Hospitality Insider - Issue Two

MEMBERS’ MAGAZINE ISSUE #2

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE …

THERE’S FIRE An in-depth look at asado, Texan barbecue, smoking, fire cookery and more.

CONTENTS

CONTENTS 2 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

ISSUE #2

14 22

6 RESTAURANT PROFILE Fremantle’s Manuka Woodfire Kitchen.

9 COLUMN Igni’s Aaron Turner on working with fire.

10 INDIGENOUS TECHNIQUES For Indigenous Australians, cooking with fire has a more than 40,000-year history.

14

BARBECUE Texas-style barbecue Down Under.

18

SMOKING The process behind smoking chicken, fish, cheese and whisky.

22 ASADO All about the iconic South American technique.

26 RECIPE BOOK Firedoor’s marron with finger lime and native herbs.

9

BACK ROW: • Amy Hamilton - Liberté, WA • Emma McCaskill - SA • Nick Holloway - Nu Nu, QLD • Matt Stone - Oakridge, VIC

• Damien Pignolet - Industry Legend, NSW • Troy Crisante - Quay, NSW • Jo Barrett - Oakridge, VIC • Louis Tikaram - E.P. & L.P., Los Angeles, USA

FRONT ROW:

It promises to be a very happy, prosperous and extremely delicious “YEAR of the PIG” for these talented PorkStars. Pork allows chefs to explore and indulge their imaginations like no other meat. Be a PorkStar. And get some Pork on your menu.

FROM THE EDITOR

WHAT THE HOSPITALITY TEAM HAVE BEEN UP TO

EDITOR’S LETTER

M

an has been cooking with fire for millennia, but the introduction of gas, ovens and other equipment almost overshadowed the element — until now. Australian chefs such as Igni’s Aaron Turner and Firedoor’s Lennox Hastie are putting fire on the map again.

But fire is incredibly fickle by nature, which you’ll discover in the coming pages.

The second edition of Hospitality Insider revolves around smoke and fire. We talk to Kenny McHardy from Manuka Woodfire Kitchen who turned an old pizza restaurant into one of Fremantle’s most buzzing venues.

In Melbourne, a serious barbecue scene is emerging with Fancy Hank’s FOOD AND BEVERAGE MEDIA 41 Bridge Road Glebe NSW 2037 Australia Tel: 02 9660 2113 Fax: 02 9660 4419

debuted a new restaurant, Grounds of Arcadia, which features views of the picture-perfect courtyard. @hospitalitymagazine

and Bluebonnet putting an Aussie spin on the US staple. We also look at smoking, asado and the significance of fire to Indigenous Australians.

THE ORIGINAL A banh mi from Marrickville Pork Roll

Until next time, Annabelle Cloros Editor

JOURNALIST Madeline Woolway T: 02 8586 6194 mwoolway@intermedia.com.au

PUBLISHER Paul Wootton pwootton@intermedia.com.au

NATIONAL SALES MANAGER Simon York T: 02 8586 6163 F: 02 9660 4419 syork@intermedia.com.au

EDITOR Annabelle Cloros T: 02 8586 6226 acloros@intermedia.com.au

GROUP ART DIRECTOR – LIQUOR AND HOSPITALITY: Kea Thorburn kthorburn@intermedia.com.au

never disappoints and is an absolute steal at $6. @annabellecloros

PRODUCTION MANAGER Jacqui Cooper jacqui@intermedia.com.au HEAD OF CIRCULATION Chris Blacklock cblacklock@intermedia.com.au To subscribe please call 1800 651 422.

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4 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

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SCOUTED Pre-pet nat amuse bouche at Scout’s Sydney outpost in The Dolphin Hotel, Surry Hills. @madeline.woolway

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RESTAURANT PROFILE MANUKA WOODFIRE KITCHEN

MANUKA WOODFIRE KITCHEN

CHEF KENNY MCHARDY AND HIS WIFE JODY SOLD THEIR HOUSE AND WERE ABOUT TO BUY A FOOD TRUCK BEFORE THE KEYS TO A PIZZA RESTAURANT WERE LITERALLY THROWN AT THEM. WORDS ANNABELLE CLOROS

6 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

RESTAURANT PROFILE MANUKA WOODFIRE KITCHEN

M

anuka Woodfire Kitchen has become one of Perth’s success stories. But before the acclaim arrived, Kenny McHardy was running a one-man operation with no one to turn to but himself. The chef talks to Hospitality Insider about going from Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen to Fremantle, why his staff only work four days a week and his passion for fire.

Kenny McHardy wasn’t planning on running a wood-fired restaurant — in fact, his wife Jody sold their house in preparation to buy a food truck. “We saw a hole in the market for destination weddings,” he says.

“We were going to focus on catering food truck style.” But the plan fell through after a pizza joint went bust, with the owners looking to get rid of the site as soon as possible. “Manuka came up for a bit of a steal and had a wood oven attached to it,” says McHardy. “In a digital era of cooking, I was drawn to wood fire.”

How McHardy came to work with fire isn’t such a far-fetched idea once his upbringing in New Zealand is unveiled.

“My parents were custodians for the Department of Conservation,” says the chef.

“We lived on a couple of islands and had a generator we ran for four hours a day.

Other than that, our only source of heating and cooking was our wood stove.”

Before opening Manuka in 2015, McHardy worked around the world at restaurants run by Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing in London before travelling to Melbourne to join the team at the nowclosed Walter’s Wine Bar. The chef later moved to Perth where he fronted venues such as The Garden in Leederville and The Red Herring in East Fremantle. But after working in well-oiled kitchens for many years, the chef was keen to step outside his comfort zone. “After running kitchens for other people and working in big enterprises, I wanted to do something for myself,” he says. “It was about finding that connection with food I felt I had lost working in larger venues. It was like one of those ‘meant to be’ moments where it all happened at the right time.”

“AFTER RUNNING KITCHENS FOR OTHER PEOPLE AND WORKING IN BIG ENTERPRISES, I WANTED TO DO SOMETHING FOR MYSELF.” – KENNY MCHARDY McHardy got a good deal after buying a restaurant with a wood-fired oven, and the chef said it was easy to make the transition from commercial gas kitchen to fire thanks to his upbringing. Manuka is incredibly produce-focused, with the technique of wood-fired cookery lending itself to the ethos. “It pushes me to focus on the ingredient,” says McHardy.

“I choose to use fire and smoke as a seasoning now — it adds another layer of flavour. You focus on the ingredient and cook it as simply as possible.”

However, working with fire can be fickle, frustrating and challenging — especially when it’s the only piece of equipment in the kitchen. “The oven taught me a lot in the first year — even about myself,” says McHardy. “Fire has its inconsistencies; every day is a new day with the oven.

