Marshmallows on sticks, baked potatoes in tinfoil – there are few joys like cooking on an open fire, especially around bonfire night. Cooking over an open flame is experiencing a revival on the UK restaurant scene – and there was even a “cooking with fire challenge” on Bake Off this week.
“It had fallen by the wayside in England, but it has come back into fashion,” says chef Rich Turner, the executive chef at the steakhouse Hawksmoor and the man behind London’s new “live-fire cooking” restaurant Gridiron.
Here are some suggestions to get you started at home:
Hotdogs
This is a traditional staple of any campfire cook, but Turner suggests taking them up a notch by poaching your sausages before cooking them over the charcoal. You could try wrapping them in bacon or dipping in batter for another twist.
Mixed kebabs
Neil Rankin, whose “live-fire restaurant” Temper in Soho, London, centres around a six-metre-long firepit, says kebabs are great for cooking over an open fire. Anything you can think of skewering will do the trick. Try ratatouille kebabs by combining courgette, squash and aubergine and serving with a tomato sauce.
Apples
Fill a cored apple with butter, cinnamon and sugar, wrap it in foil and toss it on to the fire. You will need to start these earlier in the evening as they take some time to cook.
Banana boats
Leaving the skin on, slice open a banana down the middle and fill it with sweets of your choice – chocolate and marshmallows are great. Wrap the banana in tinfoil and cook in the fire until gooey.
Blueberry muffins in an orange
For something a bit more ambitious, cut an orange in half, remove the flesh, and eat it or set it aside for later. Then combine shop-bought blueberry muffin mix with an egg, some yoghurt and milk, and pour into the hollowed-out orange halves. Wrap in tinfoil and cook over the fire until done, turning every minute for six to eight minutes.
