Category Archives: masonry oven

The makings of Glut sauce*(including the first ripe extremely cat-faced Brandywine) plus a bit more for peach salsa

It’s not quite full season yet with the tomatoes: we’ve mostly got the little guys going (I frankly no longer bother with cherry tomatoes) and some plums…but it’s COMING.  Goodness is it ever.

Strangely, I am way ahead of the game with the peppers, eggplant and okra.  Tomatoes are usually the herald of the family solanaceae, they’re the first ones reddening up and driving me crazy but this is a great year for the peppers and, especially, eggplant.  I am beginning to wonder if it’s just a good year all around or if it’s because all of these plants are ones that I have saved from good-looking parent plants over the last couple of years.  A mystery.

I wake up ridiculously early on Thursdays (4:00!).  Thursdays have become my Cook Everything Possible In Loven And Then Eat It All Until Next Thursday day.  It’s a bit of a marathon, but then again, I am cooking for (potentially) a week, and cooking bread loaves to sell…of course it’s arduous.  But in the oven, in order of its hotness, goes

1. Caramelization session in the hot coals:  2 cast-iron skillets with some chopped veg like onions in one pan, zucchini in the other; this requires some frequent stirring.  It cooks from the top and the bottom.  The veg go into bread salads, or frittatas, or on pasta; whatever, it’s cooked! and with a woodsy flavor punch!
2. Push the coals back and then bake pizzas/focaccias (2 per session, turned around 3x in front of the hot flames)
3. The fire burns way down.  Tom scrapes it out, mops the floor, closes the door to equalize the oven’s hot spots.  About an hour later, I now fill the oven with the massive bread and roast chicken baking (bread takes 1/2 hour, chicken closer to an hour)
4. Remove the bread, leave the chicken in there and set a skillet full of frittata, individual potatoes (pierced with a fork, set on the floor), soaked/parboiled beans and/or rice and baked dessert (custard, souffle, etc.) and start on roasting things overnight like the glut sauce or juicy peaches.  Later in the season I will have 2-3 steam table pans* full of tomatoes cooking overnight (the temp. goes from about 200 down to 150 or so)
5. Dinner happens (if we’re not too stuffed with pizza) when we pull the chicken out.  I made a cold veg salad the day before.
6. Remove things by doneness, check temperature, and leave the glut sauce and peaches in there to cook overnight.  Also overnight, in goes a glass casserole filled with a cultured milk product (buttermilk, kefir) that…cooks all night to become quark or kefir cheese.  The heat separates the curds from the whey; this lovely sweet tasting caramelized grainy cheese, then, becomes one of my favorite things to spread on my morning toast.

It’s fun!  And…exhausting!  But heck, no cooking the rest of the week…unless we’d like to, of course.

* don’t waste your money on buying a spendy turkey roasting pan this year; 4″ or 6″ deep stainless steel steamer pans will work quite well.  Buy them thick enough and they completely take the heat of my oven, too.  Lasagna, dehydrating veggies, etc. etc. etc.!

The outdoor cooking kitchen is complete!  L-R: New built-in table, Loven, rocket stove.  Oh, and camera-shy Penny.

I learned many things at the side of my chef friend Catharine.  The most important thing I learned is “Heat is heat.”

Sure, we can dream of having zoomy gas-fired indoor ranges with ultimate control.  In a past life and if I were a cajillionaire and there was no such thing as global warming (that’s a lot of “ifs”) I might gladly install an Aga or–better–a Lacanche in my kitchen; surely, I would have to reinforce the floor to hold one.  But really, heat IS heat.  Catharine cooked the most fantastic meals on the humblest of kitchen stoves.  And I left my spendy red-knobbed range back in Minneapolis: now I bang pots on a 1967 electric Hotpoint range (maybe $100 when it was new).  It’s not the equipment, therefore, it’s the will.

Emilie is terribly curious about the hole I have dug for the slab.

And heat.  With experimentation, one can cook everything in our outdoor kitchen.  The rocket stove is truly third world technology and likewise was the simplest thing to build:  I used 66 bricks, one 24″ long, 4″ diameter stove flue, one 4″ flue elbow, one bag of concrete and one and a half bags of mortar (as I am a horrible mason; a good one would’ve built it with one bag).  I already had the grill grate, and for a lid I purchased the 16″x16″ red concrete patio paver…this little stove cost me a whopping $65 with had-boughten materials.  Building it stretched two days:  concrete slab on day one, oven chimney on day two, about five total hours of my time.

