Experiments in Smoking Part 2

A few weeks ago Mr. Smokerson came out of hibernation for a day; a day of cold smoking experiments. I have previously tried cold smoked cheese, which was delicious; and have been wondering what I could turn to next. I tried some salmon which was less successful. Pretty much all of the different meats I have smoked have been good, but I am keen to branch out. I’m still a total novice and generally just bung in a big bit of meat, some wood chips and hope for the best. There is yet to be any proper science applied to my experiments, but I will continue and hopefully the whys and wherefores will present themselves in time.

Back to cold smoking day... Butter was my first thought; smoked butter must be a good thing? So I decided to smoke the cream and make my own butter, just to make it a bit more interesting; in order for the flavour to run right through, rather than just smoking the outside of a block of butter. Then I thought eggs, and finally ricotta. Mr Smokerson has a couple of shelves inside so there is room to have a few different things going on at once.

Smoked eggs, it seemed like a good idea? They were the most complicated task, I wasn’t sure whether to cook them, shell them, keep them raw, or how long to smoke them for. I did a bit of investigating and there were a lot of different ideas on timing, anything from 20 minutes to 4 hours. I tried them cooked in the end, boiled for 7.5 minutes, a couple shelled and one with its shell still on. You can smoke them raw apparently as the smoke will permeate the shell, but requires a longer smoke. I was still confident that a smoked egg was going to be a wonderful thing, I like eggs, I like smoked stuff. Winner? I read about smoked egg salad, I dreamt up a smoked scotch egg, how could that be bad?

So I was all set, with a bowl of cream, ricotta on a plate and eggs a few ways. I have a little metal mesh tray thing for cold smoking that winds round and round like a maze. You fill it with sawdust, I think mine is oak, it came with my smoker. Then you light a tea light, pop it in at one end, wait until the wood begins to smoulder then take the candle out. The wood dust then burns round the maze very slowly, allowing you to smoke things for long amounts of time.

It is interesting how the smoke affects things differently. After an hour the taste and smell of smoke in the cream was incredibly strong; the ricotta seemed just perfect, a very light smoky taste; and one of the pre shelled eggs had a very mild smoke to it, hardly noticeable at all. So I returned the other two for another hour, there was no way the smoke would have got through the shell of the egg if it has barely affected the shelled one.

I have to say I didn’t really enjoy the egg in the end, and I’m yet to make the Scotch egg version, because every time I think about it, I think ‘I don’t want to eat another egg that tastes of smoke’. It was a bit like you’d had a house fire, gone back the next day and eaten the cold smoky boiled eggs you had left behind... Doesn’t sound that appealing does it?

The ricotta was lovely, mild smoky and creamy. I made some polenta, with fried mushrooms and rosemary, with a dollop of ricotta on top. I think it would be delicious on top of a simple tomato pasta too. I had something similar in Italy in the summer, which was a rich tomato orecchiette pasta topped with aged ricotta, which was so strong and delicious.

The butter is good, very smoky, very. I wasn’t sure what to do with it though. When you taste a bit on its own it is lovely, when you have a bit on bread it seems almost like you’re eating smoked cheese rather than butter. Perhaps it would work on top of a steak? Or to make a white sauce for a fish pie, that seems like a good idea... or wrapped up with corn on the cob to go on the bbq? It’s definitely a niche market however! And a few weeks later I’m not thinking, I wish I had some more of that smoked butter, so it’s likely it won’t material again for a bit...

I think I’m so used to smoking and eating meat that smoked things that aren’t meat end up seeming a bit odd. Why would you want your egg to taste of smoke I ended up asking myself? Which I guess means it probably shouldn’t. So a tick for ricotta, a project to find a use for the butter, and possibly give the eggs a miss next time round...

Smoked Beef Ribs

Ok so this is another smoker recipe, and if you scroll down the page pretty much the last recipe I posted was a smoker recipe, and I don’t want to come across like a smoker show off, but I do have a smoker and I’ve been smoking stuff so I thought I’d tell you about it... again... because it is better than telling you about either nothing, or a bad apple risotto that seemed like a good idea but wasn’t...