You have an understanding but not a complete understanding of what can happen. It changes your recipes, it changes your throught processes and it changes everything about service. It’s an oven where you learn where everything should go through cooking and experimenting.”

Manuka’s menu changes each day

McHardy fuels his oven with banksia cones, jarrah and jam wood  Chefs work a four-day week  Manuka started doing pizzas after customers kept walking in not realising the restaurant had changed  The restaurant has 46 seats

HOSPITALITY INSIDER | 7

RESTAURANT PROFILE MANUKA WOODFIRE KITCHEN

“WE NEED TO BE PROTECTIVE OF OUR INDUSTRY WHEN IT COMES TO MENTAL HEALTH.” – KENNY MCHARDY Kenny McHardy

8 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

according to what suppliers deliver to the venue. But they’ll always have two or three slow-cooked proteins, a couple of fish, lots of vegetables and pizza, which became part of the menu by default after diners came knocking; not realising the venue had changed hands. “There are two dining markets — those who want to sit down for a nice meal and others who want a couple of pizzas and beers,” says McHardy. “I never intended on having pizza, but the pizza section smashes it — and it’s a quick staff meal.”

With only one oven in the kitchen and a number of chefs all vying for the same piece of equipment, the cooking process is all about timing.

For example, a whole lamb is slowcooked overnight using residual heat from the fire along with butternut pumpkins, onions, sweet potato, eggplant and garlic — “anything that we want to have that silky-soft texture,” says McHardy. Once the team break down slow-cooked meats and veg, the fire is lit and chefs will start cooking leeks, spring onions and capsicums. “There’s a process during the day for using the fire,” says McHardy.

There’s also a process when it comes to the types of wood Manuka use, with different species selected for particular dishes. “It’s not just one wood for everything because you’d get the same flavour,” says McHardy.

“It’s nice to change the flavour profile with different smoke.” Manuka primarily use jarrah wood but also dabble with banksia cones and jam wood. “I’ve developed a repertoire that suits the purpose of what I’m cooking,” says the chef. “We smoke our yoghurt with jam wood because it’s sweet and we’ll smoke meats with something dense like jam wood.”

Running a restaurant solo was understandably a daunting and defining experience for McHardy, so

much so that it has shaped the way he runs his kitchen. “When we first opened, I was on my own — I had no kitchen hand, we couldn’t afford anyone to work with me and all of a sudden I went from a team of 24 chefs to just me,” says McHardy. “It really affected me.”

Manuka now has a team of five chefs who are all grounded by the pillars of respect and dedication.

Around eight months ago, McHardy decided to take a leaf out of Ben Shewry’s book and put his chefs on a four-day week. “We went from being a seven to a six to a five-day operation,” he says. “Chefs work 40 hours a week and get paid for five days — the deal is I’ll give you three days off, but you have to give me 100 per cent for four days.”

A boost in morale is one of the immediate perks McHardy has witnessed from implementing a four-day week, but the longterm impacts have an even greater benefit — helping to change the way hospitality operates as a whole. “We need to be protective of our industry when it comes to mental health,” says McHardy. “Services are tough; it doesn’t matter how small or big your venue is. The industry is hard and we cop a lot of humility, but our team all give their best because they believe in what they’re doing.”

Four years on and Manuka is going from strength to strength under the eye of a chef who’s worked in restaurants for more than 20 years.

Making the move from big-wig kitchens to a space that’s more akin to a game of tetris, McHardy is hitting his stride and is doing what he came to Fremantle to do — run a producedriven restaurant filled to the brim with regulars. “I like running a restaurant for locals,” he says. “We’ve got their back as much as they’ve got ours.”

In this extract from IGNI, chef Aaron Turner realises the parallels between his approach to cooking and the way fire behaves, eventually harnessing its power to reignite his passion.

WORDS AARON TURNER PHOTOGRAPHY JULIAN KINGMA

17 . 0 1 . 2 0 1 6 (3 days to opening) I decide to light the fire a little earlier than we have been, just to have it burning in the background, and perhaps even give us a little inspiration.

I don’t fully understand it yet.

I’ve never worked with direct flame before, not like this, not as the only source of cooking in a commercial kitchen, using it to service a dining room full of guests. It’s the centrepiece of the kitchen, the life of it all. It has changed the way I interact with cooking. Every day is different because the fire behaves according to its own will. It has a life of its own, a certain energy and curiosity that demands constant attention. The trade-off is the calmness at the centre of it, and the realisation that we are never really in control.

And it’s then, in a bizarre moment of, let’s call it clarity, it hits me: the fire behaves the way I’ve always cooked, the way I see produce — always different and always changing with the days, and the months, and the weather, even the fuel used to feed it.

This is the same as the way a duck

in winter will taste different to a duck in spring, the same way a pear in early autumn will only suggest what a pear will taste like later in the same month, so why treat it the same way, when they are really two different things?

The perfect dish week in and week out is so unappealing to me. I don’t chase any regimented consistency; as a cook I try to avoid it at all costs, choosing instead to let the produce guide me.

It’s a kind of freedom most kitchens or cooks don’t have — instead they are often resigned to producing the same dishes for months on end.

Now the fire is offering me that same freedom from consistency, the freedom to know that it is different every day, and, therefore, so the food should be.

That realisation aside, I still have no idea what dishes we will open with. I know we need at least sixteen to start, but I have no idea what they are or even what they could possibly be. What I do have is a better knowledge of the fire, and tomorrow I will wipe away all the plans I have made up to this point. The new potatoes barely the size of a fingernail that I have previously subjected to

sous vide, vacuum packed in olive oil and placed in a water bath in a dark corner of the kitchen and forgotten for 20 minutes instead will be coated in clarified butter and slowly roasted over the fire high on the grill and above any direct heat, which allows them to roast slowly, the outside of the tiny potatoes crisping while the insides steam to a creamy earthiness.

The flavour is amazing: these little bursts taste more like potato than I can remember. There is something so comforting in the flavour that it brings a wide smile. It’s a brief moment where I remember the joys of cooking. It’s been a while.

With this realisation all the prep I’ve intended or attempted to start I will scrap, a thousand lines and scribbles in my notebook all crossed out. I will start again, simpler, smarter this time.

Tomorrow with new excitement I’ll begin at the very beginning and start working on snacks.

This is an edited extract from IGNI by Aaron Turner published by Hardie Grant Books. RRP $60 and available in stores nationally.

HOSPITALITY INSIDER | 9

COLUMN AARON TURNER

STOKING THE FIRE

FEATURE INDIGENOUS TECHNIQUES

FIRST FLAMES

Contemporary chefs are turning to a more elemental approach to cooking, tending to open flames. But for Indigenous Australians, cooking with fire has a more than 40,000-year history.