New potatoes coming up

Like the masonry oven, there is a learning curve (where ISN’T there a learning curve) but this isn’t a steep hill to climb.  It uses skinny waste wood too like all that stuff that falls from your trees after a storm.  Get out your cast-iron skillets, your big boiling pots.  Use it like a barbecue.  It’s chow time!

And it’s even a fire I can set that stays lit!

Notes in the comments!

It’s so warm!

It is with much rejoicing and carrying-on that I announce the maiden burning of our Loven (wood-fired masonry oven).

Whee!  Of course I paid homage to Prometheus, Hestia, Brigid and Haphaestos:  mortal and immortal tenders of flame.  The patron saint of bricklayers and masons (St. Stephen) and architects (the apostle Thomas) got their due.  While I was at it I thanked the patron saints of bakers (St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Nicholas), winemakers (St. Martin of Tours) and farmers (St. Isidore) and gardeners (St. Fiacre).  It was quite a crowd:  I invoked them all by tossing my flour onto the hot floor of the oven and saying a simple “thanks a lot!” to the whole lot.  Grazie!

In reality, it was just my family here to celebrate.  First out of the oven:  two pizzas, with our cheese and herbs and veg.  Followed quickly by four loaves of sourdough bread (I have a new levain and love it), then in went one small pot of lentils with homemade chix sausage/sage and one roasting chicken, cooked simultaneously.  The oven cooled and I set in it a quick clafouti with local sweet cherries (our milk and eggs) and then, overnight, I let the oven cool completely and roast out some of our new fresh garlic for future garlic jelly.

Watch the smoke!  As you can see, it’s still a construction zone, but…we’ve got a certificate of occupancy so we’re fired up and functional

I can tell I am going to have a LOT of fun with my new toy.

Moving right along:  showing arch formwork

The nights have been above freezing so we’ve begun work on the masonry oven again.  I am trying to not get too excited, but it’s hard.  It is fun when it gets to this point:  we’re building the arch of the barrel vault of the oven so it’s really taking shape.

Of course, I had to take a day off of work to accomplish this, or rather, to get all my other work completed so I could take on this task.  But:  peas, potatoes, favas and garbanzos are planted and a lot of other garden grunt work was completed.  Milking muscles work well for weed-pulling!

The arch should be finished this week, and then we’ll begin on the chimney and entry arch.  Then, it’s all concrete work.  I am guessing we’ll fire the thing up by the end of April.  Whee!

Building an arch:  he’s on 2 of 4

The time has come:  I have helped make two of these things, so now, after much agitta and self-denial, I bring you (taDA!!) the beginnings of our own outdoor masonry oven.

Truth be told:  these things are not for everyone.  I was already a baker; we live on a farm with lots of trees; I’ve been looking for ways to lower our food-production footprint steadily for years.  And truth be told:  I know how to build things.  That said, feel free to 1.  ask questions  2.  live vicariously.

The Skinny: Modified Alan Scott plan; no, it’s not complete yet, though we’ve passed the halfway point to its first firing.   They can be quick to make it but is certainly not a Weekend Warrior kind of thing…more like 8 weekends, plus.  Easily-found materials.

The Plan: I will use this once or twice a week, year-round.   There’ll be a once-a-week breadmaking day, then the cooling oven will cook things like casseroles, and, overnight, things like dried beans or yogurt.  I will probably be selling some of the food.  It’s also great for dehydrating food, making jerky, drying fruit, etc.  And no, the food doesn’t have to taste like wood.

The Concept: Masonry ovens store heat.  They’re thick:  the thermal mass involved leaks the heat out slowly; there’s a door to the oven that even keeps the smoke from escaping.  You fire it up, scrape out the ashes, wipe it clean and then stick in  your food.  And yes:  leave the fire burning in the back and you can cook pizzas directly on the floor of the hearth.

Mon., 16 Nov:  slabWed., 18 Nov:  side wallsSat., 2o Nov:  formwork/reinforcing

Sun., 21 Nov:  hearth slabs pouredSat., 28 Nov:  hearth fire bricks laidMon., 30 Nov:  back, side walls set2009 December through 2010 March:  Winter!  SNIFF!