Tag: Recipes

Smoking Meat in Oven with Wood Chips

writ­ten 3/4/2024

Background

I want­ed to try using smok­ing wood chips inside of the house because I did­n’t want to pull out the smok­er and the chim­ney starter, etc, and I just want­ed to imbue smoke in half of a chick­en. After an exten­sive online search on pages over­run by adver­tise­ments and liq­uid smoke, I decid­ed to just wing it. Here are my notes:

So, is it Possible?

In a word: yes. If you don’t mind your house smelling like a smoke­house for a few days

**WARNING: Please exer­cise cau­tion when deal­ing with fire, open flames, and char­coal. Have heat rat­ed gloves, oth­er fire pre­cau­tions, tongs, etc. When deal­ing with char­coal, have a ves­sel or means to starve it of oxy­gen, and a fire extin­guish­er. ALWAYS make sure to dis­pose of refuse prop­er­ly**

Materials

Small wood chip pieces

BIC flex­i­ble lighter

Small bak­ing dish

Alu­minum foil

Fire mat

Heat gloves

Fire starters

Bak­ing dish larg­er than oth­er dish

Equipment

XL Toast­er Oven with 2 racks

Meat ther­mome­ters

Attempt Process

  • What’s need­ed is some­thing that will con­tin­u­ous­ly burn the wood chips
  • I decid­ed NOT to soak the wood chips (I quit soak­ing my wood chips for the meat smok­er to begin with) because I’ve found that the smoke from wet wood is dif­fer­ent from dry wood smoke, chang­ing the taste. Plus, wet wood cre­ates steam (This could be use­ful if you want it, but is eas­i­ly achieved with just a small bath of water or apple juice) and we’re try­ing to keep the wood light­ed in the oven.
  • I tried fire starters bro­ken up into small pieces under the wood chips, but those fiz­zled out real­ly quick­ly. Even try­ing to keep them smol­der­ing by blow­ing on them was­n’t enough to light the wood chips despite them being real­ly small (they were cock­tail smok­ing chips)
  • That’s when I real­ized that the foil-lined cook­ing dish I was using had no air flow what­so­ev­er to main­tain a flame. Even the BIC flex­i­ble lighter I was using kept going out while I was try­ing to light things
  • I tried light­ing sin­gle pieces of smok­er chips and then set­ting that into the pile, but that kept going out and it was sur­pris­ing­ly hard to light them on fire to begin with. They would bare­ly char even though the fire starter mate­ri­als burned strong­ly around them
  • Con­sid­ered whether or not hav­ing an open, uncon­trolled flame in the oven was a smart idea, any­ways. Came to the con­clu­sion that even if I did suc­ceed in light­ing wood chips, it is not a good idea, so then a con­trolled flame would be nec­es­sary
  • So, what’s need­ed: a con­tin­u­al burn source that would not be an open, uncon­trolled, flame… sounds quite a bit like: char­coal

With­out Char­coal

These were my many attempts to light the smok­er chips with­out char­coal and only fire starters. No suc­cess. Note the fire­proof mat and foil cov­ers

With Char­coal

Added the char­coal pieces and they’re suc­cess­ful­ly smol­der­ing. You can see how after 20 min­utes of try­ing, none of the smok­er chips were even charred from the firestarters

  • End­ed up plac­ing a few small char­coal pieces  on top of the fire starters and wood chips
  • Made sure to get them ashed over out­side so that the strong char­coal black smoke would not affect the meat so much
  • Placed alu­minum foil over­top the small bak­ing dish with holes large enough for con­vec­tion air flow to con­tin­u­al­ly feed the burn­ing char­coal, but then too-small holes just put out the flame instead. The foil also keeps any pos­si­ble arch­ing flames in check
  • Imme­di­ate­ly, smoke emanat­ed from the toast­er oven, so made sure to open win­dows enough to cre­ate a cross­wind. Smoke detec­tor did not go off! Sur­pris­ing­ly!
  • Meat DID have smoked taste, espe­cial­ly on the parts clos­er to the exte­ri­or of the meat, and because the low and slow smok­er cook was employed halfway through the bake, much of the inte­ri­or was quite soft, espe­cial­ly on the breast por­tion of the chick­en
  • Caveat: The house smelled heav­i­ly like a smok­er for sev­er­al days
  • Fig­ured out lat­er that only 1 of the 2 pieces of char­coal I used had stayed lit which explains why that side of the chick­en was more smoked than the oth­er

What the small dish looked like the next day after every­thing cooled. You can see how every­thing around the spent piece of char­coal burned and there­fore smoked. The right side had a piece of char­coal that did not suc­cess­ful­ly stay lit yet did man­age to char the sur­round­ing wood chips. Con­se­quent­ly, the left side of the chick­en had a far stronger smoke fla­vor than the right side

Directions

These direc­tions are not to cook it ful­ly like a smok­er, but rather just give it the fla­vor of smoke. You are wel­come to add the smoke in incre­ments, or as short or as long as you’d like. The key is to start the char­coal to light the wood chips, just like in a smok­er.

