[Sca-cooks] A Question of Spit Roasting....

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> I've looked up some of the various web articles on Fire- spit roasting but
> am still a bit confused.

Looks like you've set yourself a Project ;-)

First off, you don't make it entirely clear whether you're cooking over gas,
charcoal, or wood. I'll assume for the first question, that you do intend to
cook over wood, so the first thing you need to do is build a fire of wood
which has a flavor you can live with. What I mean by this, since I'm not
familiar with the types of trees you have down your way, is that for the
best coals, you'll want the fire built of a hardwood, rather than a soft
wood, and if whatever you build it of has a nasty smell or flavor, that's
going to transfer to the food you're roasting- pine, spruce etc are bad
choices (most people don't like turpentine flavored food), but hickory, or
any of the fruit woods like apple or cherry are great.

> Can anyone advise me on -
> *how to gauge & maintain the fire coals heat

Well, the first thing you need to do is get a bed of coals. Cooking over
flames is not a good idea- it's too easy to burn things. Build your fire to
the side of where you intend to cook, and keep it going to develop more
coals. as the fire burns down, add more wood, but keep scraping the coals
over under the meat.

To guage the heat, do it as you would for a charcoal fire. If you can, make
sure that you can adjust the height of the food over the fire- it's a lot
easier to get a hot pad and lift a grill or a spit than it is to be
perpetually bunching and spreading the coals. I found a website that gives a
lot of helpful hints on charcoal grilling- most of them apply to cooking
over wood coals:

http://www.reynoldskitchens.com/reynoldskitchens/kitchenconnection/tipsandti
mesavers/gen_grilling.asp

One piece of equipment I strongly suggest you get, in addition to whatever
you'll be using to suspend the meat and handle it, is a spray bottle of
water. You can use that to dampen any flare ups from dripping fat or
marinade. If you forget, or it isn't in your budget, a wet rag can calm the
flare ups too- keep water handy, get the rag wet, and squeeze an appropriate
amount of water onto the flare-up.

> *how long the roasts are likely to need cooking (they're for serving at
> dinner at about 6-7 pm)

Well, it will depend on how hot your coals are, and how close they and your
meat are together, as well as how big your roasts are and how they're
presented to the fire. Obviously, a butterflied roast, about 4-6 cm thick is
going to cook faster than a solid, 15-20 cm leg.. I'd suggest getting an
instant read thermometer. Don't use it a lot, though, until you're close to
the end of cooking- every time you pierce the meat, you're allowing more
juices to escape.

> *what type of basting sauce is best (recipes anyone??)

Most anything that you like will work. Just be aware that the ones with a
lot of fat will cause flare ups, and the ones with sugar will burn. Myself,
I'd use a beer or wine based liquid with appropriate herbs in it. garlic and
rosemary are particularly good with lamb, but there are other herbs and
combos that work well too- it' s really up to your tastes ;-)

> *and does using a long sprig of rosemary to bast on the sauce help add to
> the flavour or is it just something that looked good on the recently
> screened "dining with Henry the 8th"??

Well, it does help the flavor a bit, but the nice thing about using a sprig
of rosemary is that it does a nice job of spreading the sauce. Also, if you
accidently burn it, by catching it on fire, it doesn't have a nasty burned
plastic taste.

> Any input gladly accepted
>
> Marion de Paxford
> (the currently-unscorched! :-p)

I'd suggest that before you try to do a bunch of roasts over a fire, with a
zillion hungry, anxious people watching you learn, that you do one at hoome
over your back yard barbecue. That will give you a chance to learn basic
grilling, without making an idiot of yourself in front of witnesses-
furthermore, if you DO do a Drakey, the phone and the Fire Dept are handy
;-) Once you know how to handle one roast, a dozen aren't a problem-
roasting isn't really a labor intensive job.

Also, when you set up your fire pit, a long, narrow pit is easier to deal
with than a round or square pit, the reason being that a good bed of coals
will generate a lot of heat, and you don't want any more of your anatomy
hanging over the fire than necessary. Roasting means cooking with dry heat,
and heat rises. Your intention is to serve roast lamb, not roast Marion ;-)
If it were me, I'd make the fire pit a couple inches wider than the length
og the leg of lamb on each side, and set the length of the pit to be a few
inches longer than the width of the the legs of lamb, plus a couple inches
for space apiece. That way, you can handle the ends of the legs easily,
without much of you being over the fire, if you're using a grill. If you're
using a spit, I'd suggest using two spits and alternating thich and thin
ends of the lamb so the weight is balanced, and a person on each end can
grab the two spits and rotate them from time to time. They don't really need
to be constantly rotating, although that works too, if you have the
equipment.

As far as the set up of the fire that generates the coals in relation to the
fire pit, if you have the legs on a grill, you can have the fire on an end,
and just rake new coals up the length of the pit every 45 minutes or so. If
you use the double spit idea,, putting the fire along one of the long sides
keeps the people turning the spits out of the fire pit. Just make sure the
fire area is contiguous with the coal area- raking coals is lots easier than
shoveling and lifting them- safer too- they don't want to spill and go
flying.

As far as safety goes, make sure you're wearing all natural fiber clothing-
synthetics, if they catch, either go up in a hurry, or melt to your skin-
neither of which is particularly pleasant. Natural fibers will burn, too,
but they'll smoulder before they catch, and are lots easier to put out. When
I'm smithing, I'm very careful not to allow anyone near my forge who is
wearing synthetics.

And, make sure you have a couple of buckets of water, and perhaps a bucket
of sand, very close to the fire, so you can get it in a hurry, but someplace
where Drakey can't find it and step in them ;-) I don't imagine you want to
serve basted and roast Drakey either, with or without velvet ;-)


Phlip

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....