WORDS MADELINE WOOLWAY

K

ooma, Yuwaalaraay woman Dale Chapman from central Queensland and Gunditjmara and Palawa man Zach Green from Victoria are both qualified chefs who use their craft to educate Australians about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture through Indigenous cuisine.

Their journeys to this point were 10 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

different — Chapman grew up on country, using traditional techniques to prepare family meals from a young age, while Green was unaware of his Aboriginal heritage until he was 12. But they both believe in the power of food to aid in reconciliation and agree that fire has a central role as a means of cooking and storytelling.

“I cooked around the fire with my

parents and used different techniques over the years,” says Chapman. “We had big wood-driven ovens and fire was always a part of life.” After becoming a qualified chef by trade, Chapman worked in a number of restaurants before deciding it was time to get bushfoods on to menus. Thirty years on, the chef runs First Food Co, a business that supplies native ingredients to the industry, offers catering services and runs workshops.

Green is also in the business of promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander food culture, and recently toured Victoria as part of a pop-up series called Finding Home Again. Along with the team from Elijah’s Kitchen (Green’s original Northern Territory pop-up kitchen named after his lost son), he’s on a mission to provide a platform for Aboriginal voices through cooking.

Although Green learned about his Gunditjmara and Palawa heritage

TECHNIQUE

Ubirr sunset, Kakadu National Park.

Photography by Peter Eve, Tourism NT

“WE NEED TO HAVE CONVERSATIONS AND TELL EACH OTHER STORIES. SHARING A MEAL BREAKS BARRIERS.” – DALE CHAPMAN

Cooking on country involves using a camp oven to produce everything from damper and cakes to stews and chargrilled proteins. “It’s amazing what you can do,” Chapman says.

While some communities used clay to build ovens, others turned to rocks and wood. “Different groups had different methods,” says Chapman. “It all had to do with what was in your environment. We cooked over flames and coal, but mostly coal because it maintains temperature. We would put a big stone on the coals and would become a grill plate as it heated.”

Hot rocks could also be used to cook larger proteins from the inside out. “If we had a kangaroo, you’d put salt bush and such inside, and then put a large hot rock in so it started cooking from the inside,” says Chapman.

Coal could be removed from the ovens to maintain the temperature, with the depth of the pits also altered to suit different temperature needs. To achieve different results altogether, damp paperbark was added to create a steaming effect.

Chapman says ash can also be used to manage heat levels, especially if lower temperatures are desired.

Green’s first experience with ground ovens came five years ago. “My family in Kakadu invited me to go hunting — that was my first experience in a community that is still very traditional in the way they go about things.”

Buffalo, wild boar and magpie geese were slow-cooked under four layers of damp paperbark and coal. “It sat there for 12 to 14 hours and the meat fell off the bone,” says Green. “A lot of indigenous game meats need to be slow-cooked. Ground ovens use really hot coals and damp paperbark to keep the steam in, so the air is moist. If you put hot coals straight on to pieces of paperbark, it’ll just flame up. But if the hot coals are on damp paperbark, it becomes like a big steam oven.”

Beyond keeping everything moist, damp paperbark is another means to control temperature. “If we just used the coals, it might be around 250 degrees Celsius, but because of the wet paperbark, it’s around 180,” Green says. “It’s low and slow; it’s beautiful the way it cooks.”

Open flames can also be used to chargrill proteins such as kangaroo.

“You put it straight onto the coals, which is amazing as well,” says Green.

While working in a commercial kitchen and plating up food for hundreds of paying diners has meant adapting some of these methods, the skillset can be converted to suit contemporary commercial kitchens.

Steel grills, for example, can be used in place of stone for chargrilling and proteins such as fish can be wrapped in wet paperbark before grilling in order to achieve a similar flavour profile and texture. “We have to modernise things because these days [it’s about] quantity,” Chapman says. “As a businesswoman I have to keep up with demand. You take your traditional knowledge and training as a chef and combine them together.

We need to look at the traditional methods of cookery and think about HOSPITALITY INSIDER | 11

FEATURE INDIGENOUS TECHNIQUES

at 12 years old, it wasn’t until he finished high school that he really connected with his Aboriginality.

“I connected with family, camped and cooked kangaroo tail, but I didn’t really think much of it,” says Green. “It was just family dinner, but looking back, it was the beginning.”

A pivotal moment came when Green moved to the Territory with his former fiancée and spent time with her family. “Yolngu people are really traditional in language and in cooking styles,” he says. “Yolngu people showed me what Australia needs to see, and since then every Aboriginal community I’ve been to has showed me different techniques.”

FEATURE INDIGENOUS TECHNIQUES

Kakadu Kitchen croc kebabs with pepper leaf mustard.

Photography by ShalomKaa

KNP-Barramundi cooking on the coals.

Photography by Parks Australia

Mercure Kakadu Crocodile Hotel Escarpment dishes.

“I’D LOVE TO SEE NON-INDIGENOUS CHEFS GETTING MORE INVOLVED

BY LEARNING FROM ELDERS, LEARNING FROM ABORIGINAL PEOPLE AND HAVING ABORIGINAL CHEFS IN THEIR KITCHEN.” – ZACH GREEN how we can adapt them. For me, it’s common sense.”

STORYTELLING In order to transfer knowledge of traditional forms of cookery, Green stresses the importance of storytelling.

The methods are vitally important because fire tells the story of their ancestors, according to Green. “It’s a tool for hunting and land management,” he says. “It [also] holds massive spiritual meaning. There are so many stories within fire. When we’re cooking an animal and it’s smoking, the spirit is going back to the Dreamtime.”

It’s not just about plating up an amazing dish — the full potential of indigenous ingredients will only be realised once their story is told. “If we can use more fire in commercial kitchens, [then we will] be able to tell those stories [and] recreate them.”

Green uses his demonstrations to tell the story of his totem, Baru.

“When it comes to cooking with fire during demos, it’s all about telling that 12 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

story and creating an atmosphere [so] people realise how important fire is,” he says. “My totem Baru is within fire — that’s how important it is. It’s the story of my totem.”

It’s a story from Yolngu country, which brings Green to another crucial point. “If you’re going to cook with indigenous ingredients, make sure you know not just the ingredient you’re cooking with, but the country you’re cooking on,” he says. “You could be cooking on Yolngu country, Gunditjmara country or even Palawa country — every ingredient is different and there is a different story for each [one].”