I was given the Pitt Cue cookbook as a belated birthday present recently. It tells the story of Pitt Cue’s evolution from a trailer on the South Bank to their own little restaurant in Soho, building their own smokers and devising their own rubs, sauces and smoking techniques. These days they are even farming their own Pitt Pigs, I’d love my own pigs... It’s a canny little tale and is full of amazing looking smoked stuff.

Only it is DEAD complicated. I want to make the ‘Mother Sauce’ but to do that I have to first make beef stock and pork stock, fresh. I’d like to make the BBQ sauce to go with my lovely beef rib, but first I need to make a spice mix AND homemade Chipotle ketchup... I make a lot of stuff from scratch but this seems a bit of a faff on. They probably don’t expect people to make most of the things, but that makes me want to give it a go... The drinks and pickles look a bit more accessible. So  I improvised, missed some steps out and sacked off the BBQ sauce and ended up with a bloody lovely beef rib rack...

I made their ‘House Rub’, there’s enough to rub a house, so make a half or a quarter of this if you only have one piece of meat like I did. It comprised of 10g of fennel seeds, 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds, 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns and 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds, toasted in a dry pan for a few minutes, then ground up in a pestle and mortar. Add to a large bowl 100g of soft brown sugar, 50g granulated sugar, 10g garlic powder, 100g of fine salt, 15g of smoked paprika, 30g of regular paprika, 1 teaspoon of dried oregano and 1 teaspoon of cayenne. I threw in some mustard powder too... See, it’s a LOT of stuff. Mix it all together and you have your rub...

The beef was a lovely 4 bone beef rib rack from Charlotte’s butchery, which I covered all over in every nook and cranny with the rub. It was enough for four people, or two if you're really greedy, we just ate it for two days.

So we set Mr. Smokerson up, charcoal burning nice and white, water bowl in, temperature hanging around 110°C or 230°F, put the little metal box of wood chips onto the coals and in went the rib, not to be seen again for 6 hours, so we went for a walk. There is a massive bit of fat that runs through the middle of the rib that keeps it really moist but also has to break down so takes some time. When it is done the meat pulls away from the bone and is soft, sticky, smoky and delicious. We had it with mustardy coleslaw, lentils done like baked beans and some buttery polenta, perhaps an odd mix, but a pretty tasty one...

Smoked Brisket with Beans and Mash

I’m reading ‘Cooked’ by Michael Pollan at the moment. It is a huge beautiful hard back book, that wasn’t really the best choice to take on holiday as it barely fits in my bag, but I’m really enjoying it. It’s not a cook book, more a commentary on what cooking means and why people cook. It looks at the current fascination with food and watching people cook on tv, noting the fact that, apparently, people are now cooking less than ever. It suggests that cooking makes us who we are and defines us from other animals and describes how civilisation has evolved as we learnt how to use fire, cook in pots that held water and to ferment. It is part history, part chemistry, physics, aesthetics, psychology, anthropology, religion... and quite a bit Barbecue.

Michael heads deep into America, in the chapter entitled ‘Fire’ to learn how to Barbecue, a process hugely debated across the States; what is Barbecue? Who is authentic? Who isn’t? You can’t Barbecue a chicken apparently, only pork; only an entire pig in some states. He finds the so called king, pit-master Ed Mitchell who teaches him the process of slow BBQ, whole hogs cooked slowly overnight till the fat breaks down in huge smoking chambers with walls of coals and wood built up around the hog to cook it evenly. Then, chopped and seasoned, all of the beautiful, soft, smoked meat is mixed until there is a bit of every cut in every bite - shards of crackling finely chopped and mixed through the meat, it sounds amazing. Every state seems to differ; dry rubs, BBQ sauce, variety of hog, length of cooking, serving, and they all say the other is wrong...

