tater tots, part 1

And now we take a break from the epic latest Firedome post to bring you my attempt at tater tots (didn't work, but I'm close). I didn't read a thing, I just made this up as I thought it should be, a more substantial potato than a russet, egg, salt, flour, deep fry, essentially a deep fried gnocchi, right? Anyway, I did just that: yukon golds, skin on, steamed and riced, fully cooked 550 g salt, 5 g flour, 75 g egg, 1, shaken not stirred pepper, coarse cracked white mixed all and deep fried just as falafel are using a #60 scoop, some action shots ...

 Here's the riced potato and other stuff folded together with a spatula.

 Canola, about 375F.

Deep fried some with 375 degree canola oil.

Discussion/Results:
Making something like this is challenging.  A food originally tasted in the lunch rooms of our youth have dubious origins; reproducing such substances may require advanced degree in science and LOTS of time.  So, one has to decide if the endpoint of such an endeavor is a duplication of what the lunch lady handed out or a toothsome, tasty, potatoey nugget somewhere between a latke and a french fry.  I'm shooting for the latter. 

I never liked Yukon Gold-derived mashed potatoes.  Although the taste is nice the texture is often not soft and smooth, but sturdier.  That's why I thought they'd make a perfect tot.  However, after steaming them and ricing,  they became very soft.  In the final deep fried tot, what happened is a perfect crust formed around what tasted like a pillow of mashed potatoes.  Tasty, but not a tot.

Having read a few preps online, my next attempt will make use of a raw potato, squished of its moisture and treated like a latke.  I'll use a coarse shredded russet or Yukon, shorten shreds, squeeze out excess water (a ricer works nicely for squishing moisture out of taters by the way), and then all the other stuff, flour, salt, egg (and maybe pancetta??).  Should be fun.  You'll all be the first to know how they come out.

Firedome: a Weber Kettle Modified to a Pizza Oven

This is the culmination of a great deal of work making a Weber 22.5" kettle grill into a wood burning pizza oven that will rival any professional oven.

My friend Dave from Baltimore will wince in pain with each step of this handiwork you are about to see. {Dave, the end justifies the means. It will even look cool when finished, trust me.} I'm posting the steps as I go, sometimes I get busy, so this may take a long time to finish, but I hoped it would help to see the progress as it happens.

Other Firedome posts in the series will be listed at the bottom of this post.

Find grill in trash (thanks Paul, Kate and Jim for your contributions!) Pull off those legs, won't need them. <soapbox>Weber, that little tripod of legs on the grill is the suckiest part of the best kettle in the world.</soapbox>

Be safe

Sketch circle in lower hemisphere to cut out.  First remove any sliding vents.

Once vents are removed cut a gaping hole in the bottom with angle grinder. It's tough cutting a circle with an angle ginder, so mine looks terrible, don't worry, it'll cook good pizza and no one will see this part anyway.  Ideally, I should have had a nice circle and circumscribed a polygon and it would've looked nicer, but - you know, it's me, the opposite of a perfectionist, I want the pizza.

Draw this shape on the top half.  This is going to be the door. It's a trapezoid shape about 10" at the top and 20" along the bottom.  The flange will stay intact.  The top 10" line is about 1" away from the handle.  I pretty much eyeballed this, it's a tough piece to navigate with a ruler.

First we'll drill the holes that will hold the hinges.

These are 1.5" zinc coated hinges, they will rust immediately but will last years anyway. Lay the center of the hinges along that line.

Tape down the hinges with clear or duct tape.

This tape will enable you to make a punch on the surface of the dome so the drill won't travel when drilling the necessary 8 holes.

I (ab)used a philips head screw driver and hammer to make a punch on the surface. Do this on all of the holes, remove the tape and drill out the holes with a 1/4" bit.

Making the surface punch with the screwdriver shattered the porcelainized surface, it'll rust, don't worry, this job isn't about aesthetics.

It doesn't look it from the image, but the holes align nicely with the hinge if you make the punches carefully. DO NOT ATTACH THE HINGE YET.  We're going to cut that line first, THEN attach the hinge, having the holes in place before the dome is structurally compromised is easier.

On the other side (the underside of the dome), buff the holes to remove burrs, they'll get in the way when securing the hinge with hardware (rivet or machine screw).

Drill the little hole in the center of the lower line of the trapezoid, just above the flange. Later, we'll put a knob here to use to raise and lower the door.