Dis­claimer: While I used a toast­er oven, I don’t know how or if using char­coal inside of one would cause dam­age

  • Start heat­ing up the meat in the Toast­er Oven with meat ther­mome­ters to mon­i­tor the temps
  • Use 2 racks, plac­ing the meat on the upper one
  • I used half a chick­en at 350F
  • After about 15 min­utes or so, pre­pare a small, thick bak­ing dish by dou­ble lin­ing it with foil (prefer­ably cast iron, or thick ceram­ic, not glass)
  • Go out­side, pre­pare a fire-safe sta­tion to start a fire (I use a fire­proof blanket/mat made for under­neath fire pits, had my heat gloves handy, some tongs are smart, and foil not only to cov­er, but to smoth­er in case it goes crazy)
  • Place some fire starters (pulled apart tum­ble weeds, bro­ken up starter cubes, or what­ev­er) on the bot­tom and place a few small pieces of char­coal over top.
  • Light up the fire starters
  • When the char­coal is burn­ing (when you blow on it you’ll see it is red) and has a nice white ash on top, throw your chips on top of the burn­ing char­coal
  • Poke some big holes into a foil sheet for smoke, fire con­trol, and air­flow to the coals. Too small and you’ll put out your fire
  • After around 30 min­utes or when the meat reach­es around 100F, low­er the tem­per­a­ture to 250F
  • Cov­er your smok­ing dish with the holey foil, put on your heat gloves, and place the dish on the bot­tom rack under the meat
  • OPEN YOUR WINDOWS if you haven’t, ide­al­ly cre­at­ing a cross­wind through the house to help the smoke you’re cre­at­ing and will cre­ate when you open the oven door
  • Mon­i­tor the cook for sev­er­al min­utes.
  • When it’s about 10–15 degrees from being done, remove the smok­ing dish, and increase the tem­per­a­ture of the oven again
  • SAFETY: Bring the smok­ing dish over to your fire sta­tion and cov­er it with a larg­er bak­ing dish to smoth­er the fire. I placed my small dish on an alu­minum roast­ing pan, and then the larg­er dish on top of that
  • Once the meat reach­es done­ness, let it rest before eat­ing
  • FIRE SAFETY: Make sure to allow every­thing in the dish to cool down for sev­er­al hours, and then dis­pose of prop­er­ly!! Do not just throw char­coal in the trash! You can cause a fire even hours lat­er!!!

ENJOY!

Vegan Dried Fruit Milk Sweet Bread

writ­ten 2/18/2024, updat­ed 9/25/2024

What

Sweet bread with dried fruit and nuts, made veg­an, with­out eggs or cow’s milk

Ingredients

Main (amounts also in instruc­tions)

½ Cup + ~4 Cups All-Pur­pose or Bread Flour

1½ Cup Plant-based Milk (e.g. Oat milk)

1Tbsp Corn­starch

~½ Cup Water (boiled)

2¼ tsp or 1 enve­lope Active Dry Yeast

2 tsp + ~½ Cup Sug­ar (Depends on how sweet you want it)

1Tbsp Salt

¼ Cup Veg­an But­ter

Sup­plies: Elec­tric Stand Mix­ture, Mea­sur­ing Cups, Spat­u­la, Plas­tic Wrap, Non-Stick Spray, Loaf Pan/Baking Sheet/other Bread Pans, Cool­ing Rack, Bread Bags

Option­al: Hon­ey, Nuts, Seeds, Cin­na­mon, Red Bean Paste, Fruit, Corn Syrup

Time

Prep (1.5 hours total) + Rest­ing (2 hours total) + Bak­ing (40 min­utes) = ~4.1 hours Total

Serving Size

2 bread loaves

Making

  • Remove veg­an but­ter from refrig­er­a­tor to warm to room tem­per­a­ture

Yeast (~15 min­utes)

  • Heat Milk (1½ Cup) to about 105–115F
  • Pour into stand mix­er bowl
  • Dis­solve Sug­ar (2 tsp) and option­al­ly, Hon­ey
  • Add Active Dry Yeast (2¼ tsp or 1 enve­lope)
  • Light­ly stir
  • Cov­er and let bloom for about 5–10 min­utes (until it foams and smells like yeast)

Flour Paste (aka Tangzhong method) — adds a creamy tex­ture

  • In a mix­ing bowl, com­bine Flour (½ Cup) and Corn­starch (1Tbsp) with Boil­ing Water (add ~½ Cup first then more if need­ed. I used between 2⁄3 Cup and 3⁄4)
  • Whip vig­or­ous­ly until smooth. It will be sticky (I tried a whisk first but it was either too small or I did­n’t add enough water and it got all stuck inside. Switched to a spoon for bet­ter results)