RECONCILIATION Chapman and Green are supportive of a dynamic industry that uses food to support reconciliation. “Using traditional cooking practices can play a pivotal role in reconciliation,” says Green. “[But], if we’re using more traditional practices in commercial kitchens, it’s tricky — you should get permission from local elders.

Our culture is all about educating and passing down knowledge. I’d love to see non-Indigenous chefs getting more involved by learning from elders, learning from Aboriginal people and having Aboriginal chefs in their kitchen.”

With a growing number of Australian chefs embracing the use of fire in their kitchens, Chapman agrees there’s a golden opportunity to connect through food and apply traditional knowledge about fire to contemporary dishes. “There are some really great restaurants and chefs out there doing great things,” she says. “I really believe it’s important to connect with Aboriginal people and community groups. Ask around and be humble.

Reach out and ask someone how you can put bushfood on your menu and how you can prepare it. If you start to think about having Indigenous perspectives at the forefront of your thinking, things will change. We need to have conversations and tell each other stories. Sharing a meal breaks barriers.”

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G’DAY USA

FEATURE BARBECUE

Texas-style barbecue has carved out a place in Melbourne’s dining scene, with local operators creating venues with a distinct Aussie twang.

WORDS ANNABELLE CLOROS PHOTOGRAPHY KATE SHANASY FOR BLUEBONNET

14 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

W

hen you mention the word barbecue to an Australian, a number of images come to mind — sausages, steak, onion, bread and tomato sauce is just the beginning. Not to forget the charred grill, supermarket salads and a few beers to wash it all down. But when you talk about barbecue in the US, it’s a completely different story — one filled with pull-apart, smoky meat.

Low and slow cookery has mushroomed in Australia over the years, with Melbourne serving as the unofficial capital of the movement. Hospitality Insider talks to Bluebonnet’s Chris Terlikar and Fancy Hank’s Mike Patrick about why

they decided to get into barbecue, community spirit, the smoking process and how Australia stacks up against the US.

STARTING FROM SCRATCH Chris Terlikar was working at Public restaurant in New York when he got hooked on barbecue. The chef had a “this is what I want to do” moment over a meal at Hill Country Barbecue and decided to travel to Texas and take on a 12-week internship with Tom Micklethwait of Micklethwait Craft Meats. The internship involved plenty of long hours, with Terlikar starting at 2am in the morning and working until three or four in the afternoon every day.

“EVERYONE WHO DOES IT IS SO PASSIONATE ABOUT IT — I GUESS THAT’S WHAT MAKES IT SO SPECIAL.” – CHRIS TERLIKAR

EQUIPPED FOR THE JOB Terlikar and Patrick may have started out on the thrifty end of the smoker scale when they launched their businesses (Terlikar built his first smoker out of a toolbox, a dishwasher pipe and a ‘shed-load’ of black heatproof paint) but both have made significant upgrades on the equipment front. Terlikar estimates he’s spent $50,000 on smokers so far, but his new 1.2-tonne addition from the US is the best yet. “We just got a new smoker and it’s completely different to what we’ve cooked on before,” he says. “It’s called an Ole Hickory Pit and it’s wood-fired, so there’s more of an even heat and there aren’t any hot and cold spots.”

Fancy Hank’s installed a custom two-tonne offset smoker in the venue which was tailored to their space and restaurant capacity. The team worked with Paul Reitmier from Silver Creek Smokers who has been building pits since 2005 and was one of the early adopters of American barbecue in Melbourne. “Our smoker runs 24–7 and it never goes out,” says Patrick.

“The smoker has no electricity or gas, just timber and charcoal, so we have to have people stoking the fires and keeping an eye on it.”

THINK LOCAL Wood is a significant cost for barbecue operators, with red gum and iron bark topping the list for mostused in Australia. Bluebonnet source their wood locally from Rob’s Redgum Supplies, but Terlikar says it gives off a different smoke profile compared to wood you’d find in Texas, with hickory, oak and mesquite the most popular. “It’s a different flavour to what you’d typically get in Texas,” says Terlikar. “It’s almost like a sweeter smoke.”

Fancy Hank’s work with a variety of salvaged Australian hardwood including red gum, iron bark and HOSPITALITY INSIDER | 15

FEATURE BARBECUE

The set up at Fancy Hank’s

The chef eventually moved back to Melbourne and used his tax return to buy a second-hand smoker and went on to set up Bluebonnet Barbecue.

“There was a limited budget,” says Terlikar. “I started doing pop-ups at The Beaufort in Carlton [now Capitano Carlton] and we grew from there.” Terlikar found a permanent home for Bluebonnet in Collingwood, but a fire tore through the venue in 2015, forcing them to vacate after just two years in business. Bluebonnet then made its way to The Curtin and the North Fitzroy Star before moving to their current location in Brunswick East in 2018.

Fancy Hank’s and Bluebonnet opened around the same time, with both operations focusing on straight-up Texas-style barbecue. Like Terlikar, Mike Patrick also travelled to Texas to learn more about the art of barbecue from the source. “I went to see a friend of mine who works in Austin and he took me around to all the American barbecue joints,” says Patrick. “At the time, I was doing wood-fired pizza and South American barbecue, so I was always into cooking with fire.”

Patrick launched Fancy Hank’s in 2012 with an old barbecue on a trailer which they would take to local bowls clubs, and the brand quickly established a reputation. “We had a smoker a Texan guy sold us for a couple hundred bucks on Gumtree and we were making barbecue sauce and salads out of lawn bowls kitchens,” says Patrick. “People would come down with their families on the weekend and we got a massive following on social media. We’d be selling out of brisket every time we did it so we thought, ‘There’s something in this — we need a bricks and mortar location’.” Fancy Hank’s went from portable operation to a pop-up at the Mercat Cross Hotel before finding their permanent digs on Bourke Street in the CBD.

FEATURE BARBECUE

“IF YOU’RE USING TIMBER THAT’S TOO GREEN, IT CAN SMOKE TOO MUCH AND TAINT THE MEAT. IT’S A COMMON MISTAKE — PEOPLE TRY TO GET THIS BILLOWING SMOKE AND IT’S NOT REALLY ABOUT THAT.” – MIKE PATRICK yellow box. “Well-cured hardwoods give off a nice smoke that’s not too acrid,” says Patrick. “If you’re using timber that’s too green, it can smoke too much and taint the meat. It’s a common mistake — people try to get this billowing smoke and it’s not really about that.”

MEAT PREP AND THE SMOKING PROCESS Barbecue is obviously all about the meat, and brisket, sausages, ribs and pork belly 16 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

are the most popular proteins you’ll find at barbecue joints. Fancy Hank’s and Bluebonnet both classify their offering as Texas style, which covers meats rubbed with salt and pepper and cooked over indirect heat. The end result is meat with a nice crust and a soft texture that still maintains its shape. “When you’re slicing it, it should be able to hang over one finger without breaking,” says Terlikar.