The money shot.  You may worship me now. Cut the top line of the trapezoid.

Those pairs of holes drilled now straddle the cut.  Put the hinge on and secure it.

I secured the hinge with 3/16" pop rivets, use machine screws if you want, I enjoy rivets, they don't come loose.  Repeat with the other hinge. The rivets are aluminum, but the hinge is Zn-coated steel.  It'll rust after a run or two, but don't worry, I've had the hinges last over a year.  

Put the other hinge on.  Then cut out the rest of the door with an angle grinder.  

Attach a knob using a big fender washer so it overlaps over the edge, this will keep the door from swinging inside the opening.  Realize, the door is cosmetic, it's not needed to cook or anything, I just like it, looks cool.

Final modification: the upper grate.  Place your pizza stone on the top grate, mine is a 13" diameter.  Got it at a thrift store and it's thick!  I've had it for years.  The ruler is there because I was too lazy to pick it up.

Remove all those cross bars with an angle grinder.  This, when assembled, is where you'll be tossing your wood to fuel the oven.  



Next, I'll assemble the entire thing atop a chimnea stand I found in the trash (works swimmingly) and fire it up for a quick pita test run.  Stay tuned.

I use this thing a lot.  I've had tons of flops with it during development, but it's when I learned the most.  The equipment described here is pretty sound, I'm finished with mods on it (for now).  I now cook with oven door open, I use supermarket oak for fuel (briquettes have too much ash for several hour raging cook sessions) and my heat source is on the side rather than in a circle around the stone.  Presumably convection is a big force in this oven's fuel configuration.  I routinely cook 20 pizzas at a run in a couple hours while dining with friends.  The only part I can't describe is cooking with a raging fire.  It takes a little practice.  If you try this, be careful, have a garden hose available in case of an accident and have fun.

Firedome highlights (there are many more in the archives):

1. The beginning of the project:
http://webercam.com/2009/06/weber-kettle-mods-firedome-pizza.html

2. Temperature profiles on various runs:
http://webercam.com/2009/06/firedome-2nd-run-data.html
http://webercam.com/2009/08/adventures-with-firedome.html

3. Why you just can't open the lid and toss a pizza on:
http://webercam.com/2009/06/firedome-experiment.html

4. Me tossing pizza
http://webercam.com/2010/09/in-which-i-drag-accomplice-in-to-help.html

coming soon...

Common in physical science research and publishing is to squeak out a bunch of brief discoveries in the course of a project called communications.  These tidbits are then assembled in a "full paper." In that time-honored tradition of exhaustively tedious republication of the same thing, I will put together one more Firedome post.

The victim?  During the wind storm last night, this arrived on my deck.  It's a classic Weber 22.5" kettle grill.  I'll cut this baby up guided by observations of my best runs thus far.  This will be a guide for anyone wanting to risk their life to make the perfect pizza - an effort I find deeply satisfying.  Check back once in a while to see the final post.

This kettle generously donated by @ToKateFromKate and @CMHPaparazzi (Kate and Paul, I love you guys.)  

Firedome: a newer version, not a complete failure, just some notes

The Firedome project is my pride and joy. Although I can rely on it for pushing out a nice pie for friends, I still play around with ideas for changes. Here's a newer version that didn't quite work as I wanted, but the final cut shown in the last image reveals what may be a slightly better design than the current one.

The unsuspecting lid generously dropped off by @CMHGourmand, you will be rewarded!

The lid secured to the chopping block. I use duct tape in order to visualize where to cut.

I cut it with an angle grinder and the edges smoothed with a dremel/mini grinder wheel.

Assembled, ignition time. I use a few Matchlight briquettes and then toss in logs. Voosh!  Warmup of the stone inside takes about 30 minutes.

The other, and still functional, lid (thanks @ToKateFromKate) sitting beside the newer design. Notice the closer crop/smaller section removed.  I  also did away with the door, I've never cooked with it closed.  The intent was to see what the convection would be like with a closer-cropped opening. I got lots of smoke - bad! Very surprising given the size of the opening.


 A sample pizza (ok four) were run through for a test (and light lunch). They were uniformly cooked, but the opening made it a pain to get them in and out and feeding wood was also tougher.