Well, god knows what they would make of me and my little smoker in the back yard, but I’ve had him out again, and until I find somewhere to build one big enough for a whole pig I’m just going to have to stick to more manageable cuts of meat. There was a bit of brisket at Charlotte’s Butchers that looked lovely, so began the idea.

I made a dry rub from paprika, garlic powder, mustard powder, mixed dried herbs, black pepper, sugar and salt, about a teaspoon of each. Sprinkle it all over the meat and then leave in the fridge for an hour or so, or overnight if you’re organised.

 

 

Then it was just a case of getting Mr. Smokerson ready - up to temperature at about 250°F, a bottle of beer in the water bowl and a box of apple and hickory wood onto the coals. The brisket then smoked for about 4 hours. Mr. Smokerson keeps a fairly steady temperature for 4-5 hours usually, the water bowl and sealed smoker enables you to keep a low steady temperature as opposed to cooking with a ‘normal BBQ’, over charcoal... a process Ed strongly laments.

 

Such a delicious smoky meat, moist in the middle, with soft fatty bits and a sticky smoked crust. I served it with homemade baked beans and mash. So good, I don’t think it would win any points with the pit-master but it went down a treat in my house.

Juniper and Wood Smoked Potted Pheasant

The shooting season came to an end last week, but instead of mourning its passing I had to get on with plucking the two pheasant, two duck and seven woodcock that landed on my doorstep courtesy of WTH (Woody The Hunter) and Mr. Hedworth. I have been inundated with birds all season from the shoot my dad attends, so as a thank you I potted up some pheasant for the proprietor and the keepers. He tells them stories of everything I cook and I get the impression he forces them, and others, to look at my blog, so I thought it only right that I show my gratitude in the form of food...

 

Pheasant is the main thing that comes home from the shoot, sometimes duck, then more rarely a partridge, a grouse and very rarely a woodcock. So with lots of pheasant filling up the freezer I have been trying to find inventive ways of serving it. Roast pheasant often dries out when cooked, and just doesn’t do the bird justice really. It is better in a casserole or pie I think. I've made a Pheasant Salmis in the past, a lovely French dish with a rich truffle sauce. I have also, a few times, attempted a St. John Pheasant and Trotter Pie, although delicious it takes hours, hours and hours, and each time I have become so frustrated and annoyed by making it I have vowed never to go there again. I was going to write about it on here some time, but I am yet to find a point in time where I'm ready to relive the experience via the written word...

Pheasant is probably one of the milder game birds, the wallflower of the game world; I prefer partridge and woodcock who really up the gamey-ness levels. That was until I thought of potting it, or to be more precise, smoking it, confit-ing it and then potting it, so now I'm a pheasant convert.

 

 

I smoke the pheasant in Mr. Smokerson for 2 hours, the whole bird, with a mix of hickory and apple wood and some juniper berries. You are meant to add a small handful of woodchips, but TLI has taken to packing the whole box full with the intention of 'smoking the f**k out of them'... It works... If you don't have a smoker you can just roast them for 15 minutes instead of this stage.

To confit, put the jointed pheasant in a pot that it fits in snugly and pour over 350g of warm duck or goose fat, a standard size jar per bird. You want the fat to cover the pheasant as much as possible. Add a bay leaf and a bunch of thyme, then cook in the oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until the meat is soft.

 

 

When it is done take it out of the fat and leave to cool, you can keep the fat in a jar in the fridge and use again, reserve a bit to pour over the top of the finished pheasant. Then shred the pheasant meat into tiny pieces; this is best done by hand so you can discard any bits of bone, skin or fat, and you get a nice irregular course texture rather than a pâté texture if you blitz it. Add a little of the melted fat now and again to keep in from drying out and add quite a few fresh thyme leaves and some pepper. Then melt 25g of butter per bird and the juice of half a lemon and add this all to the meat.

