Brick Oven – Southern Fusion Cooking

Outdoor Kitchen, Old School–Parts One and Two, Oven and Stove

The Freudian idea of the unconscious mind is a problem for speakers of English, and is probably the result of yet another weak translation concerning the difference between German and English. Unbewusst, usually translated as unconscious, could be better thought of as unaware, as unconscious is more often considered a medical state in English, like a blow to the head. So if we go back to Dr. Freud, unconscious, conscious (unbewusst, bewusst), are more understandable in English as unaware, aware. Because you are unaware of something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, and doesn’t involve any head banging.

This all may help to explain my realization that I have a final plan for a five part outdoor wood-fired kitchen. I realized this when I woke up from a dream this morning, and the discovery cost me nothing in psychiatric fees. At any rate, here are the five pieces/parts/cooking stations, though I am only going to discuss the first two. I’ll get to the others later.

Brick Oven

Brick Stove

Smoke House

Tuscan Grill

Fire Pit

The brick oven will get the most use of all of these, mainly because of its versatility. I should point out that a brick oven is not a pizza oven, but a pizza oven can be made of brick, and most are, but they can also be metal and a number of other materials, such as clay. Many people, myself included, will lapse into calling this a bread oven, as that may be their primary use (this was designed to be mostly a bakery oven). However, anything that can be baked or roasted can be cooked in one of these ovens, with the added advantage that the temperature can easily be raised to 1000 degrees F, or higher. When this oven gets very far above 1100 degrees, my digital thermometer just says “HI.”

Baking traditional bread (think round sourdough loaves) also requires a door for the oven. After a fire is hot enough, which can be used to roast meat, veg, etc, it is allowed to burn down into coals. Those are then spread over the entire surface of the oven, to further heat the surface of the firebricks. After those coals are burned down to ashes, the oven is cleaned out, and the loaves are placed in the oven–this size oven will hold a dozen loaves. The door is then closed, and used to maintain an even temperature of between 400 to 500 degrees, or thereabouts. Theoretically, 36 loaves could be cooked in this with one firing, which made this style of oven popular with large bakeries, or even as communal ovens. The most loaves I have cooked in mine is a grand total of two.

This particular masonry structure fits into the category of something you don’t see every day–a Potager, more commonly called a Stew Stove in English. These were particularly popular with the upper crust of the eighteenth century, and the most famous ones in the States are at Monticello in Virginia. My Potager is a copy of one rebuilt at Ham House, a British National Trust Elizabethan period property in Surrey. It is definitely a French influenced design.

The concept is elegantly simple. A masonry firebox leads to a chimney like opening (I used flue thimbles as openings). This concentrates all the heat and smoke down to a six inch area. In the case of this stove, just sit a cooking vessel over the opening. The temperature can be varied so that it can range from a sear, to a saute, to a long and slow stewing. In short, this is a half ton equivalence to a modern cooktop, with the exception in my case, that the fuel is free and one hundred percent renewable.

As an experiment, I first used this to roast some poblano peppers that I bought at the farmer’s market, on a grill. They smoked as well as roasted, and were jet black in no time. After I cleaned and sliced them, they went into the freezer for use this winter. For stewing, shovel coals into the firebox, and use a pair of bellows to control the temp. Extra fuel is literally at your feet.

Coals from the brick oven can be used for the Potager, and a busy cook can bake and saute at the same time. Alternately, coals from the smokehouse steel wood stove, pictured above, could be used to smoke something and stew at the same time. A cook with four arms could bake, sear, grill, stew, and smoke food simultaneously. Such a creature would end up with a powerful hunger in no time at all.

Brick Oven Rebuild, Part Five–Completed Masonry Work

The masonry work on the re-built brick oven is finito, and the oven has been getting a work out. We have cooked a few roasts, re-seasoned some cast iron, and churned out multiple pizzas, including six one day during the weekend of the fourth. And we still have that big stack of firewood on the west wall.

I haven’t shown all three walls, as the two side walls are identical, and the back wall is just a smaller version of the other two. The east side is an entirely different story. Here’s picture worthy of a contest.

There are actually two projects going on over here. One is actually attached to the brick oven, but is not part of it. It is to serve an altogether different function. The old steel wood stove is soon to be attached to another part of the outdoor kitchen. Needless to say they all involve burning wood.

Anyone who can nail the purpose of each of these two units will be awarded an honorary certificate from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Southern Using What You Got. I’ll add a heavy hint–think of something that Monticello and Mount Vernon have in common, and I don’t mean the Presidents.

Prosciutto Pizza

When the brick oven is about 900 degrees F, a pizza like this cooks in a minute. This is Melanie’s favorite pizza, and no one is allowed to make it but her. I have quizzed her on the order of ingredients, as she has her own special process.

Ingredients

Pizza Crust made with Italian “00” Flour

Olive Oil

Pizza Sauce (see Tomato Sauce recipe on this site)–just a little

Prosciutto

Mushrooms and Black Olives

Italian Mozzarella Cheese

Fresh Peppers and Vidalia Onions

Rotate the pizza every fifteen seconds or so, or be ready to say “Don’t eat the burned part.” That also keeps the crust from catching fire.

