Prepping for a wine dinner I wrote the menu for this Thursday... third course is porchetta stuffed with oyster mushroom, spinach, dried cranberries and roasted almonds served over risotto style forbidden rice with pineapple and a pomegranate gastrique.
While I wrote the menu I jokingly said I should cook this on a kettle and much to my surprise my chef agreed... over the weekend I get the wild idea and ask @Mike in Roseville if I could use his Cajun Bandit rotisserie his wife had just bought him for the cook. Much to my joy and surprise he agreed. Late last night watching the news I'm made aware that a storm was rolling through, fuck. I sent Mike a text to let him know that if it rained I wouldn't be using his roti for the cook as I don't even use my weber roti in the rain. This morning while taking the kids to school the storm slowly starts to roll in. Then a light goes off, I have been wanting a pop up canopy for a while but never needed to make the purchase and today gave me my excuse to finally make the purchase. Leaving the store I text Mike that the cook is on!
I arrive in kitchen at 930 knowing my meat order with my bellies would be dropping in the next half an hour if it hadn't yet dropped. As I'm finishing my morning protein counts my driver walks through the door, I shout over and ask him to leave my bellies out as I need to get them stuffed, rolled and cooked today. "Have fun their frozen" his reply...
Two 15 pound skin on bellies now bound for a sous vide defrost. After an hour and thirty minutes at 40° bellies were workable and I was on my way. Belly one was on spit and spinning by 2 and went for two hours using weber briquettes in baskets 8 lit to start each side. At the end of 2 hours I switched porchetta's and added another 7 unlit briquettes to each basket total cook time for both porchetta was 4 hours (two hours apiece). While the bellies were defrosting I worked out the curried lamb meatballs with smoked fresh mozzarella and green tomato marinara.
... the Cajun Bandit rotisserie worked to and beyond my expectations. The look and feel of the roti is very nice, Mike has the battery powered motor and I must admit I was skeptical. Mike had of course told me all would be fine but hey what can I say I was going to need to see it too believe it. The motor performed flawlessly for the entire cook. Thanks again Mike for allowing me to use it for this cook. I will be purchasing one within the month.
This storm brought it's all with thunder and lightning, heavy rain, sideways rain and hail and nice wind gusts throughout the cook.
I will return Thursday with the rest of the story of the dinner and photos of the event.
Cool side note is Jim @cellar2ful and his wife as well as their extended family will be present for the event.
Sent from my SM-G955U using
Weber Kettle Club mobile app[attachment deleted by admin]
Topic: ... taking the early 70's Fleetwood for a spin at work (Read 2271 times)