Sink your teeth into meaty competition
A Hamilton team will attend a pro-protein festival in Auckland vying to become the best names in barbecuing.
Meatstock is an Australian festival featuring bands, barbers, butchers and beer. This year, stakes have been raised to bring the event to New Zealand and more than 20 teams from around the country will battle it out in a barbecue war for cash and bragging rights.
One of those teams is Smokin’ Aces, a four-man group from Hamilton who love good quality banter and barbecuing.
Darryl Paton, Aaron Coombes, Blair Edwards and Conal Martin prefer to work with charcoal barbecues, and collectively have around 25 years of experience between them.
‘‘I think most of us probably cut our teeth on a gas barbecue, although back in the day the charcoal was quite a popular way of barbecuing,’’ Edwards said.
‘‘It’s just a different type of flavour, you’re more involved, and I just find it a great stress relief. You come home after a long day and put the coals on, sit outside with a beer, and you get the credit for cooking.’’
Using coals can also exude a primal instinct, they said, and a recipe to take the world by storm is Smokin’ Aces re-cooked KFC chicken on the coals.
For Meatstock, Smokin‘ Aces will cook chicken, lamb, brisket and pork to be judged on presentation, texture and taste.
They will be cooking over two days with some work going on through the night.
‘‘Most people think of barbecuing as just slapping it on, blast it, grill it and take it off, but competitive barbecuing is more about your manipulation of heat and temperature,’’ Martin said.
For example, a good brisket can take 12 hours to cook and the group admit family barbecues can be time-consuming.
And although there will be pressure, the men are ready.
‘‘A few of us have been competitive barbecuing for a few years,’’ Edwards said. ‘‘If you can withstand the scrutiny of your friends and their wives, I think you can withstand anything.’’
Paton said Meatstock was like the World Cup, you’ve got to go to one to win one.
‘‘Maybe we might not win this time, but we will learn.’’
Meatstock is taking place in Auckland from February 25-26. For more information, visit www.meatstock.com.au/auckland