Like a folk tale, the elements of this pizza must be deployed in the proper order. As far as fiery pizza goes, I had to let the fire cool down from 1083 degrees F before I could make the second one, a pepperoni pie. The rebuilt brick oven is turning out to be a flamethrower.

Brick Oven Rebuild, Part Four–Finished Front Masonry Work

My friend Torsten Fisch, who has been back in Deutschland for a good decade now, had a way with words, in multiple languages. A typically stiff Mercedes engineer who worked at their manufacturing facility in Vance, Alabama, after shots of Jägermeister he would cut loose with some epic rants, such as the following–

I don’t know what is wrong with you people in Alabama. As of the year 2000, the prostitutes in Germany have more rights than you do. They have social security, free healthcare, and a union.
Herr Fisch

Well said, with a German accent.

He also liked “Size matters. Bigger is better,” which perfectly sums up the Mercedes philosophy. If that is true, oven #2 is far better than oven #1. Here’s the pre-tornado version of the old oven–

The new oven is ornamented with Soldier (upright) and Sailor (ends facing forward) bricks, and a wider facade. The chimney is also taller, which should give me sufficient pitch to install a wood shingle shed roof. The walls of the yet to be constructed new enclosure will be wood shingles as well, which will require partial covering of some of the eye candy ornamentation of the chimney. At least it will then look less like a Mayan temple or a Ziggurat.

Plan for today was to grout the last section of Travertine tile that covers the front apron, but after two and a half inches of rain this morning, it’s off to plan B. Another new addition will be kitchen herbs for the outdoor kitchen, with some choice cultivars.

Today, besides transplants, I am sowing pots of Genovese basil and Italian parsley. Maybe I will be done with all the masonry work by the time they germinate.

Brick Oven Salmon with Maple Syrup and Meyer Lemon Glaze

Having a supply of windblown wood that could last at least one lifetime, is not all bad. A case in point is the first dish out of the rebuilt brick oven, some glazed Salmon with herbs. I also took the advice of the authors of a new British book on brick oven cooking, and bought a battery powered infrared digital thermometer. The one I found records temps up to well over 1100 degrees F, which is very helpful, as I will later explain.

Ingredients

1 Fillet of Wild Salmon

Salt and Pepper

Lemon Juice (We have two Gallon freezer bags full of last year’s Myer Lemons)

Maple Syrup to taste

Olive oil

Fresh Fennel, Dill, and Parsley

A good ridged cast iron skillet is the perfect cooking device for this dish. I didn’t even bother mixing the glaze together in a bowl, and just put them on the fish in the order listed above. The cooking is just as simple.

I built a stick fire out of long deceased yellow pine limbs, and in no time it registered at 1000 degrees F. The plan was to let the back wall heat up to 250, and then put in the Salmon. I pushed the fire to the back when the temp was reached. Then I roasted the Salmon until the pan hit 200 degrees–the thermometer has a laser pointer, so you know what object you’re measuring. Time for a check (see top picture). The left hand piece flaked well–done!

Should you burn pine in a brick oven? The Brits say definitely no, the Americanos who published the design for the oven I built say burn nothing but pine. Going by the results, in an oven, nothing matters but heat, as opposed to a smoker or smokehouse, where the smoke is a flavoring agent. As long as it is not treated–and I had a relative who built a fire once out of treated wood, and was rewarded with a no expenses paid trip to the hospital–it doesn’t matter. I happen to have a few tons of pine blown down and lying on the ground, so pine it is for the near future. If that hurts anyone’s feelings, I offer my sincere tots and pears.

Brick Oven Rebuild, Part Three–A Rising Chimney, and Concrete Insulation

How about a little masonry humor to start off?

“You are not of the masons.”
“Yes, yes,” I said; “yes, yes.”
“You? Impossible! A mason?”
“A mason,” I replied.
“A sign,” he said.
“It is this,” I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my roquelaire.
–EA Poe ,”The Cask of Amontillado”

Roasted salmon this weekend, pizza next–the oven is officially back from the ashes. The soldier row of bricks on the top of the facade is to be carried around on all four sides, and I have a cunning plan for some brick buttresses on the remaining two feet of chimney, that yet have to be added. Insulation makes this thing even better.

I have removed the form, and the dome oven insulation still needs more concrete. The goal is a solid layer of insulation about five inches thick. According to the bread builders book, an oven this size could produce 36 loaves of bread with just one good fire. Speaking of baking, I also rescued the old oak baking door for this new cathedral of fire–

I will finish this Celtic knot carving as a medallion, brittle splitty Oak notwithstanding. Carving will be a suitable pastime for our too hot summer weather. Morning work outside, afternoon work in the cool workshop. Eat when you’re hungry. I might as well end with a poem about the most famous proponent of the great replacement theory, one Herr A. Hitler.

