for breakfast!!

- Minced Pork mixed with your favourite sausage mix

- Bacon

- Mushroom

- Black Pudding

- Egg 

- Cheese 

- Plastic cheese

Basically make the burger the same as we do the volcano using the sausage meat!

Wrap bacon around the outside

Repeat, 6 times!!!

Part fry the eggs, though we did put one in raw and it still worked.

Add whatever mix you want.

Set the egg up indirect at 300 F and cook for 45 mins! Serves as you see fit!

(ZA)Coffee-rubbed baa-butt-cheek

I can't remember, for the life of me, where I got this idea from....

After scoring fairly deeply on the skin side, I marinated two small lamb rump roasts in a mix of 2 tbsp ground coffee, 1/2 tsp ancho chilli powder, 1 tsp each ground ginger, salt, smoked paprika, brown sugar, ground coriander, dry mustard, oregano and black pepper

We egged the lamb to an internal temperature of 145 deg F and it was a perfect medium rare. It sounds weird but it was utterly delicious with roasted potatoes and steamed vegetables.

(ZA & AW) Adie Webster is a Pasty Pest!

For some reason (probably the hairy bikers' fault!) Adie fancied the idea of making a pasty on the egg. After a little research this is how it happened....

Pastry: 280g plain flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 egg yolk, 140g salted butter and 8 tbsp cold water.

Rub the chilled butter into the flour with the baking powder and egg yolk until you have a mixture like breadcrumbs. Add the water a little at a time and stir with a metal knife until it comes together in a ball. form into a smooth ball, wrap in cling film and leave in the fridge to chill. This made two large pasties but you can double the quantity of pastry if you wish.

I diced 500g beef skirt mixed with diced carrot, diced swede, chopped onion and a potato that had been diced then par-boiled for about 4 minutes. I added 1 tsp Maldon sea salt and 1 tbsp black peppercorns that had been cracked using a pestle and mortar. We both like our pasty to have a fair peppery kick. Chef's tip: Don't stab yourself in the fingers whilst telling your significant other the "go away...you're being a pest!" Grrrrr!









































I cut the pastry ball into two, rolled each out the the size of a dinner plate and filled generously with the meat & vegetable mixture. I attempted a crimp around one edge (which I was quite proud of!) placed them on baking paper, brushed liberally with beaten egg and popped them on a pre-heated pizza stone in a pre-heated 350 deg F egg.

Adie had soaked a few chunks of hickory so these went onto the coals just as we put the pasties in to cook. We checked them after 40 minutes and then took them off the paper to crisp up the pastry base for 10 minutes.

They are not perfect but they tasted amazing and we'll definately be doing them again! Our little nod to Cornwall!

(MN) Pulled Chicken

First try at this and almost perfect. Next time though I'd be tempted to take the meat to 190F so it 'pulls' more. I didn't want to go to far and risk drying it out..

Basically get two chickens, or how ever many you want! And run them in your favourite rub. I used Salt Pepper and Garlic SPG.

Set the egg up on indirect mode, and smoke at 275F using your favourite wood! I used whiskey oak was manifique!

Smoke till 190F! I pulled them off at 180F but wished I'd had a bit more balls!!!

Leave to cool.

Then pull and mix with your favourite BBQ sauce!

Enjoy

(AW) Cuban sandwiches

In our never-ending quest to find ideas for using delicious leftover pulled pork, Turk thought these cuban sandwiches would be a great tasty lunch - he was, of course, completely correct!

Really good bread from our local baker (We used a white sandwich loaf but a bloomer would do just as well) Cover each slice with a liberal squirt of yellow american mustard (fake mustard!) then layer two slices of swiss cheese, our left over texan pulled pork which has been tossed in the special sauce, a few slices of wafer thin, smoked ham, sliced dill pickle and two more slices of swiss cheese. Top it off with the other slice of bread and then spread the outer of the sandwiches with a thin layer of butter.

Place the sandwiches on the half moon griddle which has been heated to 400 deg F on the BGE. place a piece of baking parchment on the top of the sandwiches and then a pizza stone or a heavy, flat-bottomed pan on top to ensure the sandwiches get good griddle marks and the filling all melts together.

 Flip the sandwiches after about 2 minutes and top with parchment & pizza stone again for two more minutes before plating up and chowing down - delicious, sweet, crispy with a hint of tanginess from the pickle to cut through the spicy richness of the pork & the cheese. Yum!

(AW) Dirty T-bone

Another first for us.....dirty steaks! So called because they are cooked directly on the coals with no grid or any kind of cooking vessel between the meat and the pure, white heat. 

Video here:

We half filled the minimax small egg for this and lit the coals in four sites rather than our normal two ignition points. It is important that both the firelighting cubes and the charcoal are organic and completely free of any chemicals and it would not be good for you to eat anything cooked on normal briquettes or treated charcoal! We opened her up to get the coals white hot then moved them to the edge of the fire pit and placed fresh charcoal in the centre to catch. we were aiming for an even distribution of blisteringly hot coals across the whole fire pit. Eventually, we achieved this and, at a staggering 600 deg F, we were ready to cook.

