Blocks, rocks and two smoking barrels
I’ve always liked a kitchen to be a little improvised.
Even the commercial kitchen I work in at Longsong in Melbourne doesn’t have an oven. The only heat source is coals. The restriction is what allows for creativity. Otherwise you’re just coming up with crazy ways to combine flavours, which is boring.
A friend of mine asked me to cook at a wine festival he put on in Tasmania. He wanted me to come down and cook a pig, which I thought would be no problem. I turned up with two 44-gallon drums and a pile of wood. The adaptability you get playing with heights and using bricks to work out temperatures means you’re constantly in touch with what you’re cooking.
In the house I’m renting, I don’t like the oven. I’ve set up some bricks and am cooking pretty much entirely outside. That’s my party trick at the moment. At work, I use compressed charcoal, which is hard to find ethical supply lines on. I like to use mallee root and red gum, which is fairly heavily regulated, and burns slowly.
If you go to the trouble of lighting a fire, there are three heat sources to consider: directly above, to grill; underneath, to bake; and the periphery for smoking or whatever.
I will build a kitchen, and then try to find out how to use it, which is backwards and satisfying. For steaming, I will look at Mexican techniques to keep using the coals, wrapping food in corn husks. You become very adaptive in using fats to protect food.
This eggplant is a pretty classic Middle Eastern dish, similar to a baba ganoush. The eggplant picks up and holds the flavour of the smoke, while the skin protects it. This technique ends up both smoking and steaming the eggplant. Be sure to prick the skin first,
• otherwise the eggplant will explode in your face.