Cooking With Fire: A Sneak Peek

ContentsChapter 1 AFireandaStick,7

Back to Basics Getting Started: Roasting on a Stick Toasting Cheese Roasting in Ashes and Coals Baking Bread under the Ashes

Chapter 2 AFewSimpleTools,37Spit Roasting How to Make an Efficient and Pleasant Roasting Hearth The Spit Roast on a String Cooking on Skewers The Grill The Schwenker The Plank Searing with a Hot Iron

Chapter 3 PotsandPans,93The Griddle in All Its Guises Cakes on the Griddle Tortillas Griddled Breads of Northwestern Europe British Griddle Breads Other Things to Cook on the Griddle The Griddle on Steroids: The Argentine Infiernillo Pots over Fire The Clay Pot Iron Pots and Pans Shallow Frying Deep Frying Baking Bread in a Cast-Iron Pot

Chapter 4MoreGear,163The Tannur, the Furnace, and the Potager The Cast-Iron Cookstove Smoke Barbeque, Two Ways

Chapter 5 RetainedHeat,195Underground Inspiration from around the World The Earth Oven: Cooking in a Hole in the Ground The Masonry Oven Building a Basic Wood-Fired Oven Getting Ready to Bake Heating an Oven Cooking with an Oven Full of Fire Getting Ready for Pizza Using Retained Heat The Cooling Curve Bread for the Wood-Fired Oven Natural Leavening for Your Wood-Fired Bread Natural Leavening Q & A Overnight Cooking Traditions Overnight in a New England Brick Oven

Resources,References,andDetails305

Acknowledgments,311

Index,312

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This is a sampling of pages from

Cooking with Fire 2014 by Paula Marcoux

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate credits; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other without written permission from the publisher.

Photography by Keller + Keller Photography

21

Toasting Cheese

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toasted cheese, old-schoolToday toasted cheese is British English for what Americans call a grilled cheese sandwich. But in the days before sandwiches were formally known and named as such, toasted cheese existed in a variety of guises. The earliest manner consisted of simply a chunk of cheese, impaled on the end of a stick or skewer (or sword, according to Shakespeare), and roasted, marshmallow fashion. The golden molten glob would be applied to a thin slice of crispy toast, if available.

8 ounces cheese, cut into 1- by 1- by 1-inch cubes, preferably at room temperature

1 half loaf of favorite bread, sliced thinly, and toasted crisp

optionaladornments

mustard or chutney, thinly sliced onion

4 servings, barring accidents

1. have ready a medium fire with a bed of coals.

2. Each cheese-toasting individual should carefully impale a cube of cheese upon an implement. Try not to run it all the way through. Unless the cheese is very elastic and forgiving, this abuse will tend to split it in half.

3. Use a fire shovel to pull some coals forward. Each guest may toast cheese to the degree favored by extending it over the coals. Turn it slowly for even exposure to the heat. No quick motions. Be attentive to slumping, and be ready with the toast.

4. Spread out the cheese on the toast, applying optional adornments to taste, and perhaps washing down with a glass of pale ale.

22

A Fire and a Stick


28

A Fire and a Stick


35

Baking Bread under the Ashes


39

Spit Roasting


saarlNdIscher schWeNKBrateNIn the schwenkers homeland, this preparation reigns. This recipe is courtesy of my friend Astrid Weins, whose father hails from the Saarland. If neck meat is unavailable, ask your butcher to cut boneless country style ribs in large (3- by-4-inch) pieces.

4 pounds pork neck meat, cut into 8-ounce pieces 1/4 cup canola oil 34 onions, cut in large strips 4 cloves of garlic, pressed 7 juniper berries, crushed 1 tablespoon prepared mustard 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1 teaspoon good curry powder 2 teaspoons paprika 1/21 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt

8 servings

1. Place the meat in a sealable container. Mix the remaining ingredients together and work into the meat. Seal and chill for at least 24 hours, up to 3 days.

2. Allow meat to come to room temperature while you make a fire under the schwenker. Beech wood is tradi-tional in the Saarland, but your schwenkbraten will be delicious cooked over any hardwood coals. Once you have a decent coal bed, and more wood burning along-side to generate additional coals, place the meat on the preheated grill grate, and start it swinging gently yet continually. Adjust the height of the grill or the coal arrangement to get a moderate steady heat.

3. At this point, theres nothing to do but keep the schwenker swinging and drink beer. When the first side looks crispy and luscious, flip the schwenkbraten with tongs. Keep the schwenker moving, and cook until meat registers 145F internally.

80

A Few Simple Tools


87

Searing with Hot Iron


89

Searing with Hot Iron

brItIsh grIddle breadsIn the bakestone lands of Northern and Western Britain, industrialization brought access to sheet- or cast-iron and wheat, changing the nature of the griddles as well as the composition of the breads on them. Bannock, made of whole-grain, roughly milled local flours (mixed simply with a little dripping from the roast and some water) gave way to those made with patent wheat flour, chemical leavenings, and currants or sultanas. And in turn those soon upgraded from grease to butter, and acquired sugar and a genteel attitude to go with it. But from the perspective of the modern baker, every one of those bakestone breads, from havercake to ban-nock to scone to muffin, is fun to make and splendid served with a cup of tea or something stronger.

Cream Scones (see page 118) bake on a griddle over hot coals.