Fancy Hank’s use pickle juice to ensure their American mustard, salt and pepper rub adheres to the meat and achieves a good crust. Once the meat has been seasoned, it’s put in the smoker until it reaches the desired internal temperature of 92 degrees Celsius. “If you get to the internal temperature too fast, it’s not going to break down the collagen and sinew,” says Patrick. For brisket, the cooking time is 14 hours, pork shoulder is about 12 hours and sausages are the fastest at four hours. Once the meat is cooked, the team wraps and stores it in a warmer to rest until service.

Meat platter by Bluebonnet

They say everything is bigger in Texas, and the adage certainly fits traditional barbecue sides. Texas Monthly put together a ranking of the top barbecue sides, with popular accompaniments including vinegar coleslaw, pinto beans with meat, baked beans, potato salad, mac n cheese, fried okra, green beans, creamed corn, collard greens, cheese grits, yams and onion rings — to name a few.

When eating barbecue, most diners tend to go all out on the sides front to get the full experience, but Australian operators are doing things a little differently. “We try and put our own take on sides in Melbourne,” says Terlikar. “No one is really doing that traditional barbecue [experience] where you’ve got sides like coleslaw, potato salad and mac and cheese.” Bluebonnet’s sides menu is veg-heavy, with items including apple and kohlrabi slaw, wood-roasted broccolini with preserved lemon, salsa verde, smoked almonds and whipped goat’s feta. “We use quite a bit of acidity and a little bit more freshness with the sides, just because you need to cut through the fatty richness of the barbecue,” says Terlikar.

Cornbread and mac and cheese are king at Fancy Hank’s, but the team has gradually tweaked their menu over the years to suit an Australian palate. “We do a lot of mac and cheese and cornbread, but we’ve always used a vinegar dressing instead of mayonnaise for our slaw because you need something to cut through the fatty meats,” says Patrick. Due to the venue’s CBD location, working professionals form a big part of their dining portfolio, and there are a number of lighter sides on offer such as romaine with sugar pecans, bacon and anchovy and a roast beetroot salad. “We have a lot of corporates for lunch, so we have a lot of pickled options, preserves and smaller more delicate things,” says Patrick.

COMMUNITY SPIRIT

Mike Patrick

Barbecue has a strong community behind it in the US and Australia. Sharing knowledge and establishing friendships is commonplace, which is not typically the norm for competitors. “There’s definitely a community with barbecue,” says Terlikar. “I think it’s unique in barbecue. Everyone who does it is so passionate about it — I guess that’s what makes it so special.” Patrick echoes the sentiment, and says community was one of the primary motivators for getting into barbecue. “It’s really ingrained in the culture and we’re all really good mates,” he says. “There’s a healthy rivalry but there’s no animosity.”

The barbecue movement in Australia is hitting its stride when it comes to quality of food and consumer awareness.

If you can’t go to Texas, Melbourne’s got you covered for quality barbecue with an Aussie twist.

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FEATURE BARBECUE

PICK A SIDE

FEATURE SMOKING

NO FIRE

WITHOUT SMOKE SMOKED GOODS ARE FOUND ALL OVER THE WORLD. DIFFERENT METHODS RESULT IN A VARIETY OF PRODUCTS, MANY OF WHICH ARE BEING PUT TO USE IN KITCHENS AROUND AUSTRALIA. WORDS MADELINE WOOLWAY PHOTOGRAPHY MARK BEST FOR FISH BUTCHERY

18 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

S

moking has long been a fixture of many cuisines.

Whether to preserve, cook or flavour, a number of techniques can be applied to anything from beef and fish to chicken, cheese and whisky.

CHICKEN At Fire and Brimstone in Sydney’s Castle Hill, pitmaster Brad Shorten spends 12 hours a day tending to the venue’s offset smoker. The 1.6-tonne piece of equipment provides five square metres of cooking area, which Shorten uses to cook everything on the menu — bar a couple of sides.

“I chose the offset because it’s a traditional way of doing American barbecue,” he says. “It’s the main one.

It’s the most primitive. It’s just cooking over fire. I light the fire up on one side and the smoke and heat travel through the offset and out the other end.”

While the equipment and method is traditional, Shorten offers diners something beyond the ubiquitous beef brisket — smoked and fried chicken wings. The wings are brined, smoked and finished off in the deep fryer, resulting in rich, tender meat with a crisp finish. While Shorten had smoked wings before, he wanted to take it up a notch for Fire and Brimstone’s guests.

Looking overseas for inspiration, particularly to the pitmasters of the American South, Shorten found the solution. “I realised that if we smoked them and then fried them, we’d get really crispy skin, so I worked on a rub profile and a cooking sequence for three or four weeks.”

The chef brines wings for 24 hours before coating them in a housemade rub. They’re later smoked in the offset, treated with the rub again and finished in the deep fryer. “I smoke them over ironbark, which is an Australian native ironwood from Queensland,” he says. “We use 100 per cent ironbark, nothing else. I smoke them at about 225 degrees Fahrenheit [107 degrees Celsius] for about 2.5 to three hours.”

The wings are ready to eat at this stage, but the texture is somewhat rubbery. “I fry them to give them a crispy skin and, with the rub, it changes the flavour profile slightly,” Shorten says.

Smoking the wings beforehand means less time in the fryer. “All it’s doing is crisping up the skin and heating them through,” says Shorten.

“You need to be careful because you can overcook them really fast. Using the brine and smoking them low and slow keeps them juicy.”

Shorten smokes anywhere between 20 and 25 kilograms of chicken wings each day he’s open, starting the process in the afternoon so they haven’t been off the smoke too long before service.

The method is similar to cooking other types of protein commonly associated with American barbecue.

“It’s mostly time difference,” says Shorten. “When you’re cooking brisket, you’re talking eight, 10, 12-hour cooks because it’s an eight to 10kg piece of meat. Chicken wings are 100g. The time between them being perfectly cooked and overcooked can be 10 minutes.”

FEATURE SMOKING Paul Farag

FISH Smoked fish has a rich history; there are examples in almost every cuisine that prominently features seafood.

In Australia, the team behind Josh Niland’s Saint Peter and its sibling Fish Butchery are leading the charge, experimenting with a wide range of methods and species.

“Almost all fish are suitable [for smoking] to add dimension and flavour,” says Paul Farag, head chef at Fish Butchery. “We evaluate what we are wanting from a particular species then we brine it depending on the species and thickness and whether it will be hot or cold smoked.”

