Foodporn – Carazy Suburban Permaculture Experiment

Spit Roast Pig – Brass Monkey 2012

August 6, 2014July 31, 2012 by Carazy

Every year a group of lads head out bush trying to find the coldest place to camp and do a bit of 4wd’ing. This year we decided to do a whole pig on the spit. Needless to say I was excited about this project.

In the preceding weeks we were getting email and video updates from Ironpaw on the spit building and testing.

Adjustable Legs to raise pig above heat.

Getting the Speed right.

Spit Roast almost done!

We pre-ordered the pig from Carey Brothers Butchers in Warwick, about 15mins from where we were camping. All up it cost around $200- @$8.80/kg.
I asked the butcher why the whole pig was $8.80/kg yet their website mentions they sold half pigs all butchered up nicely for $6.80/kg. We were told that they don’t normally have young whole pigs in stock and that it had to be specially ordered in by one of their brokers.
We arrived at The Springs 4wd park on Fri lunchtime, set up camp and then began salting the pig. I made a rub of mustard, garlic and ginger powders mixed with salt. This was rubbed all throughout the inside of the carcass. The outside was kept simple with a hefty rubbing of salt. We then wrapped the pig up in the plastic sleeve it came in and then a second layer of plastic sleeve with two bags of ice in between the layers (That way if the ice melted it would not waterlog the pig). This was all them rolled up in a tarp for storage overnight. We weren’t too concerned about the temp as we were expecting it to be well below 4°C overnight.

We then focused on getting the fires going. One ludicrously large one for our general warmth and a secondary one to cook the pig on the next day. You would think that dragging two whole trees as well as dozen or so large 6″ thick branches to feed the firepit would suffice but this is Brass Monkey and pretty much all was consumed come morning.

Homemade Peri Peri Chicken Recipe

August 6, 2014August 22, 2012 by Carazy

INGREDIENTS

1 Large Family sized chicken (I think this one was about 3-4kgs (Two med size ones will do as well)
1 Cup of Peri Peri Sauce (See recipe)

METHOD:
1. Butterfly your chicken by cutting out it’s back bone. (Hopefully I’ll get around to describing this in a post on this but there’s plenty of youtube videos)

2. Spread it flat in a dish and make several 1cm deep cuts into the flesh across the meaty parts.

3. Slather it on both sides with the Peri Peri sauce. This is one of the few times I will say DO NOT use your hands to rub in the marinade, the potential for serious chilli injury is at defcon 5. Use a basting brush or glove up really well.

4. Barbeque it on a grill (ideally over coals) flipping it every once in a while till it’s cooked.

Serve with fresh salad, slices of lemon and of course beer or wine!

PICS:
Butterflied, scored and slathered with Peri Peri.

Homemade Peri Peri Sauce Marinade Recipe

August 6, 2014August 22, 2012 by Carazy

My friend John and I were walking around the Valley and saw a bag of chillies in the Asian store. Now I’m always up for a bit of heat so I broke a tiny bit off the end of one of them to see what the taste was like. HOLY CRAP that was a bad idea. It hit the back of my throat and began to burn intensely and boy did it have legs! A couple of minutes later we were walking out with a half kilo of bright red burning goodness.

We took them home, donned some surgical gloves and then spent the next half hour deseeding those little puppies. Even with surgical gloves on, our fingers were still burning! The idea being that John would take all the seeds to the farm and scatter them so that in a year or two we’d be well on our way to a chilli forest. The chilli flesh was left with me to work some magic on. I was also supposed to come up with a recipe that we could feasibly turn into a viable food product if the chilli forest actually took off.

My immediate thought was a version of Peri Peri sauce to use as a condiment and to slather on a chook for some delicious Peri Peri Chicken.

I took the deseeded chillies and basically blended it all up with some spices oil and vinegar.
NOTE: I find it’s a smoother and tastier heat with plenty enough of chilli burn without the seeds. It’s fine to leave seeds in, it’s just that we wanted the them for planting.

INGREDIENTS
500g Hot Red Chillies deseeded : (You can leave the seeds in for a hotter result plus it’s less work)
200ml oil
4 Lemons Juiced
1 Garlic Bulb peeled and chopped finely
1 Small onion finely chopped
1 Ts Garlic Powder
1 Ts Ground Cumin
2 Ts Salt.
500ml White Vinegar (To add as required)

METHOD:
1. Put put everything (chillies, lemon juice, garlic powder, cumin, fresh garlic, salt) except the oil and vinegar into a blender.
2. Blend it till it’s a smooth paste.
3. Add in half a cup of vinegar and the oil and blend till it’s a smooth puree.
4. Now keep adding a little bit of vinegar at a time until you get the consistency you require.

Use a spoon to check runniness. I also like to taste it at this point.
I like my sauce to be nice and thick so that it sticks to whatever I pour it on. Use the viscosity of ketchup/ tomato sauce as a guide.

1. Chillies and other ingredient in the blender.