10. Heavenly Roast Lamb

A break in the rain clouds offered me the rare opportunity to fire up the oven last weekend so I decided to take full advantage of the interlude to cook-up a roast to die for.

The clay oven is fabulous at high temperature for cooking the perfect pizza but if you allow these babies to cool down somewhat, you can use the residual heat to cook sublime roast joints of meat.  It is the way that the ovens cool that creates the ideal temperature profile for cooking perfect roasts.  Last weekend I decided to try roasting a whole leg of lamb and, of course, I recorded the whole thing so I could share it on the blog.

The spices make this leg of lamb yellow!

Stage One: Prepare your joint of meat
Normally, with a joint of free range, organic meat I would suggest doing very little with it.  With lamb, maybe some garlic, fresh rosemary, a splosh of olive oil and some salt and pepper.  This time though my wife marinated the lamb over night in a mix of Moroccan spices (a Nigella Lawson recipe I think).  I recommend trying this if you fancy something a little different – it is truly delicious.  Whatever you decide to do make sure your lamb is prepared and ready to go.  Place the joint of lamb in a roasting tin and keep covered at room temperature until you are ready to cook it.

The oven reaches 350 degrees C

Stage Two: Fire her up!
Firing the oven for a roast is no different to firing it up for cooking pizzas.  Follow the technique I outlined in this earlier post.  Keep the “full blaze” fire going for a good hour or so because you want residual heat in the whole oven structure – in the bricks and the walls of the oven itself.  You can see from the photo that on this occasion my oven reached 350 °C (it took around 2 hours 15 minutes to reach this temperature).  You may think that this is relatively cool and you would be right!  This was the first time the oven had been fired since last year and so it had a whole winter’s worth of moisture absorbed within it which had the effect of lowering the maximum temperature.  Not to worry though! If you were to put a joint of meat in the oven at this temperature it would be cremated in minutes!

Stage Three: Wait for it!
Allow the fire to burn down.  You can help this along by spreading the embers across the oven floor.  At this stage you need to keep your eye on your temperature gauge which will slowly begin to drop.  When the temperature reaches 260 °C put the tray, together with the joint of meat, into the oven.  Leave the door and chimney open for now.  Cooking the meat at this high temperature for the first part of the roast is what Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall calls the half-hour sizzle and is a crucial part of the roasting process.  Over the next 15-20 minutes or so the temperature will slowly drop.  When the oven temperature drops to approximately 190 °C, block the door and the chimney.  Leave it like this until the meat is cooked.

Cooked to perfection

How long does it take?
Well this obviously depends on the size of the joint of meat and the type of meat you are cooking.  I cooked this leg of lamb for 1hr and 40 minutes after the door and chimney was blocked.  When I took the joint out, the oven temperature was still at 170 °C.  It would have stayed hot for many hours longer so, if your meat needs a little more cooking time, whack it back in!

That’s it.  Simple eh?  Any meat cooked in the oven in this way is mouthwateringly moist, extremely tasty and just falls off the bone.  You should also try chickens (complete with roast spuds) and my favourite, belly pork which is truly sublime! Try it for yourself and let me know how you get on.

Happy roasting!

9. The Best Pizza Ever!

Pizza cooking in the oven

I’m not exaggerating when I say that pizza cooked in a fiercely hot clay oven is the best you will ever taste. Why are they better than pizzas cooked in the gas or electric oven in your home?  It’s all about the heat!  The oven in your home will reach a maximum temperature of around 250° C.  A clay oven, fired for a few hours, will reach temperatures well in excess of 400° C and it’s this furnace-like heat that turns a thin circle of dough, topped with oil, meats and cheese, into an absolute gourmet treat! Pizzas cooked in a clay oven take no longer than 2 minutes to cook.  They have thin, crisp and slightly charred bases while the toppings remain delicious and full of flavour. Is your mouth watering yet?  Mine is! so lets get on with the main thrust of this post which, if you haven’t guessed already, is about making pizzas in a clay oven.

Firstly, if you want the best pizza ever you really need to buy the best ingredients you can get your hands on. Make sure you buy good quality flour, organic if possible.  Dried yeast is perfectly adequate so don’t worry about trying to get hold of the fresh stuff. The toppings are crucial too so don’t scrimp and buy cheap ingredients – you don’t need masses, so splash out and treat yourself to quality.  The following recipe is borrowed/copied from Dan Stevens, a chef from River Cottage HQ (Dan has recently written the River Cottage Bread Handbook which is due for release anytime soon I hope!). 

