- [Chef Gavin] So it's the weekend and I'm gonna talk
about one of my favorite things to do
when the weather gets nice,
and that's some live fire cooking.
- (music)
- So what we're going to go over is just my basic setup
and some basic equipment that you'll need.
I've watched some great cooks, chefs, barbecue guys,
do some great cooking over live fire
and this is the way that I found works the best for me.
I've got a fire pit at home, I built this,
and I love to use it for fires.
And I adapted my cooking method to this kind of fire pit.
So I'll go over with it ,
I'll go over everything everything I got with you right now.
So here I've got some heavy duty leather work gloves.
These are great because you want something nice
and fire resistant to keep you safe
when you're messing with all this stuff.
I've got a basic, this is just a cheap kind
of camp cooking grill that I bought.
I didn't need it to be fancy,
it's just a base for everything else I've got.
Here I've got some grill grates from my grill.
You can buy these or you can just take them off your grill
and throw them over here.
But I wanted something that was cast iron,
that's gonna have a little bit better heat retention.
It's something that I know is really nice to cook on.
And then here I've got a cast iron plunger or a griddle.
So this is just your basic cast iron griddle.
I like it for retaining heat and it stays hot,
once you get it warm it's gonna stays warm,
it's gonna cook everything beautifully
and get a nice char on it.
And then I've built a fire,
I let this thing get blazing big hot fire
and then I've kind of pulled it down.
So now I've got just embers down here.
Basically, I made my own charcoal and this is good.
It's nice and hot.
I've got a few different zones that I'm working from.
I got a super hot zone,
and then I got a kind of cooler zone to the side
and then I'm back, I got my kind of fire on deck.
This is some of the stuff that was hot,
I put it aside because if I need more flames,
if I need a flare up, if I need more heat I can pull that in
Otherwise, I've got it sitting back there for now.
And then that's it, that's the setup that I'm going to use
and then I'm gonna do some corn, carrots and steaks on this.
I've got everything out that I need to cook.
So I'm gonna start with things that take the longest,
those that wanna get in the fire first.
So first of all, I've got my corn.
I'm just gonna get that right on the edges in embers.
it's in the husk, I didn't do anything to it,
but maybe just give it a quick rinse.
And I'm just getting this right in the fire.
So this will cook right on it's own husk it'll steam
and it might get a little char out of it.
Next I've got some carrots that I just lightly oiled
and put some salt and pepper and thyme on.
Thyme I had, if you don't have it you don't need to use it,
no big deal, it just goes really nicely with carrots.
So I got the crunch side down first
because this is the way I'm gonna get a little bit char
and develop a lot of flavors.
The other thing I got here is I've got some garlic
and the I've got some ramps.
So we have this great recipe for a charred scallion sauce
for your steak.
Well I don't have any scallions but it's spring time
here in Ohio so I just happen to know a spot
where I can grab some ramps.
So I went and I got some ramps
to replace scallions in this recipe.
So I'm just gonna go ahead and char those,
and I'm gonna get the garlic roasting.
So the garlic still has skin that'll protect it a little bit
from the direct fire,
and then these ramps , I'm gonna char over these flames
and then I'll throw them in a blender.
And in that blender I'll add a couple other ingredients
with that roasted garlic and make a nice herby sauce
for the steaks.
The carrots are gonna take a little time to cook.
I wanna develop a nice char, just leave them alone,
same with the corn.
So we'll wait a few minutes before we even touch the steaks
to make sure our veggies are getting good and done.
So the first thing I'm gonna take off are my ramps.
I see that they've got a good char level,
they're not super crispy but they got a good deep brown
and a little black spot and that's all right.
I like having that flavor.
So I'll pull those off,
and we'll get those in a blender
with the rest of the ingredients for sauce.
And then mu garlic is looking pretty good and roasted too.
So I'll pull those as well.
Now my carrots, I'm trying to leave alone,
I wanna develop a little caramelization on those.
I'm just letting those go,
an then I've been flipping this corn,
just ever, ever so slightly when I see it start to get black
It's all right the corn inside is just fine,
but I do wanna burn most of that husk.
That's kinda telling me that it's cooking well.
So I just keep rotating that corn
until I kind of get black all round and all that husk
that means it's cooked on all sides.
Now that my veggies that take a little longer to cook
are about ready,
I'm gonna put the steaks on.
Now I've seen that my corn is tender to the touch,
so I kinda move that to the side while keeping it warm
and my carrots have got a little caramelization
on that initial side.
So now is a good time to put on the steaks.
The only thing I did was I incorporated some of those logs
that I had on deck because I want to get
a nice sear on the steak.
So I pulled a couple of those logs in onto my embers,
where you don't want a huge flame
but I do want more heat a little higher build up
so that I get those steaks nice and seared.
- (music)
- [Narrator] So I've pulled my corn out of the fire,
I got my ramps and garlic here,
this is definitely done, sizzling,
got a nice char on it there.
And then I'll get these carrots
and we'll go inside and plate all this up family style
and just have a really nice open fire cooked dinner.
First thing I'll do is just make this sauce.
So I just threw all the ingredients in a blender
with a good amount of oil.
Now I just kinda get working around here.
- (blender roaring)
- [Narrator] All right turn up the speeding,
and just get a nice sauce.
- (blender roaring)
- [Narrator] So I've allowed these to cool down for a while
because they're gonna be extremely hot
coming out the fire , obviously.
So the first thing I'll do
is rather than to go at the silk end,
I'll cut off the end from the stock
and then I'll just kind of pull it to get this husk off.
Rather than going from the silk end
because you gonna, by doing it this way,
you're gonna keep all the silk
or at least the majority of it with the husk.
It's gonna be a little bit cleaner,
to pull off and trying to pull from the other end.
So you see go a lit bit of char there,
and it's just perfectly cooked corn ,
there's a little bit smoke and a little bit char.
There you go, it's a whole meal cooked over an open fire.
I've got my certified Angus beef rib eye
with a little bit of charred ranch sauce
which is a variation of my charred scallion sauce
that we have on our website
and then I just served my carrots here
with a chili yogurt, plain Greek yogurt
with a little bit of chili in there,
give it a little spice, a little bit of sourness
to compliment the sweetness of the carrots.
And then on the corn I made a quick Chipotle butter,
just melted some butter, mix it in Chipotle,
glaze all that corn to get a little spice, a little flavor.
And all of it cooked over the open fire
and I hope that you've learned a little bit
about cooking open fire
and I hope you'll try some of this at home
because it really makes it entertaining and fun.
And let me tell you, you'll smell like smoke in the end
but then it's worth it.