We used two beautiful T-bone steaks from our local butcher, brought to room temperature and liberally sprinkled with malden salt & freshly ground black pepper on both sides.

The steaks went directly on the coals for two and a half minutes on each side and then, after brushing any coals off, rested with a knob or two of butter on top for about two minutes before serving with a squeeze of lemon juice and simple sides of green salad and home-made potato salad...I promise you, no table sauces will be necessary! 

The resulting steak was sublime.....a taste experience that is difficult to put into words. Perfectly cooked, gently charred on the outside & soft on the inside. Gorgeous!

(ZA & AW) Nice bit o' brisket

This is our second attempt at brisket...not quite sure what to expect but here goes!

We were advised by our butcher (& fellow egger) to cook the brisket to time rather than temperature. His advice was to some the brisket for 2 hours, wrap for four hours and then, most importantly, rest for two hours.

Zero alpha bought a beautiful piece of brisket and we applied a basic chilli barbecue rub and let it sit in the fridge overnight to absorb all the flavours. We put some applewood chunks in to soak overnight too. The following morning, we set the egg up for indirect cooking, 225 deg F with the digiQ doing the "heavy lifting" of keeping a constant temperature. When the egg was stabilised  at the required temperature, we added the apple chunks and put the beef (which we had allowed to come up to room temperature beforehand) on the grid. We left it to smoke for 1 1/2 hours until it started to darken in colour.

 We then double-wrapped the beef in strong foil and, to help keep the joint moist, poured in a good half pint of guinness. Carefully placed it back in the egg for a further four hours.

The beef came off, still wrapped, and we wrapped it in a towel and placed it in a cool box to rest for around 2 hours.

When we unwrapped the meat, it was still hot and beautifully moist. It had a spicy, creamy taste and was delicious in a fresh bread roll with salad, slaw and crispy onion rings. There was loads left which has been put in steamable bags and frozen ready for the planned meals in the days ahead. It will go into our home-made pit beans, beef chilli fajitas and also into a smokey macaroni cheese (oh...and Turkleton's roll for his lunch tomorrow!) 

Delicious!

(ZA & AW) Saturday night family ruby! (Chicken Pathia)

Turk Jr was over so a ruby was the order of the day! Chicken Pathia with a home-made pineapple chutney and home-made Naan

Egg was set up indirect, 350 deg F, with the pizza stone in from cold and the dutch oven sitting on top of it. Three big-arsed dried kashmir chilli softening in some ghee...

Added chopped onion, chicken pieces and a smooth blend of tinned tomatoes, a mix of onion, garlic, ginger that's been caramelised in ghee for ten minutes, sugar, salt, pineapple juice and curry spices.

Cooked for 35 minutes til chicken was cooked....

It is always worth making your own naan bread...they are sooo much better than the shop bought things and so simple. 200g strong flour, 5g easy bake yeast, 1 tsp salt (don't let this touch the yeast!) a beaten egg, 3 tbsp natural yoghurt and enough milk to form it into a dough. Mix it all together and knead until the gluten has developed. (I cheat and use my mega mixer with a dough hook for five minutes.) Place in a greased bowl, cover with cling film and leave in a warm place to rise for an hour till it gets massive and looks like it is going to take over the world....when ready to cook, knock the dough back on a floured surface. Split dough into two pieces and roll each into a teardrops shape. place on baking paper. While the curry came off to rest in the dutch oven before serving, we ramped the egg temperature up to 450 deg F. The naan were brushed with melted butter and put on the hot pizza stone for 5 mins, turn, brush then another 5 minutes...gorgeous!

Pineapple chunks, curry spices, black onion seeds and 100 ml water caramelised until the chunks brown at the edges and a few spoons of natural yogurt delicious!

also.....naan bread spread with mango chutney is now "a thing"!

(ZA) Zero Alpha's in control again! (Minimax burgers)

Turk is out at work, earning a crust, so Mrs Turk is in control again! This time I decided to make burgers by adding some very finely chopped parsley, scotch bonnet chilli (phew!) and onion granules to prime minced chuck steak and formed them into half pound patties ready to rest for a while.

This was our first chance to use the little table we bought, second-hand, for £15 on the local Facebook selling site. It was robust enough to handle the minimax sitting on it and was sturdy enough that it didn't move around when I opened the lid of the egg. It meant the cooking height was spot on and using the little egg was an absolute breeze.

I set the egg up for direct cooking, cast iron grid flat side up and around 350 deg F. It literally took 15 minutes to heat up and then the burgers went on. Turk placed some onion slices on the griddle for five minutes each side too and these were served, with the cheese-topped burger in a toasted bun...lush when served with a crispy iceberg lettuce, red onions and a home-made potato salad.