The technique used mostly depends on the desired texture, says Farag. “We use both cold and hot smoking depending on the texture we are after; cold gives you a raw appearance and texture and hot gives the product the appearance of being cooked through.”

Using a Bradley smoker allows the team to control temperature and time,

giving them the luxury of smoking fish at a lower temperature for longer, which means the smoke flavours can truly penetrate the fish.

“Depending on the fish, sometimes we use spice rubs to cure before smoking, or brines, or just straight salt, as is the case with hearts and spleen,” Farag says.

The process sounds similar to that used by chefs smoking land-based proteins, but Farag says it’s not that simple. A key difference is the type of wood used — fish responds better to soft woods. “We mainly use soft fruit woods such as cherry and peach because they’re not as overpowering for the fish’s delicate flavour.”

Given Fish Butchery is known for serving up experimental products such as spearfish pastrami and cobia pancetta, it’s unsurprising a lot of trial and error is involved.

“The past year has been very interesting for all of us involved — especially for me, coming from a mainly meat background,” Farag

says. “The difficult thing is there are so many species and they all react differently to different methods. We look at the similarities between meat and seafood, yet it’s more complex than replacing one with the other. The same goes for offal. We only smoke roe from a few species to make our taramasalata. Milt has proven to be the hardest to get a consistent product as they change with the seasons and species to species. They’re all different in shape, texture and consistency, which means getting down a recipe for a product like the ‘miltadella’ is extremely hard.”

Of course, plenty of attempts have failed — there’s been products that have come out tasting like pure smoke and others like bile. “We’ve had a few species of fish where the stomach acid has seeped through the belly and stained it, leaving a batteryacid taste when eaten,” says Farag.

“That’s part of the fun, though, trying to do something that you or someone else might not have done before.”

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FEATURE SMOKING

THINK OUTSIDE THE SMOKE BOX McDonnell has noted a few venues smoking other dairy products including labneh, yoghurt and butter.

Fish Butchery’s most popular smoked products include sardines and swordfish bacon.

Electronically driven pellet grills come close to replicating fire, but don’t impart the same flavour.

According to McGoram, some whisky distillieries have used sheep’s dung to smoke malted barley.

CHEESE If smoked meat and fish are the first products that come to mind, cheese is not far behind. Fine food purveyor Simon Johnson stocks a number of smoked cheeses, from well-known varieties to some less common.

Quicke’s smoked cheddar from Devon is smoked over oak chips, giving it a punchy flavour, while San Simon semi-hard Spanish cow’s milk cheese has a much milder flavour with bacon-like tones. Rogue smokey blue cheese from Oregon is made from biodynamic cow’s milk and is smoked over hazelnut shells resulting in a lighter flavour with a sweet finish and subtle smoke tones.

These are just a few varieties listed

by Ruth McDonnell, Simon Johnson’s national retail manager.

“There are a lot of cheeses that can be smoked but generally aren’t,” says McDonnell. “You can smoke almost anything; however cheeses with a semi-hard to hard profile maintain the smoke flavour better. Cheeses made with a natural wax rind are the best examples as they allow the cheese to breathe but lock in the smoky flavour.”

As more and more restaurants trial smoking their own goods in-house, McDonnell has noticed a trend towards 20 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

some softer varieties. “Smoking in-house is very on trend in restaurants, with lots of venues customising their own smoking systems. Some of the most popular cheeses include smoked ricotta, scamorza, Gouda, gruyere and blue.

I think the fresher-style cheeses like mozzarella and ricotta are going to be easier just because of time restraints.”

Beyond the hard versus soft demarcation, the source of milk also impacts the end result. “Semi-hard and hard cow’s milk cheeses are best suited to smoking but we are seeing some smoked sheep’s milk cheeses,” says McDonnell. “Goat’s milk tends to have naturally strong flavours and therefore is not generally smoked.

Cow’s milk, on the other hand, has this beautiful, lactic, sweet flavour that takes on flavour quite well.”

While it is possible to hot smoke cheeses, cold smoking tends to dominate as cheese melts. “Smoking is typically done by either cold smoking, which involves a smoke chamber or smoke box using different fruit woods, hickory or oak woods or smoke flavour being added to the curds or brine or simply soaking the cheese in the liquid smoke,” McDonnell says.

As with fish, the method of

cold smoking allows the smoke to permeate more slowly and leads to a more subtle flavour. In contrast, cheese that gets its smoky flavour by way of a liquid additive tends to have a much stronger hickory flavour.

“Specialty farms, like the ones we work with, tend to prefer cold smoking because a lot of liquid smoke is chemically produced or made using cold smoke and adding water to it, so it becomes like a vapour,” says McDonnell. “Putting cheese in a smoke box and smoking it over a longer period of time is seen as more artisan.”

Good-quality smoked cheeses tend to be popular with consumers who love bold flavours. “Adding a smoked cheese to a cheese board or a charcuterie board adds a different dimension and complexity,” McDonnell says. “There are no rules with cheese matching; however accompaniments such as onion marmalades, piccalilli, fresh walnuts and pickled onions match well with smoked cheese.”

It’s not just food pairings that leap to mind either. McDonnell says whisky matching with smoked cheese is a “flavour revolution”, with floral and peated whiskies complementing the smokiness of cheese.

The tradition of peated whiskies is centuries old, stemming from Scotch whiskies made on the island of Islay.

“Most Islay whiskies are known for being powerfully rich and smoky whiskies,” says Simon McGoram, Diageo national brand ambassador.

“Think single malts Lagavulin and Caol Ila. The island is almost completely devoid of trees, and since they were so remote, they didn’t have access to coal or other fuel sources.

What they did have access to was a lot of peat bogs.”

Once cut and dried, peat makes for a passable fuel source that can be used to dry barley that’s been steeped and malted. “Part of the process of making whisky is that you need to steep and malt your barley to break down the starches into fermentable sugars,” McGoram explains. “So when you’re drying the barley after malting, smoke from the burning peat clings to the wet grain and imparts peat into the grain, which in turn flavours the spirit, [meaning] the final aged product will have the phenolic, smoky, earthy aromas and flavours.”

Further afield, distillers all over the globe, including India, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, are experimenting with peated whiskies, using local sources of peat as well as alternatives.

“In New Zealand, there are people playing around with Manuka wood chips,” McGoram says. “Where you’re sourcing the peat makes a big difference. If you look at Tasmanian peat, it might have a high eucalypt content. Deep in the highlands, it might have quite a high heather content.”

It’s not just the source of peat, but the ageing process that affects the smokiness of a whisky. “Like any whisky, ageing is really key,” McGoram explains. “We say that about 60 per cent of the final flavour comes from the maturation process.