 

Finally pack the meat into a jar or small pots and pour over a thin layer of the melted fat, just enough to cover, this will keep for a few months in the fridge. I find that one bird makes two regular jars of potted pheasant. You can use this method with a range of other meats, I have made Potted Duck previously, you can also try pork in the same way, which is known as pork rillettes. I have also read about potted goose and rabbit, which I'm keen to try too.

The best way to eat this potted pheasant is either slightly warmed through, or at room temperature, on hot toast with butter and a scatter of capers. I also like a little bit of Bread and Butter Pickle on the side. It's so delicious, the meat is soft and tender and smoky, the thyme and butter really add to the flavours. It's changed my view of pheasant no end...

 

Smoked Baby Back Ribs

Mr Smokerson was feeling a bit neglected I think, starved of attention for at least a few weeks, maybe longer... Poor guy. Until I spotted some baby back ribs in Waitrose that was. I've smoked some once before and it was an effort to find them; now I see them everywhere, Morrisons, Waitrose, The Grainger Market. They are small, tasty and cheap. This lot only cost £2 and there were smaller racks for less... rude not to I thought...

It was a match day, expectations were high... (not that high as we were playing Man United), but high enough to bet on Newcastle to win and get up early to light the smoker and pop some ribs in. The sun was shining, autumnal colours were dancing around the yarden, wood smoke was puffing out of Mr. Smokerson, I could smell smoky delicious ribs, I was happy, Mr. Smokerson was happy, everyone was happy...

That was until about 4 minutes into the match, but the less said about that the better, I still smelt a bit of wood smoke and hadn’t forgotten the good times entirely...

You don't necessarily need a smoker to make these as there are two methods, one for the smoker and one for the oven. I haven’t tried the oven method yet, but the smoker way is pretty damn good, so I'm guessing that is too. The recipe is from the Joe Beef book, my current obsession and inspiration for my Pop-up Feast on the 3rd November at Ouse Street Arts Club.

My ribs weighed about 350g. Mix together a teaspoon of smoked paprika, one of garlic powder, one of mustard powder and one of black pepper, and add some crushed bay leaf. Rub this mix all over the ribs, whether you are putting them into the oven or the smoker.

For the oven method put them in a tray, pour in half a bottle of beer and cook for 2½ hours at 165°C covered with foil, for the smoker method bring the smoker up to about 240°F and smoke for 4 hours, keeping the temperature between 210°F and 240°F. For me this involves lots of faffing, opening and closing of vents and messing around with probe thermometers... but actually Mr. Smokerson is pretty reliable kind of guy when you leave him to his own devises, I just like faffing around pretending I'm some kind of all American smoker guy... For a fuller explanation of how Mr. Smokerson works see my 'Experiments in Smoking part 1' post.

We added an overly large handful of apple wood chips at the same time as the meat went in, and a few more half way through just for good measure, the aim being to smoke the hell out of them. This resulted in a pretty bloody smoky rib; soft, sweet, delicious. Just all round delicious. Next time I'll make more as well as coleslaw, buns, bbq sauce... I want more already...

Experiments in Smoking: Part 1

I have a new best friend, he is a smoker, not of cigarettes, of food, an actual smoking vessel. He looks a little bit like a second world war bomb and was a very gratefully received birthday present; that I fear is going to take over everything I cook from now on...

He travelled to the Lake District with us still wrapped up in his box, ready to be unveiled and to begin his life as a fully operational smoking machine. He needed a name. Old Smoky perhaps, Sir Smoke-a-lot? I spent the car journey trying to think of something fitting... The First Earl of Smokington, Mr. Smoky Smokerson? Mr. Smokerson seems to fit, he looks a bit like an old formal butler standing to attention in the corner of my yard, it suits him!

He is made up of quite a few different parts, so I will take you through how he works, even though I'm still figuring out the basics. The very bottom section contains a charcoal basket, where you put the charcoal funnily enough. Next up is the water bowl, this is filled with water for most hot smokes, it stabilises the temperature, you can also add beer or herbs to the water for extra flavour. Then there are two racks at different levels, just like the top of a BBQ, then finally the lid, which has hooks inside to hang fish from. It also has the temperature gauge on the top so you can keep an eye on things from the outside. There is a little metal box that you put wood chips in and place on the charcoal for hot smoking and a little metal maze type thing that you put wood dust in for cold smoking.