Dough (this is enough to make at least 15 small pizzas)

250g strong white bread flour

250g plain flour

350ml warm water (room temperature)

5g dried yeast (10g of fresh)

10g fine salt

A glug of olive oil

My "Workstation"

 

Add all of the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl and give it a quick mix.  Next add the water and mix into a rough dough. Finally add the oil and squidge it well into the dough.  Flour a surface and tip your dough out onto it – it’s time for kneading! You can use a electric mixer with a dough hook to do this if you prefer but I like to get working on the dough with my hands – it just seems right somehow! You will find that this dough is quite wet (sticky) compared to traditional bread dough.

A tip about kneading. There are lots of methods you can use for kneading dough but I like to use this one (again thanks Dan at River Cottage). Hold the dough ball to the surface of your table with the tips of your left hand. Then with the heel of your right hand placed in front of the fingers of your left, push the dough forward, stretching it along the surface top then, in a fluid motion, pull the dough back towards your stationary left hand. Rotate the ball and repeat. I normally knead for about 10 minutes or so. Lightly oil a large bowl, put the dough into it, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise until it is double the original size. That’s it – dough done! 

Toppings

Ingredients at the ready

The choice of toppings is totally up to you but here are a few essentials as far as I am concerned:

• A mixture of olive oil, crushed garlic and herbs is, for my money, a much better pizza base topping than the traditional tomato sauce.  Just drizzle or paint it over the surface of the dough before you add the rest of your toppings – it’s delicious!
• Grated cheese (mozzarella, Gruyere, Cheddar)
• Chunks of other cheeses (buffalo mozzarella, blue cheese)
• Mixed cured meats (spicy sausages like salami and chorizzo chopped or sliced, chunks of good organic ham)
• Roasted artichoke hearts
• Fresh basil
• I would have suggested anchovies to give that powerful salty, fishy blast but unfortunately anchovies stocks are in crisis due to over fishing so I no longer buy them – I suggest you do the same for the time being.

Other things you’ll need (ideally)

• A rolling pin
• A wooden chopping board
• A bakers peel (pretty much essential)
• A sharp knife

Making the pizzas

One of the best things about making pizzas outside using your own clay oven is building your own pizza – rolling out the dough, selecting various topping mixes from pots of delicious, fresh ingredients, sliding it onto a peel and finally into the hot oven.  It is enormously rewarding and great fun so I always get everything ready outside then let friends and family make-up their own pizzas as they go – trust me everyone loves it! The process is simple:

1. Make sure your oven is really hot.  I normally fire mine for about 2 hours before cooking. Leave a fire burning at the rear of the oven and keep feeding this throughout the cooking period with extra wood.  Scrape clear the floor of your oven.  I normally push any embers to the back of my oven using the upside down blade of my bakers peel. 
    
2. Grab a small piece of dough and roll into a rough ball – about golf ball sized should do.  I prefer to make smallish (maybe 7-8″ diameter) pizzas because they are much easier to handle in and out of the oven.
    
3. Flour your rolling surface and rolling pin well but don’t over do it with flour.  You need enough to stop it from sticking to the surface but too much and it burns on the base of the pizza once in the oven.
    
4. Roll the dough out into a very thin disc (mine often come out in strange “country” shapes but it doesn’t matter).  Add more flour if it sticks.  Critically you want to ensure the base is NOT sticking to the surface because you will have all sorts of problems getting it onto your peel once the toppings are on otherwise.
    
5. Paint or drizzle the base with the olive oil or traditional tomato topping.
    
6. Throw on your toppings.  Hint: don’t pile too much on your pizzas because toppings have a tendency to fly off when you slide the pizza from the peel into the oven!
    
7. Slide the pizza onto your bakers peel – I find if you lightly dust it with flour first, then lift one edge of the pizza and with a quick, fluid movement pull it onto the peel.  Practice makes perfect!
    
8. Next you need to slide the pizza from the peel onto the hot floor of your oven.  Again you might not get this right the first few times but persist and you’ll have it cracked!.  The technique you need to master is “yanking” the peel from underneath the pizza  – very much like pulling a tablecloth from underneath a fully laid table without breaking the plates or spilling the drinks!
    
9. Let the pizza cook for about a minute – keeping a close eye on it.  I normally then slide the peel underneath it, take it out of the oven and rotate it through 180° so that the side that was facing the open oven entrance is now facing the fire burning at the back of the oven and vice-versa.  You might end up with a pizza burnt on one side if you fail to do this.  Pop it back in for a little while longer until you are happy that it looks cooked.
    