Option­al: Fruits and Nuts *see Notes sec­tion

  • Soak dried fruit in warm water
  • Toast wal­nuts

Dough (~15 min­utes)

  • By now the Yeast should have bloomed quite well
  • Add the Flour Paste and dis­solve with a pad­dle attach­ment at Stir speed
  • Dis­solve Sug­ar (½ Cup for sweet bread, less for less sweet)
  • Add Salt (1Tbsp)
  • Incre­men­tal­ly add Flour (~4 Cups total) until it starts turn­ing into dough
  • Switch to the dough hook, increase speed to lev­el 2, and fin­ish adding the flour (scrape down the sides every so often)
  • When it is well com­bined, but still sticky cov­er and let rest for about 10 min­utes (good time to wash dish­es)

Dough Part 2 (5–10 min­utes)

  • Cut Veg­an But­ter (¼ Cup) into lit­tle cubes
  • Add to mix­ing bowl
  • Run at speed lev­el 2 until well-mixed
  • Dough should come nice­ly off the sides of the bowl. Add small amounts of flour as need­ed
  • When it is smooth and tacky, cov­er

Rise #1 (1 hour)

  • Cov­er and place in a warm place for an hour until it has dou­bled or tripled in size
  • If using fruits and/or nuts, drain the fruits and prep nuts/seeds if you haven’t
  • Pre­pare any oth­er fill­ings or addi­tives

Dough Part 3

Real­ly big now!
Prep sur­face
Divide how you’d like
Spread fruit if using
Shape

Toast­ed wal­nuts
Cran­ber­ries and wal­nuts
Fold up
Roll
Flat­ten and fold again until you’re hap­py
Shape

  • Either turn stand mix­er on to speed lev­el 2 (for 2 min­utes) to remove air, or sim­ply punch it down
  • Pre­pare loaf pans by plac­ing parch­ment paper
  • Light­ly flour work­ing sur­face
  • Turn out dough and decide how you want divide
  • If adding fruits/nuts/paste, flat­ten the dough and add, then fold togeth­er, and roll. When sat­is­fied, place seam side down onto pans
  • If no addi­tions, shape and roll into prop­er shape for pans, remem­ber­ing that bread will rise again and expand when bak­ing

Rest #2 (1 hour)

  • Spray the top of the dough with cook­ing spray to pre­vent plas­tic wrap from stick­ing to the dough lat­er
  • Cov­er and place in a warm loca­tion until dou­bled in size

Bake Prep (5 min­utes)

Wow
These are huge
Syrup and Hon­ey Wash

  • Your pref­er­ence of wash (Option­al)
  • Can be Syrup Wash (1:1 Corn Syrup to Water) or any com­bi­na­tion or ratio of the syrup to water. Can add hon­ey to the ratio
  • I used 2:1 Corn Syrup to Hon­ey, and added a dash of water
  • If adding top­pings to bread, add it
  • Cut vent lines in the top of the loaves
  • Here, I messed up because I did­n’t grease the plas­tic or the dough, so I had to re-shape the loaves and let them rise a lit­tle again
Oh noooo
Welp. Miss­ing some dough here… Time to reshape
This one came out fine for some rea­son

Bake (40 min­utes)

  • Pre­heat oven to 350 F
  • Uncov­er dough and brush tops with Wash
  • Bake for about 40 min­utes until gold­en
  • Brush with Wash again after remov­ing from oven
  • Let cool before slic­ing!
  • Impor­tant: Make sure to remove any parch­ment paper from under the bread! Oth­er­wise, the bot­tom will remain wet while the rest cools

Notes

  • Dried fruit: (like raisins, cran­ber­ries, blue­ber­ries, etc.) can be fold­ed into the dough, but can soak up mois­ture. To coun­ter­act that, soak them in hot water
  • Nuts: can be chopped and fold­ed in raw but can also be toast­ed to improve fla­vor. Hard­er nuts should be soaked in warm water oth­er­wise they can be too hard after bak­ing
  • Seeds: If top­ping with seeds, do not toast before­hand as they will burn dur­ing bak­ing
  • Paste: Same game­plan as the oth­er add-ins. Pre­pare to your taste, then spread it like you’re but­ter­ing toast, then roll, spread, roll, etc until you’re hap­py

9/22/24: Made both Sweet Red Bean Paste and Dried Fruit bread. Red bean paste from a can. Did filled buns, 1 twist, and 1 loaf of that. Just 1 loaf of dried fruit bread, using dried apri­cots, cher­ries, and cran­ber­ries. Should have cut the apri­cots even small­er (did quar­ters). For the loaf, added some orange extract to the red bean. Might have added too much, but it does give it an inter­est­ing taste. Did not use a glaze and they’re a tad over­done.

Fruit
Red bean