We assembled Mr. Smokerson carefully, a few weeks ago now, and ambitiously set about a 9 hour pulled pork as the first experiment in smoking, I used the Joe Beef recipe I have used previously and added some beer to the water bowl.

It took a while to get the temperature steady, lots of opening and closing of vents, but it was actually very consistent in the end, sitting at about 250°F for 4-5 hours. This is about 120°C, so quite low, the temperature is in Fahrenheit, which is a bit of getting used to, but I'm getting the hang of it.

I was unsure about how a basket of charcoal would last this long, as on a BBQ it burns out in less than an hour typically. But it does, one basket seems to burn for about 5 hours, it must be to do with the sealed container, and shutting the bottom air vents so it burns very slowly with not much air movement. You basically light the charcoal and put the water bowl in, seal him up and when it has reached the correct temperature put your chosen food in, place the little metal box with a handful of wood chips in directly on to the charcoal, I used apple wood, and wait...

We chose the wrong time to go for a walk, feeling confident that Mr. Smokerson was on a roll, and not knowing how long the charcoal would burn for, we set off, it started to rain and we came back to a burnt out, rapidly cooling, smoker... After some initial panic he was up and burning again and the pork back inside. It didn’t end up as pully apart as the first time I'd cooked it in the oven, I think it could have actually cooked for longer, as it was at a lower temperature, but it was 10pm and people were hungry! The flavour was delicious however, really deep and smoky and sweet, you can really taste the apple smoke... I was hooked!

So Mr. Smokerson travelled back to Tyneside and the next experiments were cold smoked cheese, hot smoked almonds and smoked pigeon. The cheese marinates in whiskey and maple syrup for 4 hours in the freezer, then into the smoker until it comes up to temperature.

Cold smoking is a different process. A little metal contraption, that looks like a maze gets filled with wood dust, which is then lit at one end using a little candle. When the wood has begun to smoulder and smoke you remove the candle, place the maze in the bottom of the smoker, with the cheese on the rack and leave for about an hour. This one was a triumph! Really smoky cheese, I used a cheddar and a ewes cheese, both delicious!

Last weekend's smoking adventures were two duck, out of the freezer from last season, the last two little fellas I had left. I followed a River Cottage method for them and cured them in salt, brown sugar, dried bay leaves, crushed star anise, crushed cinnamon sticks and lots of ground black pepper. The ducks sit in the mix for about an hour before going into the smoker. Then they cook at 220°F for 4 hours. I have much more to learn about curing, what it is doing, how long, which method...

There is the initial period of lighting Mr Smokerson and trying to get it to the steady temperature you require. This was difficult this time round. He was at 450°F for about an hour, opening doors, shutting vents, taking his lid off, it was a bit frustrating to say the least... It turned out I hadn’t put the water bowl in, which stabilises it at a lower temperature... First mistake of the day. Second mistake of the day was that one of the ducks was actually a pheasant! I didn’t notice this until we carved... oops...

Again I used apple wood, the smoky flavour was milder this time, but the duck was delicious, a touch dry, but the flavour had really got into the meat. I left the pheasant for the next day, I have found that the flavour develops the longer you leave things. The result was a delicious smoked pheasant and bacon sandwich with crisp little gem lettuce for lunch the next day.

I'm perhaps getting a bit carried away with my new friend, I'm constantly thinking about what to do next! Sausages, fish, a duck that you cure, smoke then confit! No wonder it is akin to a competitive sport in America, I'm totally hooked. We bought some herring to get them on the go, but didn’t read what to do with them first, it turns out that you need to cure them for a few days then cold smoke them for 5 days! This is perhaps not conducive with actually having a life, so we may just have to leave that to the guys in Craster...