10. Slide the pizza out of the oven onto the peel then transfer onto a wooden chopping board.  Slice and serve.
     
11. Savour the best pizza ever and feel smug that you have created such a spectacular thing!
     
12. Repeat until you and your guests can’t move for eating pizza.

I’d love to hear how you get on and maybe you can also share some of your own pizza recipe ideas.  

Good luck and happy eating.

 

The finished pizza. This photo does them no justice whatsoever!

8. Firing the Oven

Burning Kindling in the oven entrance

I discussed the process of firing the oven in a previous post but I thought it warranted its own posting because if you don’t get this right – you wont be cooking anything!

This is the way I do it.

1. Prepare a nice big pile of kindling
    
2. Roll some balls of newspaper and pile them just inside the mouth of the oven in a cone shape
    
3. Pile kindling sticks around the newspaper like you are constructing a wigwam
    
4. Light the newspaper and let the fire catch.  Now at this stage I have a handy cheat that you might find useful.  I have a weed burner which I bought a few years ago and never used and it is perfect for getting these fires going in the oven.  It isn’t very Eco-friendly through so I won’t encourage you to buy one but if you have one lying around and some spare gas then go for it!
    
5. Gradually keep adding kindling to the small fire until it builds to a nice little blaze.  At this stage you can move it a little further back into the oven.  I push the fire using a shovel or, and I find this works well, my bakers peel.
    
6. The process is then to gradually add more wood (gradually larger pieces) and when roaring, push it back more until the fire is blazing near the back of the oven.  This might take about 40 mins to an hour.  Be careful when you are pushing the fire backwards as it has a tendency to go out.  If you find it has died back try adding some small pieces of kindling and blowing and/or some balls of newspaper.
    
7. In order to get the oven up to temperature (and I mean so that it is capable of retaining heat, without a fire burning in it for several hours) you need to keep the fire blazing for at least another 1.5 to 2 hours.  If you intend to cook with a small fire still burning (how I cook pizzas), the oven will be ready after about an hour.
    
8. If you intend to remove the embers and use the oven without a fire burning it’s a good idea to spread the glowing embers across the floor of your oven for 10 minutes before removal.  I then scrape them out with the peel or shovel and dump them into a metal bucket to cool.

The fire is roaring at the back of the oven

Hot embers spread across the floor of the oven.

Finally a word of warning.  If you have any sort of hair on the front of your head and want to keep it that way WEAR A HAT OR CAP when you fire your oven.  You will need to keep looking into the oven and when it is throwing out 450-500 degrees Centigrade of heat you will singe your hair.  You may not find this as hilarious as my wife did! 

7. The Final Layer

  The final layer. The oven is complete! 

So at last we reach the final layer.  Once the insulation layer is dry you can crack-on and finish your oven.

The last layer uses the exact same technique as the first layer so you should be an expert by now. Using the same proportions, mix a batch of sand and clay together applying the good old puddling technique described earlier.  Again, the amount you need depends on the size of your oven but remember that this last layer will require more than the first layer due to the greater surface area you need to cover.  You will also need some spare mix to extend the chimney (if like me you didn’t make it tall enough first time round!) and to keep for filling cracks.  Make “bricks” as before and gradually build-up the final layer. After you have inserted the last brick, pull-up a chair, open a cold beer and sit back and admire your work.  Well done, your oven is complete!  

Next time I am going to provide some pointers on firing the oven so you can get the best use out of it when cooking. 

Finished oven from the front.

6. The Insulation Layer

Entrance dry? Chimney dry? Great! Let’s start building the next layer – the insulation layer.

What you’ll need:

• Some clay
• Some wood shavings
• Some water
• A bucket
• A wheelbarrow
• A spade
• A power drill and plaster mixer (optional)

The insulation layer complete.

First thing you are going to do is make a clay slip which is simply clay mixed with water. The simplest way to do this is to put some water in a bucket and slowly add chunks of clay, squashing, squeezing and mixing with your hands as you go. Alternatively you could add water to half a bucket of clay and leave it to soak for a couple of days. You could then squish-up the clay quite easily.  You are aiming for a consistency similar to that of thin natural yogurt.  

I spent quote a long time making my slip until I discovered a short-cut method using a drill and plaster mixer. It works really well but is very messy! Chuck your clay and water in a large bucket (or large bin) and blitz it with the mixer.  Job done!

Next throw some wood shavings into a wheelbarrow. I bought a huge bag of wood shavings from a local pet shop and I still have three-quarters left (any takers?). Add some of the clay slip and mix well with a spade or get your hands dirty. The mixture should be wet enough to form “bricks” similar to those you made for the clay-sand layer.

Build up the insulation layer using exactly the same technique as before. Simple! Leave it to dry and then you can move on to the last step in the build – woo hoo!