THE WAY A WHISKY IS SERVED WILL ALSO AFFECT THE WAY ITS SMOKY CHARACTERISTICS ARE PERCEIVED. By the time you have malted, mashed, fermented, distilled and matured the whisky, you’re down to about a third of the original smokiness you started with. So we try to describe whisky to drinkers as heavily peated, medium peated or lightly peated, rather than

by PPM (parts per million phenol), which is measured after malting.”

The way a whisky is served will also affect the way its smoky characteristics are perceived. “Try it three ways to figure out how you enjoy it. One with a dash of water, one neat and one with ice. The

addition of water brings out lighter flavour molecules; you’ll get citrusy, fruity notes. You tend to get a little more smoke when you add ice and if you add ice, it chills the whisky, which changes your perception of sweetness. If you add something like soda water, you bring down the intensity and as you do that you unlock other flavours.”

Bartenders shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with cocktails either. “Peated whisky can be fantastic in a cocktail,” says McGoram. “Even if you just use a small amount, it comes through strongly.

A great modern classic is the penicillin.

You’ll also see people putting peated Scotch whisky in hot chocolates.”

With single-malt whisky consumption in double-digit growth, it’s encouraging to note that peated whiskies such as Talisker are recruiting drinkers into the category, suggesting smoky whiskies are now more than just an acquired taste.

HOSPITALITY INSIDER | 21

FEATURE SMOKING

WHISKY

Asado’s beef tongue skewer

FEATURE ASADO

DOWN TO EARTH The Argentinean cooking technique is piquing the interest of Australian chefs and the dining public.

WORDS ANNABELLE CLOROS PHOTOGRAPHY JAKE RODEN FOR ASADO

22 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

Definition The Hunter Valley isn’t the first place that comes to mind when you think of asado.

But it makes perfect sense, given wine, not beer, is the beverage of choice for el asador.

Yellow Billy Restaurant’s open fire pit is proving to be a serious drawcard for diner, but chef and co-owner Sam Alexander is quick to point out you won’t be getting an authentic South American experience at the restaurant. “For us, it’s about whole beast open fire cookery,” says Alexander. “We wanted to take the cookery method and utilise it with different cuisines, so we have Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, French and Spanish influences.”

At Asado in Melbourne, head chef Ollie Gould is taking the South American route which perfectly suits the Melbourne dining scene. “It’s about cooking over fire and being able to cook half or whole animals on the cross as well as cooking meat over a parrilla [grill].”

Gould also notes asado isn’t just a cooking technique, but a way of eating.

“I’LL PUT THE PIG ON AT 8AM, COOK IT 85 PER CENT THROUGH ON ONE SIDE AND THEN FLIP IT, CRANK THE HEAT UP AND CRACKLE THE SKIN.” – SAM ALEXANDER Asado is often held in celebration of an occasion, or sometimes, for no reason at all besides eating, drinking and having a chat.

“It’s about having a long, expansive lunch or dinner that can be theatrical with lots of meat and animals cooking around you,” says Gould. “With most cooking techniques from a primitive age, it brings people together and you can sit around the fire with your family and friends and enjoy each other’s company — it’s a whole day thing.”

Equipment Committing to an asado-style venue comes with a few hoops to jump through. First, there’s the fire pit which is better suited to an outdoor environment over a commercial kitchen, but is very much doable within four walls. Asado decided to take the custom route when it came to their indoor pit and it was a big investment for the restaurant. “The pit is on the right-hand side of the cooking line with a brick wall behind it,” says Gould. “The hot box is directly next to it which has all our charcoal and wood and to the left of that is the grill. It’s the same as a gas kitchen, but you see embers, smoke, coals and fire which is a great attraction for people.”

Asado has an adjustable grill chefs are able to move up and down to different heights, which means a range of proteins and vegetables can be cooked accordingly.

“There are drip trays at specific angles and we have a wire mesh grill in the middle that enables us to cook smaller items like baby octopus without the product falling through.”

On the flip side, Yellow Billy’s pit is housed in a semi-open structure outside the restaurant. The team toyed with using a design by asado king Francis Mallmann, but took the custom route in the end.

A 25kg pig takes approximately eight hours to cook  The perfect weight for a lamb cooked on the pit is 22kg  Chimichurri and salsa criolla are the two main condiments used for asado  Pits have to be completely extinguished before chefs leave the venue

HOSPITALITY INSIDER | 23

FEATURE ASADO

A

sado isn’t the same as your everyday barbecue — in fact it’s a serious insult to compare the two. While both share common ground — a social eating occasion spent with family and friends — asado exemplifies cooking at its most elemental, using just wood and fire.

The technique was first developed by Argentinean horsemen known as gauchos, who cooked beef on grills over embers.

Traditionally, wood from the quebracho tree was favoured due to its slow burn and low levels of smoke.

Asado gradually began to make its way to a more domestic environment and has since been revered as a social ritual steeped in tradition.

So how does a technique more than three centuries old translate to a restaurant environment — let alone one in Australia?

Hospitality Insider speaks to Asado’s Ollie Gould and Yellow Billy Restaurant’s Sam Alexander about their take on asado.

FEATURE ASADO Suckling pig at Yellow Billy

“One point of difference with our asado is the framing,” says Alexander.

“It’s a 5m² tin shed with a flat roof and some whirly birds. We’re also getting some detachable grills and we’re going to extend from two to four cages so we can cook four beasts.”

Safety There’s a lot to think about when working with open flames, especially when your pit is located indoors.

Asado’s hot box sits at around 500 degrees Celsius, which means staff training and awareness is a must.

Gould says staff safety is mostly about common sense such as opening the door at the right angle, using heatproof goggles and gloves and being aware of wayward sparks. “We have plenty of fireproof blankets and extinguishers on hand just in case, but once you’re around heat, you know what to steer clear of and how to handle it,” says the chef.

There are a number of safety requirements venues must adhere to, and Asado has gone all out to keep hazards at bay. “We’ve installed $80,000 worth of water filters above the grill to minimise any fires that could occur with that sort of cooking,” says Gould. “The legal requirement is to split wood-fired cooking extraction from gas cooking extraction. Wood fire doesn’t necessarily put fat into the 24 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

filters, but it’s more of a dry ash that goes up there. If there was gas oil cooking going into the filter — that would be a problem.”

At the moment, Alexander is the “chief fire guy” tending the pit. Due to the outdoor location of their pit, Yellow Billy worked closely with Fire and Rescue NSW. “We had to make sure we had the appropriate coverage with council regulations because it is an outdoor cooking device,” says Alexander. “It had to be fire bricked, the pits are built out of stainless steel and we’ve got galvanised sheds with spark arrestors installed. We also had to be within 10 metres of consistently running water and obtain an exemption to burn 12 months of the year.”

