How to set up for cooking dirty
Main content
WHAT IS DIRTY COOKING?
The name doesn’t do this mode justice: it isn’t about grime and grease; instead, it’s just simple ingredients – meat, vegetables, shellfish – cooked directly on hot coals. No pan, no grid, no stone, just food and heat.
As long as the coals are hot enough, the instant sear will seal your food’s interior, locking in flavour and moisture – like deep frying, but without the oil.
Flavour in fuel
Some mass-produced charcoal comes coated with chemicals: not ideal for such an intimate embrace with your dinner. Ours is of the very highest purity, so there’s no risk. Experiment with the different woods and note the subtle changes in flavour.
Before you start, your coals need to be burning white. We don’t usually recommend moving them around, but this is an exception: to create a large cooking surface with an even distribution of heat, you’ll need to do some careful rearranging.
Keep the fires burning
Dirty cooking isn’t something you necessarily have to plan. If the coals from your previous cook are still glowing, you can make use of whatever ingredients come to hand. An ‘afterburner’, we call it. While your roast lamb is being rested, for example, you could be throwing some scallops in their shells onto the residual coals to make a delicate starter in a matter of seconds.
Our Eucalyptus Lumpwood, which retains its heat for ages, is particularly suited to a sudden burst of creativity.
Never judge a book by its cover
Don’t be put off by a seemingly burnt exterior. The magic is on the inside. Sometimes, you’ll want to discard the burnt surface. Strip off the blackened skin of a pepper with just a rub of your fingers, or scoop out the soft flesh of an aubergine to make baba ganoush or baingan bharta.
Often, though, the char is part of the charm. When thinly sliced, the seared edge can add a pleasant bitterness and bite, so consider leaving it on. A perfect steak is scorched on the outside, pink in the middle. Naturally sweet vegetables such as beetroot, carrots or hispi cabbage gain an extra flavour dimension.