Here's another shot where the thermocouple probe wire is visible (on the left). I placed the probe in the side away from the fire (the "cool" side) hooked up to a datalogger. I maintained ca 800-850°F with an occasional spike. The surface of the stone stayed about 800°F at the center.

The temperature profile on the cool side, the probe was placed just below the cooking stone.  It was a short cooking session, this is the hour after a 30 min warm-up.

Given the amount of smoke I saw during the burn, I ripped it open to look more like the previous design opening - only larger. I've opened about a full third of the perimeter. I'll give it a shot tomorrow night.  I'm essentially back to where I started (which wasn't a bad place), but I may have slightly more convenient access.  Incidentally, I get about an hour and a half of high temps from a $5 bundle of grocery store wood.

Biscuits, a fun addition to Frankie's lunch

My most recent prep of biscuits

unbleached white flour, 2C
salt, 1t
baking powder, 2t
butter, 1 stick
milk, 3/4C

Preheat oven to 450F. Mix (or sift together) flour, salt and baking powder. Cut butter in to the flour mix until finely blended in small lumps. Add milk and mix into a stiff ball, but don't knead too much. Squash ball into a rectangle about 12" x 6" and cut out circular biscuits with a cutter. My cutter gives me about 8 rounds. I glazed the tops with a scrambled egg and sprinkle sugar on the egg glaze. Bake on a parchment-lined cookie sheet about 15 minutes.

Pizza with the grill master

It's not a great image, but there's a good reason for that - I was enjoying my visitors immensely.  Fellow high temperature enthusiast Mike from Another Pint Please, the site I instinctively send people for good solid authoritative grilling and 'q basics (and advanced), came for a visit!  For Mike and his friend Brian, I broke from my usual barely-topped pie to make a bacon, ham and sausage pizza, some oil, basil and fresh mozz from Clintonville Community Market and bam.  A new favorite pie.  Hope you enjoyed yourselves sirs!  I look forward to future food festivities.
A pic --> http://instagram.com/p/PdQKIlCT3k/

Baltimore, a trip down memory lane (with Yelp to jog my memory)

If my friends from Baltimore are watching - I love you guys and I'm sorry we haven't been back.  But a friend asked if I had food tips and I said I'd break out anything I had.  However, I needed an assist from Yelp, it's my favorite app when traveling.

My picks for @jarsloth et. al.

1. The Helmand
806 N Charles
Every city's got one, and Baltimore's on Charles is awesome (4/5 Yelp).  My favorite was the pumpkin appetizer (aushak?).  You could order only this and leave immensely satisfied.

2. The Brewer's Art
1106 N Charles
Dark, Belgian style ales on tap, bar food, awesome.

3. Mount Royal Tavern
1204 W Mount Royal Ave
4/5 on yelp, it should be 1/5
Dumpy and local, I lived around the corner from this and went frequently.  Look for this on flickr and see the images of the ceiling.

4. John Steven
1800 Thames St
Touristy but I loved it.  Eat shrimp w Old Bay and enjoy Fells Point

5. Trinacria Foods
406 N Paca
Italian market.  GO, but be careful.

6. DiPasquale's Italian Market
3700 Gogh St
Killer Italian market with lots of prepared food.  I'm drooling just thinking about it.

7. Cross St Market
1065 S Charles (Federal Hill)
Like North Market x10

8. Beer
Anywhere downtown has tons of bars w good beer

9. Go and Google Pit Beef in Baltimore and make sure you get some for breakfast.

10. Martick's
I'm so sorry, you missed it.  Martick died last year as did a little part of all the patrons who enjoyed a meal with him.  Go read some of the reviews on Yelp, suprisingly, some of the comments capture how special it was.  So, so sad it's closed.

11. Vaccaro's Italian Pastry Shop
222 Albemarle St, Little Italy (5/5 on Yelp)
One word, cannoli.

12. Charleston
1000 Lancaster St
Really pricey and really good, my wife and I went a few times and always got her fried chicken.

I'll keep adding as I think up the good spots.  So far: DiPasquale's, Pit Beef and Mount Royal Tavern are my best memories.

a nearly uneventful week of good food and drink

I found some killer pork belly at CAM in the Bethel / Olentangy complex and made it into bacon, I didn't brine it long enough (impatient), but it's still decent bacon.  I learned that brinng for 3 days and more is really necessary for a proper cure (prior to smoking).  I smoked with Hickory embedded Kingsford to 148F internal.

