Fire brigade
DJ BBQ’s Backyard Baking will take your live fire skills and backyard set-up to the next level, covering everything you ever wanted to know about successful baking in the great outdoors.
Lamb Kofta Sausage Roll
Makes 12. Ingredients: 2 large onions, 1 garlic bulb, 2 tsp coriander seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds,
1 tsp sumac, plus extra for sprinkling, 1 whole nutmeg, grated, 500g minced lamb shoulder, 1 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley, 1 tbsp finely chopped coriander (cilantro) leaves, 1 tbsp finely chopped mint leaves, 1 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped, 50g breadcrumbs, soaked in milk, 1 packet shop-bought puff pastry, 1 egg yolk, beaten with, a splash of water, Sea salt and black pepper
Setup: Half and half technique for the filling / a wood-fired oven or pizza oven sitting at about 180C is best for the bake.
Before putting the grill on to your BBQ, place the onions directly in the hot coals. Using tongs, move some coals around the onions so that they are getting good heat from all sides. Turn them and flip them occasionally. When the onions are soft, take ’em out to rest on a baking sheet covered with foil until cool. Pop the grill on your BBQ. Put your garlic bulb over the equator – the line between the direct heat and the indirect heat. This will allow the bulb to roast without burning. Cook till soft. Cut in half and leave to one side. When the onions are cool, cut off and discard the blackened skin, then finely chop the flesh. Set aside. Time to toast the spices. Put the coriander and cumin seeds into a dry frying pan and place over a medium heat. Toss the spices for a minute until fragrant, then remove from the heat. Grind up the toasted spices, along with the sumac and a grated nutmeg. Now it’s time to make your kofta. Get yourself a large mixing bowl. Chuck in the minced lamb and chopped dirty onions, squeeze in the roasted garlic, add the spices, herbs, chilli and breadcrumbs. Mix it all thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper then fry off a little of the mix to test the flavour. Put the filling in a piping bag and leave to one side (optional). Get your wood oven or pizza oven up to about 180C. You can also use a conventional oven for this stage. Lay the puff pastry on a lightly floured surface. Cut lengthways into two of three even strips, depending on how thick you like your sausage rolls. Pipe (or spoon) the filling along the middle of each strip of pastry Brush egg wash on the pastry edge closest to you, then roll the pastry over the sausage meat and tightly seal – you can either tuck the edge under for a full cylinder shape, or crimp the edges together with a fork. Cut each strip into individual rolls (at this stage you can freeze them to bake another time). Brush the tops with some more egg wash and sprinkle with more sumac. Bake for 35 minutes until a meat probe reads over 80C and the pastry is golden.
Piadina: Italian flatbread
Makes 2: Ingredients: 250g 00 flour, 3g salt, ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda, 50g bacon fat, butter or olive oil, plus extra for brushing, 120ml full-fat milk, your favourite sandwich fillings
Simply mix together all the ingredients in a bowl until a dough forms, knead for 5 minutes, then wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours. Divide the dough into 2 pieces and shape each piece into a ball. Roll the dough out as thin as you can, then leave it to rest for 30 minutes. Roll each one again so they are paper thin and then prick them all over with a fork. Slap them all onto your plancha or grill (you may have to do this in batches). Cook both sides until they just begin to colour, then brush each one with bacon fat, butter or olive oil on one side. Top the greased side with your favourite sandwich fillings, then wrap and devour.
S’mores Brownies
Makes 12-15. Ingredients; 1 packet of digestive biscuits, broken into chunks, 60g self-raising flour, 60g plain flour, 80g unsweetened cocoa powder, 200 butter, plus a knob, 100g dark chocolate (about 70 per cent), chopped, 4 eggs, 450g caster sugar, 150g marshmallows
Setup: A wood-fired oven with the coals removed sitting at about 180C is best for this. You’ll need a roughly 25cm square cake tin.
Get the wood oven up to temp then remove all the coals. If using a conventional oven, preheat to 180C. Grease and line your cake tin with greaseproof paper, making sure it’s neat and carefully tucked in at the edges. Cover the bottom of the tin with a layer of digestive biscuits, reserving some for later. Sift both the flours and the cocoa powder together into a large bowl. Set aside. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan (or in the microwave) then add the chopped chocolate and stir until melted and combined.
In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together the eggs and sugar until inflated, light and smooth. This will take about 8-10 minutes in a stand mixer on a high speed (or with an electric whisk) and considerably longer with a human arm and a balloon whisk. This is an important step as, if you do not get enough air into the mixture at this stage, you’ll miss out on the brownie crust (and you do
NOT want to miss out on the brownie crust). Add the butter and dark chocolate mixture to the egg mix and fold with a spatula until marbled but not totally mixed. Add the sifted flours and cocoa powder and fold again until JUST mixed. Only just. Then, quick as a flash, spoon the mixture into the cake tin on top of the biscuit chunks, smooth it off and scatter over the reserved digestive biscuits pieces. Slide it into the wood oven (or indoor oven) and bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, check your wobble. You want the brownie to have the consistency of a firm jelly, NOT a cake. The self-raising flour inflates the mix like a soufflé and you must take it out early so it can collapse into a dense, fudgy brownie. When this stage is reached (you may need more time depending on the temperature of your cooker), take it out and allow to cool.
When completely cool, place the brownie (still in the tin) in the refrigerator overnight. This is the fudging stage and will increase the fudginess of your fudging brownie, so don’t fudging forget to do it. The next morning, your brownie will be very solid. Remove it from the tin and place on a large board. Melt the marshmallows in a saucepan with a knob of butter. When it’s all melted together, spread it over the top of the brownie. Try to do it neatly and evenly but also be true to yourself. As a final flourish, you can toast the top of the marshmallow using a blowtorch. Let it cool (if you can wait!), slice and enjoy.