The Hunter Valley can reach scorching temperatures during the summer months, which means the restaurant has to inform their local fire brigade if they plan on using the pit during total fire ban days. “If there’s a catastrophic day, we’re not allowed to burn because it’s just too risky,” says Alexander. But the team has a backup plan if and when that day comes in the form of portable rotisseries.

Wood From ironbark to maple, there are multiple wood varieties that can be used for asado. Each timber boasts a

different flavour profile and burn time, with experimentation often leading to the best results. “We use a lot of ironbark and mallee root along with charcoal from Mildura,” says Gould.

“We’ve experimented with things like avocado wood and red gum, but ironbark is the most consistent product to use. It’s a mild flavour and it doesn’t flare up too much if any fat drips down. Some woods burn at high intensity and some burn too quickly — ironbark is in between.”

Alexander uses a combination of woods to achieve the right balance of burn time, smoke and flavour. “At the moment, we use stripped ironbark, mahogany and maple,” he says. “We originally started with spotted gum and then we were just burning iron bark. Spotted gum has an intense heat and it burns too quickly and iron bark is slow burning, but sometimes it would die down. Now we use a mixture so we can keep things burning. Wood’s not cheap, so you have to be smart.”

Meat Asado is unashamedly all about meat, and there are no limits to what you can grill. Traditional Argentinean options typically revolve around beef, pork, sausages, ribs and chicken.

Gould chooses to use pigs and lamb on the asado along with beef short

Asado in Melbourne

ribs. “We’re currently using Western Plains pigs which are 20kg, so we split them and do half at a time,” says Gould. “Depending on how busy we are, we’ll do half a Gippsland lamb or a shoulder. We’re also going to start experimenting with fish.”

When it comes to poultry, the chef hangs chickens above the pit for around five hours. The restaurant also cooks ribs a couple of times a week, but the texture is worlds apart from typical slow-cooked meats, which can be confusing for customers who expect soft, melt-inyour-mouth proteins. “We pull off the ribs at a medium temperature so it’s more of a steak texture,” says Gould.

“Some people think it’s going to be like braised meat because it’s slow cooked, but once people realise it’s more of a textural style of cooking, they end up loving it.”

Whole lambs, pigs and ducks (which are hung) are on the menu at Yellow Billy, and are some of the best sellers for the restaurant. Alexander typically sticks with 22kg lambs and pigs that sit between 25 and 30kg.

“We butterfly the pigs and cook them between 5.5 to 7.5 hours,” says the chef. “I’ll put the pig on at 8am, cook it 85 per cent through on one side and then flip it, crank the heat up and crackle the skin.”

There are a number of benefits that come with whole-beast cooking including diversity in dishes, minimal wastage and the overall theatrical

element of a whole animal cooking over fire. Asado enables customers to sample multiple parts of the animal in one dish, with each cut boasting unique characteristics. “We make sure each portion will have something from the rump, loin, shoulder and ribs so you’re getting an array of textures and flavours,” says Gould.

In Argentina, the heat is quite high during the cooking process, which means the meat is best consumed on the same day. In a restaurant environment, selling out is not always an option, so Gould has reduced cooking heat to ensure meat remains in good condition. “We minimise our cooking heat and times so that if we don’t sell it, we can put it in the blast chiller and it’s just as good the next day.”

Yellow Billy also breaks their animals down and mixes different cuts together. “You’ll find the belly which is like pulled pork, the haunches and shoulders which is like roast pork and the shoulder, which is softer,” says Alexander. “When we serve up the meat, we always try to give it a good mix so you get pieces from the whole animal.”

Alexander looks at asado as a sustainable practice, and the chef uses every part of the animals for a range of purposes. “We take the heads off our pigs, brine them, smoke them above the pit and press them to make a terrine,” he says. “We don’t use all the crackling within the service, so we dry it out, flash fry it and use it later. We use bones for stock and my uncle turns them into compost. It’s nose-to-tail cookery — the whole animal gets used.”

Asado is in line with the culinary industry’s shift from finicky to simplicity. Alexander refers to asado as “the ultimate barbecue” and there’s no doubt chefs are getting on board with cookery methods fuelled by raw elements.

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FEATURE ASADO

“SOME PEOPLE THINK IT’S GOING TO BE THE TEXTURE OF BRAISED MEAT, WHICH IS THE ASSUMPTION BECAUSE IT’S SLOW COOKED, BUT ONCE PEOPLE REALISE IT’S MORE OF A TEXTURAL STYLE OF COOKING, THEY END UP LOVING IT.” – OLLIE GOULD

RECIPE BOOK FIREDOOR 26 | HOSPITALITY INSIDER

MARRON WITH FINGER LIME AND NATIVE HERBS

LENNOX HASTIE CHAMPIONS NATIVE INGREDIENTS AND WHOLE LIVE MARRON IS ONE OF FIREDOOR’S MOST ICONIC DISHES. WORDS LENNOX HASTIE PHOTOGRAPHY NIKKI TO

We opened Firedoor with this dish and it instantly became a firm favourite, capturing my philosophy of native ingredients speaking for themselves through the medium of fire. At the restaurant, we encourage our guests to appreciate the whole marron, including the sweet flesh from the claws as well as the succulent tail, and to combine these with the brain, coral, liver and the juices, which set to form a creamy custard.

These elements combine well with the salty succulence of the native beach herbs and the fresh citrus pop of the finger lime.

INGREDIENTS 4 live marron Sea salt 4 finger limes Âź cup fruity, mild extra-virgin olive oil 200g mixed beach herbs such as barilla and seablite

METHOD 1. Prepare your embers.

2. Kill the live marron using the ike-jime method and split lengthways on a tray to catch the juices. Carefully remove the intestinal tract and discard.

3. Arrange a grill approximately 15cm above the embers.

4. Place the marron on the grill, shell side down, and pour the juices back into the head cavity. Season with sea salt.

5. Grill for approximately three to four minutes, at which point the delicate translucent flesh will turn opaque and the shell bright orange. The juices in the head should begin to set, forming a delicate custard.

6. Meanwhile, grill the finger limes for one minute to release their essential oils. Split the finger limes lengthways and gently squeeze them between your finger and thumb to remove the vesicles.

7. In a small saucepan, warm the olive oil. Remove the marron from the grill and drizzle with the olive oil. Place the grilled finger lime vesicles in the head cavity of the marron.

8. Garnish with the beach herbs and serve immediately.

This is an edited extract from Finding Fire by Lennox Hastie published by Hardie Grant Books and available in stores nationally. RRP $60.

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that f r i d ay feelin g delive red FOOD FREED O

M