What You Need to Know About Cooking on Fire | The Tool Shed

What You Need to Know About Cooking on Fire

The way we cook our food makes a huge difference to the way it tastes and smells, completely changing your experience of the food between methods. One such method which leaves a recognisable flavour is cooking over an open fire. While cooking on fire is a great way to get delicious results, it can be challenging to get right, so if you’re hoping to get the best results, make sure to read up on everything you need to know before getting stuck in.

Build Your Fire Carefully

It goes without saying that constructing your fire is of the utmost importance and will affect the taste and quality of the food. Cooking on coals and cooking on wood will give a different flavour, and making sure that you have your fire at the ideal temperature will ensure that you have well-cooked food.

If you choose to cook over wood, picking the right wood is essential. If the wood is too wet, it will give off a lot of smoke and not an awful lot of heat, whereas dry wood will give off the heat you need to ensure your food is cooked through.

Make sure you also have enough firewood or coals to keep the fire going for long enough to get all of your food cooked.

Cooking Tips

It may take a little practice to get things right when cooking over fire, but there are some things you can do to get the most out of your food.

You’ll need to get your fire going around 15 minutes before you want to start cooking. This will allow the flames to die down and the optimum temperature to be reached. Once the flames have subsided, you can add your food to the grill and start cooking.

Particularly oily cuts of fish can be challenging to cook on fire as they can drip oil, causing swells of flames. However, a salt crust can help to protect the fish while giving it a delicious crackling skin without leaving it charred. You can brush off any extra salt after cooking and tuck into a perfectly cooked cut of fish.

Essential Fire Safety

Remember to be particularly careful when you are cooking with oil. Oil ignites in fire, and if it is dripping onto your fire from your food, it can be easy for things to get out of hand. In case your fire does get out of hand, you should always have a bucket of water or sand ready to make sure you are ready to put it out.

It is also essential that you practice good food hygiene during preparing and cooking, ensuring that all raw meat is prepared separately. It may be helpful to invest in a thermometer so you can be sure that all meat is cooked through.

With barbeques, grills and other accessories and tools for cooking on fire, you can find everything you need to get stuck into this method of preparing food at Sous Vide Tools. For more tips and advice, take a look at our Toolshed resource centre, and for a little foodie inspiration, browse through our recipes to find a new dish to have a go at.

Post by Chris Holland

Our Chef Director Chris Holland worked as Head Chef at the prestigious Alderley Edge hotel before joining us. He has a passion for using the best produce and never compromises on quality. Author of our best selling book Sous Vide The Art of Precision Cooking, Chris is a expert on the sous vide technique.During the later part of my school days at Wardle High School Rochdale I always wanted to be a chef . I knew from the very start that my path to work was never going to be academic it was always going to be something practical and hands on.

As a young boy growing up I was inspired to cook with my Grandma who was and still is an inspiration to me . I have memories of helping make the cakes that she always had made for visitors and family alike . She made the most amazing cakes and I loved nothing more than eating the sweet raw cake batter straight from the bowl . We used to fight over who got to lick the bowl/spoon after the cakes were made. My grandma’s philosophy for cooking even on a shoe string budget was always to use fresh and seasonal ingredients either home grown or bought from the market.

School was somewhat of a drag for me as I was itching to learn to become a chef.

I started at Hopwood Hall college as a chef and instantly fell in love with it .To me it was the only real time I excelled in something and this inspired me to really get my head down and put in the hard work. College was the first time I really excelled in something and gave me the opportunity to laugh at the teachers who said I would never make something of my life!!!!

During the three years at college I also took on a part time position in a local hotel working the bar and restaurant first and then the kitchen. These were great days and gave me the opportunity to see how the industry ticks. I learnt a lot from those days both good and bad !! But I have to say I was itching to work only in the kitchen but it was a good insight into the catering world .

After completing college I moved away from Rochdale for a full time roll at one of Cheshire’s most talked about Hotel restaurants The Stanneylands Hotel. This was the school of hard knocks for me as I quickly realised that although excelling at college meant nothing in “The Real World”.

I loved every minute of the 18 hour days 6 days a week on minimum wage . Although difficult I feel that without this grounding I wouldn’t have achieved what I have today. After 18 months of hard graft I left Stanneylands and went with the Head chef to open a fine dining restaurant at Mere Golf and Country Club. The opportunity to work alongside Matthew Barrett was too good to turn down. I learnt so much from the ex-Ritz chef and working in a much slower paced role helped me develop a much better understanding of how to organise and run a kitchen. We were a very small team and teamwork was and still is the only way to go for me.

After 2 years at Mere I got the opportunity to go into The Alderley Edge Hotel as Junior Souschef. The Early days at the Edge were all about learning new styles of cuising which is invaluable in any role as a chef. I got the opportunity to grow and learn all aspects of every section which was inspiring . I was offered the opportunity at the age of 29 (2004) to take the role of head chef. For me this was when I really started to develop my own style of food.

After 9 years at the top winning Cheshire restaurant of the year , Chef of the Year and appearing on GBM amongst many highlights including cooking for many celebrities and famous people I decided to move on into development with Sousvidetools.

The main inspiration for this was to train and educate people . I always had a great passion for education but could never really see myself at a college . The job is super rewarding and I am proud to say we have become the leading light in sous-vide education in the UK . This is something I am very proud of . Food is my biggest passion and this is what keeps me interested the most . I love to travel and try out other countries cuisines. I am constantly inspired by ingredients and the pursuit of getting the best out of them without destroying their natural flavour .It is super important to me to continue to try and be at the forefront of the food scene this is what inspire me and the team to keep driving forward .

Technology is now widely used in the industry and I am super proud to say we have been a big part of spreading that message.

I am very lucky to be in the position I am and the drive to constantly improve our training and links to the next generation of young budding hospitality chefs.

TI feel that my experience over the last 25 years really enables me to get close and educate the “next generation” of chefs .

The industry which I love is really struggling to bring through new recruits and if I can help that process I will be immensely proud.

The food seen in the Uk has improved dramatically over the last ten years and I feel this will continue with the correct education. What happens next only fate will tell us...

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