BBQ - Craig Cooks

BBQ Whiting with Tarragon Butter Sauce

July 4, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Here’s my first attempt at a dish from Josh Niland’s remarkable and scary cookbook “The Whole Fish”. Josh is renowned for using the whole fish. THE WHOLE FISH.

I surprised the person at the local fish market (a favourite haunt) when I said that I wanted to scale and gut the whiting myself. Having done that, I lost the will to attempt to cook the scales or guts.

I then laboriously reverse-butterflied and pinboned 4 whiting. I took AGES, but I improved. I kept the bones and heads and made some fish stock to go into the sauce. c

The sweet potato, sliced fennel bulb and fish were cooked on the BBQ.

I must admit that I tweaked Josh’s sauce recipe.

300ml of the fish stock that I’d made
1/2 cup of white wine (the recipe said verjuice and we were out of it)
A piece of orange peel
Some fennel seeds
Fresh tarragon from the garden

Reduce it all down and add 80g butter. The sauce was fantastic. The peas go realy well.

A great meal.

Lebanese Charcoal Chicken

October 25, 2018 by admin Leave a Comment

Yesterday I got out the battery-operated rotisserie for the summer. The chicken was dusted with Herbie’s Lebanese Baharat spice mix, which is has wonderful Middle Eastern flavours. The chicken was stuffed with half a lemon, 2 garlic cloves and a knob of butter. I put more butter under the breast skin.

I cooked it for about 90 minutes and checked the temperature with a probe along the way. During the cook I drizzled it with fresh lemon juice.

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Sous Vide Moroccan Lamb

December 17, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

I cooked a half leg of lamb for 15 hours overnight in the souse vide water bath. I use an Anova Precision Cooker stick and a Trespade Vacuum Sealer.

The cooking time came from Dale Prentice’s excellent book “At Home with Souse Vide” (stunning photos by my friend Mike Emmett and his friend Bec at RedFishBlueFish Photo.

Dale is the talent behind Sous Vide Australia. I also bought my smoking gun from them.

The recipe was as follows:

3 tbsp Moroccan spice powder. (For once I used some from a jar.)
1 x 5 cm knob of fresh ginger sliced thinly
3 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
1 long red mild chilli, sliced and de-seeded
1/3cup white wine
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tbsp fig jam
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sea salt

In hindsight I wish I had added juice of 1/2 lemon. Next timeI would stud the meat with the garlic.

After cooking it overnight, I finished it off on the BabyQ gas Weber.

It tastes really good, although next time I’ll use a home-made spice mix to give it more kick.

I’m going to serve it cut up with warm pita bread and accompaniments.

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Smoked Tomato Achiote Pork

December 10, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

Tonight I put a Mexican twist on a Spanish roast pork dish.

The pork leg was studded with slices of 3 cloves of garlic. The pork was put in the following marinade for only a couple of hours and should have been longer.

Marinade
50g tomato paste
1/2 cup red wine
1 tsp hot smoked paprika
1 1/2 tbsp achiote paste
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp lemon juice
A generous pinch of ground cloves (maybe 1/8 tsp?)

The measurements above are approximate.

Achiote paste is from the annatto plant – a peppery spice. I keep a block of it in the fridge. It has an intense red colour but is mild in terms of heat. Great with pork or fish (or chicken…)

The pork was barbecued with sprigs of fresh oregano from our garden and smoked with some hickory. The fresh herb adds a wonderful aroma to the meat.

I use a Thermoworks ChefAlarm probe to check the temperature. It is a fantastic tool. I use it every time I BBQ.

Served up with a warm salad of charred zucchini, baked cherry tomatoes, charred red onion, mango, baked carrot (really! It was OK), smoked corn and coriander. (I forgot the lettuce and other leaves that I had picked from our garden…) Plus a wedge of lime to give the salad some tang. And some home-made BBQ sauce on the side if people needed it.

I cooked the pork crackling separately in the oven. The roast leg had plenty of time to rest (which I usually fail to allow). The pork was crisp on the outside and moist in the middle. Perfect.

I must say this tasted fantastic. This is a winner recipe that I will tweak and repeat. I will probably add some chilli to the marinade…

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