Recipes, home grown goodness, BBQing and food stuff
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="jegga" data-cid="595743" data-time="1468139152">
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<p>What smoker do you have? </p>
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<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.grillingcompanion.com/bubba-keg-grill/'>http://www.grillingcompanion.com/bubba-keg-grill/</a></p>
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<p>Bubba keg. Big, charcoal driven kamado style cooker. Twin wall steel, insulated. Did I mention two bottle openers? :D</p>
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<p>Insulated steel is great for a kamado, but twitchy. They are so well insulated if you overshoot the temp you are basically stuffed.</p>
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<p>Once you go kamado, you never go back. I cooked on webers for years, but by god the kamado concept is great for controlling temperature.</p>
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<p>Jegga - you wellington based? I had some beer from a mate who brewed something there. It was, erm, home-brew like. Old school, kit and kilo home brew, if you know what i mean.</p> -
Yeah I'm Wellington based and normally avoid beer nerds especially the ones who insist on you trying their brew but his were good . I tried about six different brews and they were heaps better than the crap my brother in law brews from scratch and acts you're some sort of philistine for not appreciating .<br>
Sounds like brewing there is s bit of a social thing too, it's not my kind of thing but he's made heaps of mates there. -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="jegga" data-cid="595750" data-time="1468140181">
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<p>Yeah I'm Wellington based and normally avoid beer nerds </p>
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<p>There are a few in Wellington! I love craft beer, but it's like wine and women - a binary scale. You either like it or not, go for it.</p>
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<p>Also, my homebrew is special as it is brewed by a group of bearded men. This makes it special and different :)</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="nzzp" data-cid="595752" data-time="1468140948">
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<p><strong>There are a few in Wellington</strong>! I love craft beer, but it's like wine and women - a binary scale. You either like it or not, go for it.</p>
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<p>Also, my homebrew is special as it is brewed by a group of bearded men. This makes it special and different :)</p>
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<p>Yeah, they are hard to avoid -MN5 should be along any minute to add his 2c worth.. I got one of these v cheap the other day and was thinking about adding refractory cement to the base to help it hold heat <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://cookingwithlillian.com/product/17-multi-functional-smoker-bbq-grill/'>http://cookingwithlillian.com/product/17-multi-functional-smoker-bbq-grill/</a>. </p>
<p>I don't use charcoal normally so this could be a way to get used to it.</p> -
<p>The problem with all of the thin walled cookers is loss of heat out the sites.</p>
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<p>Basically, I would strongly suggest you save your pennies and buy a decent kamado. WIth the thin wall, you will wind upw ith hot spots and cold spots, hard temps to hold, chew through charcoal and find it a difficult experience.</p>
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<p>I've cooked a lot on charcoal and there is a learning curve, but it is well worth it. Feel free to ask away - I know a fair bit about charcoal and cookers ... long story but I moonlight occasionally for a bbq store doing demos.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="nzzp" data-cid="595762" data-time="1468141911">
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<p>The problem with all of the thin walled cookers is loss of heat out the sites.</p>
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<p>Basically, I would strongly suggest you save your pennies and buy a decent kamado. WIth the thin wall, you will wind upw ith hot spots and cold spots, hard temps to hold, chew through charcoal and find it a difficult experience.</p>
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<p>I've cooked a lot on charcoal and there is a learning curve, but it is well worth it. Feel free to ask away - I know a fair bit about charcoal and cookers ..<strong>. long story but I moonlight occasionally for a bbq store doing demos.</strong></p>
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<p>My mate was doing that in oz with these <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.bradleysmoker.co.nz/'>http://www.bradleysmoker.co.nz/</a> he made some pretty good stuff with it. Not sure I could ever brine kingfish for three days like he did , mine only get 12 hours max , his smoked venison was pretty good though. </p>
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<p>I'm sure the thin wall is nowhere near as good, but it was cheap enough . The kamodo or similar is going to have to wait till the deck is finished.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="jegga" data-cid="595764" data-time="1468142842">
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<p>My mate was doing that in oz with these <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.bradleysmoker.co.nz/'>http://www.bradleysmoker.co.nz/</a> he made some pretty good stuff with it. Not sure I could ever brine kingfish for three days like he did , mine only get 12 hours max , his smoked venison was pretty good though.</p>
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<p>I'm sure the thin wall is nowhere near as good, but it was cheap enough . The kamodo or similar is going to have to wait till the deck is finished.</p>
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<p>The Kamado Akorn from BBQs and More that NZZP described is the way to go. I got one on sale early in the year for under $600, it performs very similar to more expensive models and I didn't even go geek and replace the gaskets and stuff</p> -
<p>Yup thats the one</p>
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<p>I've finally gotten around to using my sous vide and I have to say it has exceeded my expectations.</p>
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<p>It actually has some similarities to charcoal grilling. Takes ages to come up to temp and accuracy of water is vital but once you nail that the results are pretty bloody good.</p>
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<p>Whats great is it takes away some of the pressure over getting your timings right.</p>
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<p>Had a bunch of people for dinner on Saturday and basically everything was cooked. Beef cheeks had been in the sous vide with some herbs, garlic, seasonings and oil for 8 hours carrots an hr shallots 30 minutes. cook the shallots in butter with the mushroom add some wine and balsamic reduce till sticky add the cheeks with all their juices reduce again and serve on a bed of mashed cauli garnish with carrot and chopped watercress sprouts open the syrah. </p>
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<p>To all intents I spent 30 minutes in the kitchen. Really intense flavours and mess free cooking. I could even have done the sous vide days in advance - as restaurants do.</p>
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<p>Bloody fan now</p> -
I've got some chillis ready for harvesting (well not that many) but need suggestions....