Adolf Hitler’s facial hair,
Is a very curious affair.
Such a small toothbrush
For such a big mouth.
Bertolt Brecht

Maybe one of our juvenile little Hitlers will replace him in the hottest level of hell.

Brick Oven Rebuild, Part Two–Fire and a Brick Arch

The Romans still rule when it comes to arts, crafts, and architecture, and I include cooking and rhetoric as arts-sorry, Plato and Socrates. The Greeks did bring the idea of brick ovens to the area that is now known as Naples in Italy, but the Neapolitans perfected it, as is apparent from the 33 brick ovens unearthed in Pompeii. I’m just happy to have one back in functional condition.

Speaking of Roman specialties, they were absolute masters at building arches, like the parts of the aqueducts that are still standing. They are amazing examples of engineering and strength, and the door to the domed part of the oven would have been an arch as well in a Roman oven. The angle iron holding up the flat slanted front of this dome is easier, and less expensive as well.

It’s on to building the chimney, re-insulating the dome, and one last addition-

The entire enclosure is to be walled in with brick on all four sides, brought about by our 900+ leftover bricks. To use that many bricks on this oven would require a 34′ high chimney like the one on our house, and I am not that tall. Melanie, who has a Degree in Ancient and Medieval History, as well as a minor in Latin, wants this oven to be named Phoenix. I believe the phoenix myth could easily have come from the role of cooking in human evolution, with fire and the resulting heat being the mechanism that creates cooked, and therefore more easily digestible food (see the work of Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham in Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human). I won’t even talk about how good the wood fired pizza is.

Brick Oven Rebuild, Part One–Getting My Soldier’s in a Row

The yearly springtime curtain of green is descending in our woodland, and it’s time to get the outdoor kitchen rebuilt and ready for action. Our new smokehouse survived the tornado of exactly two months ago, and as my favorite food writer AD Livingston noted, they usually turn into storage sheds when not in use. It’s time to get the masonry tools out of there and get to work.

The all new left side and repaired back wall (above) is made of reclaimed bricks from the old oven. The left side itself is a “soldier row” of bricks that are stood on end–19 in total–that curve on the front and back ends. We were very fortunate that none of the fire bricks on the cooking surface were damaged, and I only had to re-set two rows, and these beauties are dry laid. No black mortar stains under the fingernails. Yet.

The dome is almost complete, and the black mortar is everywhere. The front is to be a flat slope that rests on the angle iron, which also has to be joined to the arched top. I have the masonry blade on my circular saw, so the dust mask will get a workout. If I were as fast a mason as the villain Montressor in Poe’s masterpiece “The Cask of Amontillado,” who walls up his friend not so Fortunato in the cellar beneath his house, I would celebrate with some pizza in a few days. Give me a couple of more weeks, and check to see if anyone has gone missing.

Outdoor Kitchen, Part Catastrophe–Destruction and Reconstruction

On 2/23, Melanie Jane’s birthday, we were hit by a small tornado. Our house had negligible damage, but the outdoor kitchen got whacked by a 60+ year old pine. Notice that the brick oven was strong enough to break said pine in two. Alas, the pine took down the roof and about one half of the oven. All this means is I get the chance to rebuild it even fancier than it already was.

Three weeks later, the scene is different. No pine, except for firewood, and no debris. I have over a thousand new bricks, and literally a ton of sand to make mortar with. I have an unlimited amount of yellow pine to cut into lumber, and the new roof is going to be made of pine shingles, split out by yours truly. I even pulled out my old broad axe to make pieces parts with.

I re-laid the fire bricks, and even found a spare one. So this was only a part catastrophe. I’m going to be such a busy man that I should probably make a list–rebuilt oven, new enclosure with pine shingles, and then world culinary domination. Maybe I should relax and read some Walden instead, like the magnificent conclusion to the chapter “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For:”

Time is but the stream I go afishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first let- ter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors, I judge; and here I will begin to mine.
HD Thoreau

Like HD, my head is hands and feet. It’s time to put them all to work.

Axe Me Again Tomorrow

I have been blessed and/or cursed with a lifetime supply of wood, and it only took about fifteen seconds. To make it a very short story, I now have around fifty storm damaged trees to work with.

2/23, Melanie Jane’s birthday, a loud WHOOSE sound woke us up around four o’clock, followed by some heavy rain. We had heard the same sound in the tornado outbreak of 2011, and it meant only one thing–blown down trees. Sure enough, there is a leaner on our house right now.

The brick oven got the worst of it, with the chimney knocked off, the dome cracked, and the enclosure destroyed by a mature pine tree. However, Jose and his crew of landscapers are coming by tomorrow to get rid of the two trees, and the insurance adjuster is scheduled for Monday. And as usual, I have plans.

If I were the character from the movie Bull Durham, who had to work on his cliches, I would say I am going to give it 110 percent and make some lemonade, but I don’t even like lemonade. My new pine chopping block came from my driveway, and I have multiples candidates for the second one. Then there is the plan for an even fancier brick oven, with an enclosure with pine shingles, and a roof covered with pine shakes. When life gives you wood, make shingles.

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