114

Pots and Pans


salt-roasted shrIMPA bed of salt diffuses the heat of the iron without overseasoning the shrimp. Use head-on shrimp by all means if you can get them.

Solar salt (see Salt-Roasted New Potatoes, page 128)

Shrimp in shell A pepper grinder

1. Spread out a solid 1/2-inch bed of solar salt on a sheet of iron or an actual griddle, and start heating it over a hot fire.

2. Meanwhile, toss the shrimp with copious freshly ground black pepper.

3. When the salt is very hot, quickly lay the shrimp down on it. Turn each shrimp as soon as translucency appears to have crept through more than half of it, using the tail as a handle (or tongs if you prefer). The second the flipped shrimp attains curliness, remove to a serving platter.

4. Allow 46 shrimp per person for an appetizer, depending on size of shrimp and appetites.

123

Other Things to Cook on the Griddle


shallow FryIngIf youve already learned to use the griddle and cast-iron pots, you really already know how to shallow fry over a live fire. The skills are simple and the essential tools cast-iron skillets are available widely, both new and old.

When it comes to shallow frying, you have a lot of latitude in your cook-ing arrangement. Three support stones stably cradling your pan (a favorite since Neolithic times at least) can work fine, with nice hot coals shoveled in between the stones. Or, a strong trivet of about a foot of height can be a good support, as long as everyone moves with deliberation around it. Have a pile of light pine, split small, to jump the heat up. As ususal, youll need a decent coal bed before you start cooking.

Fried food is irresistible when the fat is kept good and hot. A good bed of coals under a frying pan keeps the heat steady and makes for snappy ignition of softwood bits when the temperature starts to drop.

142

Pots and Pans


153

Deep-Frying


KETTLE bAKING, STEP-by-STEP

1. Preheat the bake-kettle on a bed of coals.

3. Cover the pot securely.

2. Nestle the proofed dough in the kettle.

4. Shovel more coals onto the lid than are under the kettle.

158

Pots and Pans


5. Bake the bread, rotating the pot a half-turn halfway through the baking time.

7. Lift the lid carefully with a pothook. 8. The result can be as delicious and crusty as bread baked in a wood-fired oven.

6. Brush most of the coals and ashes from the lid.

159

Baking Bread in a Cast-Iron Pot


199

The Earth Oven: Cooking in a Hole in the Ground


the oven already In your houseIf you are lucky enough to have an old brick oven in your chimney, count your blessings and find a good mason. You want someone who is knowledgeable about and accomplished in the use of lime and clay mortars, and who is enthusiastic about your rehabili-tation project. (Its most ideal if the mason is small or has a small apprentice Im not joking! These things are a lot easier and cheaper to repair from the inside.)

At the very least, have a mason inspect the oven and any associated flues and dampers for safety. I have seen ovens opened that had been paneled over

for more than a century and found to be in pristine, perfectly usable-today condition. I have also seen piles of rubble, char, and spider webs so confusing that it was impossible to tell where the ovens mouth had been or what pattern the bricklayer had used so many years ago. Unfortunately, many twentieth-century homeowners found the empty space next to the fireplace in their old house to be a handy place to run ductwork for the central heating. I have been delighted to see some folks haul that stuff out, restore the masonry, and get back down to baking.


ovEN TooLS

Left to right: Two kinds of peel (aluminum and wooden), a light natural bristle brush, a wooden coal rake, a malkin, an iron poker, and a galvanized tub for catching coals and ashes.

233

Getting Ready to Bake


how To hEAT AN ovEN

1. Start a small fire toward the front of the oven, bearing in mind the need for airflow beneath. Gradually build it up into a good, stable blaze in the center of the oven.

3. Let the last fuel burn down pretty well, then rake out any remaining coals. Dampen a malkin and sweep lightly to get the edges. (Dont sweat the small stuff now; rather, give it a quick sweep with a dry brush after the heat has equalized.)

2. Add more fuel when you can and burn a smart fire until the ceiling of your oven looks nice and clean. And then burn it for a while more. The specifics of timing vary radically among ovens.

4. Right after firing, the temperature of the masonry is very uneven. Close up the empty oven to rest or soak for a spell and balance it all out. (If you ever seriously overheat an oven, give it a few minutes with the door open to release some heat.)

235

Heating an Oven


240

Retained Heat


254

Retained Heat


PIde: a PIzza cousInWhen I first saw the word pide on bakers signs in towns on the Anatolian plateau of Turkey, I expected a regional variant on the flat pocket breads (pita in Israel; khubz in Arabic-speaking Levant) so familiar to Americans. While all manner of flatbreads suitable for baking on griddles or tannurs are to be found in Turkey, it turned out that this pide is not really one of them. It is baked in a front-opening, classical-style oven, and is filled with delicious cheesy toppings. Except for its distinctive boat shape, pide recalls the pizza, of which it is certainly a close relative if not progenitor. The Italian peninsula is home to a baffling array of pizza variants. Two from Sicily, piduni and pizzolu, calzone-like stuffed breads, share etymological and culinary roots with Turkish pide, and suggest the connection was made sometime during the Byzantine rule of Sicily, between the seventh and ninth centuries.

Pide is part of the richly developed bread tradition that happens to occupy the region of wheats domestica-tion. It is a dead ringer for the Georgian khachapuri, which in turn has siblings and cousins across central Asia.

259

Getting Ready for Pizza


Cooking With Fire: A Sneak Peek

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