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<p>I have a small single plant with it's first lot of chillis</p>
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<p>I guess just how to keep them to use later or how to use them (ie do you just chop em up and add them for flavour) </p> -
<p>I thought yr Minister of Finance wasn't a chilli fan.</p>
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<p>I use chilli's in about 50% of what I cook. Usually in some form of sauce. The pestle and mortar is your best friend. 755 of the trick with south or SE Asian food is getting the base sauce right. They can keep in a jar for about a month (if you can wait that long). I don't eed a recipe as I do it so much but if you need help I can give you soime</p>
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<p>I figure you are after options to keep them longer.</p>
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<p>Harrissa mix dried chillis with toasted spices salt and garlic. Use the water you rehydrated the chillis in to get the desired consistency</p>
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<p>Dried - 4-6 hrs in a layer in a fan baked oven on about 80 degrees - you need the chillis to be deseeded. Unless they are the short fate type do this quickly bt trimming stalk and then (cut end down doh) rolling gently between yr hands so seeds drop out. The finished chilli should be quite brittle. You want to dry the chilli not cook it so low and slow.</p>
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<p>Smoking. I have done this successfully in a wok with a mix of tea, demerara and jasmine rice as the smoke element. As low a heat as possible for as long as possible. I'm lucky to have a convection oven which makes temp control easier. You then need to dry the chillis as above (but with reduced time)</p>
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<p>Chilli sauce Rehydrated chillis garlic salt blitz add white vinegar and some sherry (good quality yr after the oak flavour) Cut with rehydrating liquid to desired heat.</p>
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<p>Is that any help. Basically chillis don't last long enough at my place for storing them to be an issue.</p>
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<p>As a chilli aside. For those in Akl. Farros now selling assorted gourmet chillis including naga and scotch bonnet</p>
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<p>Yeah mate, just after options for keeping them longer, with a new small plant, dont wanna waste those flavoursome red devils they have grown! </p>
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<p>made some Lemon honey/curd today...my lemons are so motherfucking sour! </p>
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<p>Tastes damn fine though, home grown lemons, eggs from my chickens....just need to learn how to grow my own sugar haha</p>
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<p>I always have squeezed lemon/grapefruit juice in the freezer to add to water, but these lemons are quite brutal, and my little tree is a prolific grower! </p> -
Re the butcher conversation earlier. Sadly good butchers are getting harder to find. A couple worth stopping at if travelling around are Mangawhai Meats at the Mangawhai Village (great snags and awesome thick cut lamb chops and aged steaks); Harris Meats at Cheviot ( the butcher is the nice older bloke that was on the last season of Masterchef. The brothers own an abbatoir down the road and regularly get in the finals of best steak comps. The shop itself is mouth watering. Beautifully presented and awesome family size pies). Highly commended also to the butchers in Geraldine down a side street. Venison patties, great snags etc.
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<p>A year ago I sold these people a chainsaw on trademe and they unexpectedly sent me up a box of their different salamis <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.blackballsalami.co.nz/'>http://www.blackballsalami.co.nz/</a></p>
<p>Their stuff is superb too, probably the best I've ever had.</p> -
Good resurrection.
I went to a 60th for my brother-in-law in the weeknd and I can highly recommend these guys. The Pulled Lamb, Pork Ribs & Brisket were mouth wateringly devine!