 Here is a sample cooking.  Frankie now wants a ham and bacon sandwich for school.

At the end of the last school year, I added a four bread delivery to the silent auction.  My last delivery of a "spent grain whole wheat boule" was so late, I tossed in an apple tart.  The recipients were tickled.

I tossed a basic wheat/white straight dough in the oven for some pita to accompany hummous for a quick dinner meal.

I always seem to forget how nice a Turkish coffee is, sweetened and brewed with a couple cardomom pods.  I got the ibrik last year while in the North End of Boston.  This is an easy coffee to make, try Lavash's sometime for a great example of what it should taste like.

I tried out a super duper thin crust pizza.  My usual 10" diameter pizza is made from a 200-225 g crust, in this case only 150 g.  I had to increase the fat content to keep it tender while in my Firedome.  Still might try playing with more dough preps, I really like California Pizza Kitchen's pies.  Trish likes it, but I still like a little thicker crust.

Also, Firedome development is done.  It's a reliable tool now I.  The final snag was simply an apprentice-length period to learn how to cook with a live fire.  The equipment design is nearly as simple as the first version and is solid.

I'm crazy about ribs lately; add briquettes, a water tray and don't peek for 5 hours, then sauce 'em and cook another 30 min and done.  Less looking, more cooking.  Pick the ribs carefully, we prefer a leaner back rib.

We inherited about 50 lbs of these not-good-enough-to-pick pears.  They are destined for processing into spirits.  The processing will be laborious and an experiment, but with great payoff.  While preparing one for a sugar assay (ca. 15 Brix) ...

I shredded my index finger tip.  Despite some intense pain, nearly passing out on the way to the ER shuttled by my worried and loving family, the surgeon said I got lucky.  I should heal with as much function as I had before. 

flour tortillas

I find corn tortillas challenging.  Too often, mine crack as I wrap the tortilla around fillings.  Striving for authenticity, I kept at it, but still haven't obtained a good flexible one.  Having just returned from San Diego and the pilates capital of the world, La Jolla, I realized there is no shame in a flour tortilla.  I enjoyed them immensely loaded with fish and veggies, especially from Tin Fish, wow!

After a few youtube vids, I heated a griddle on my grill, mixed up some dough and went at it.  The dough is simple: 500 grams unbleached white flour, 100 grams lard, 5 grams salt, 5 grams baking powder and 300 g water, knead and let rest 20 minutes.  I took hunks of about 60-70 grams of dough, rounded them and rolled with a rolling pin to about 8-10" diameter - that's pretty thin.  They are delicate, but not too difficult to handle, that is if you don't spill a PBR Tall on them.  If that happens, drink some beer, squish the soggy mass together, add some flour and repeat a few steps from above.

I chose a nice hot griddle on top of my briquette fire for cooking (ca. 500-600°F).  They take a little less than a minute per side.  Make these!

 

 Thin dough tossed on looks like this in about 30 seconds.

Flip remove and eat. 

Smoked ribs over oak

In honor of last weekend's (gargantuan lines at the) rib fest, I had an itch for my own smoked ribs. I ran out of briquettes and was going to put it off for another time. Then, I felt a little embarrassed. I'm pretty sure ribs were made prior to the age of Kingsford. Given that we now live in one of the windiest climates on the planet and the fallen wood is abundant, I went to get some aged whatever wood is in the pile out back and lit it using a little lighter fluid (pththth, no judging!). Once the wood was on fire, I set up with a water pan, capped the grill and smoked the ribs (lovingly rubbed with brown sugar, paprika, s & p) over indirect heat. I didn't know if it'd be too hot, but I took the plunge, only about $10 for the ribs.

Fire in the hole!

I tossed my datalogger probe in for kicks. With the data collected, in my head, I calculated the mean kinetic temperature confirming it to be a perfect 225°F. I cooked 'em from 9-2 tossing in small logs when I remembered. It seems I got an hour or so per chunk of wood. Maybe if I had smaller more regular chunks, I may have been able to smooth out some of the peaks and valleys. I'm beginning to see the origin of the briquette from this rather primitive trial run.

I wrapped them up in foil on Sunday and we ate them tonight. WOW! It pays to be sloppy and careless. What a fun bbq session. I served these with Ruhlman's Carolina sauce and a bunch of roasted veggies inspired by Persephone (but, sadly without the okra, couldn't find any).