Anna’s Wood Fired Oven Blog

As Francis Mallmann puts it, “Cooking with wood fire is like going on a first date.  It is something you look forward to with great anticipation and a little anxiety.”

Perfect spot for a wood fired party

If you are like me, you will have a little bit of anxiety before entertaining, mostly to make sure everything runs smoothly upon the arrival of your guests and a the same time you don’t want to spend all your time next to the oven (well, maybe you do…), but you want to sit down and enjoy your friends.  Well, that’s the beauty of cooking in your wood fired oven:  your typical dish schedule – appetizer, main dish, side dish, dessert – works perfectly well with the high – medium – low heating cycle of your oven.  And the fact that simple recipes work best in the oven anyway, allows you to pick recipes that can be prepared ahead of time and that require minimum handling in the outdoor kitchen.

Although a wood fired oven doesn’t have a dial on it where you can adjust the temperature on and off, you will enjoy a very nice constant radiating heat as you cook, which is ideal for any dish, especially meat.  And once the wood fired oven is heated thoroughly it will stay hot until the next day.

It is important to keep a good stash of dry hardwood to make starting the fire really easy and enhance the taste of the food you cook.  Use Peter’s method of firing up the oven, so that you have a uniformly hot oven with a minimum amount of wood for a maximum amount of cooking time.

Appetizers are a wonderful way of greeting your friends and they keep everyone happy while other things are baking in the oven.  They are a great fit for the initially hot oven as it is easy to find recipes that can be baked at 650-600 degrees F, floor temperature.  Best way of measuring temperature inside the oven is by using a hand-held infrared thermometer and point it at the oven floor. (We include this thermometer in each oven kit, and it is also available in our online store.)

My favorite appetizers are oven made pizzarollis, and flat breads because they pair well with cheeses, or prosciutto and figs, and such fun starters.  Alternatively, if I am harvesting cherry tomatoes in the garden, I grill them quickly or place them in a cast iron skillet whole, with a bit of olive oil, close to the entrance of the oven, until they are burnished on the outside and release all their sweetness on the inside.  Then I smash them slightly with a fork and mix them with olive oil, a little bit of crushed fresh garlic, basil, salt, and spoon this goodness over a grilled slice of Italian bread, for a quick bruschetta, served along with local cheese.  To grill the bread slices, you can place them on directly on the hot oven floor or on a hot grill, and use tongs or a fork to turn.

Seizing up the appetizer

As the oven cools a little, it’s time for the main dishes. Leaving the door open will bring the temperature in the oven down to 550-500 degrees F (floor temperature) and this is ideal for  a chicken, or a lamb, or a small roast that you’ve prepared ahead of time in a metal pan.  Place a small piece of wood on top of the bed of coals that you moved to the left or right side of the oven, and slide the pan in, opposite side from the coals.  The meat will sear very nicely  as the dome of the oven reflects heat all around it, and will acquire a crispy outside flavored with the smoke of the fire. You can cover the meat loosely with foil either at the beginning or the end of the cooking cycle to brown the meat. (When using a recipe written for a regular oven, just add about a hundred degrees and reduce the cooking time to about a third.)

Fish I usually place on a oven proof dish and keep it closer to the door, since it doesn’t require high temperature.  Or  wait until the oven is at about 450 degrees F if you want to bake a tender fish filet.  It’s fun to grill a lobster, halved, on a grill placed close to the opening and with the coals raked under it.

Along with the main dish, you can fit a few pans with side dishes, such as potatoes, mushrooms, artichokes which all acquire a great smoky taste in the wood burning oven.  Or slide in an eggplant parmesan that your assembled the day before.

And lastly... dessert

Once you’ve taken out the main dish and the side dishes, the oven is ready for cooking a dessert.  Something simple with lots of butter and sugar… since these caramelize  deliciously in the pizza oven!  Your guests will beg you to invite them again.

Buon appetito from Los Angeles Ovenworks!

It’s funny how you can repeat a process for years and then suddenly your are hit with the “Aha!” moment.  Our insight into firing up our pizza oven came when Peter decided to improve his box fire construction by placing three extra pieces of wood along the perimeter.  Let me explain…

Use hardwood to fire your pizza oven

You’ve made your pizza dough or prepared your chicken and eagerly walk over to the oven to fire it up.  You have your good stash of very dry, split hardwood set aside and you pick out about 7 choice pieces, about 2.5 to 3″ wide and 15 to 20″ long.

Now try Peter’s method: Place three logs in each corner of the pizza oven, close to the walls, (see photo A.) Then build a box fire in the middle of the oven floor  by alternating two logs diagonally one way and  two logs the other way on top, repeat (see photo B.).  Put a piece non-toxic fire starter under the wood and light the fire .

A good thing to do when the fire is starting up, is to lean the metal door outside on the arch (see photo C.), this way the initial smoke is channeled up the vent.  It will soon be very hot in your oven and the smoke will naturally flow upward into the chimney.  Part of Peter’s method at this point is to sit back and relax,  listening to the fire… his way of celebrating the upcoming feast, sort of the quiet before the storm of cooking. The pizza dough that he prepared the day before and kept in the fridge overnight, is now next to the oven,  rising and ready to shape into pies.

Photo A. Place logs around the sides of the oven.

You will notice that the wood in the middle ignites first and then the heat in the oven will ignite the split wood pieces around the perimeter and this will create a wonderful radiant heat all around the floor and the walls.  Your wood fired oven will absorb this heat created by the fire burning out in the next hour and then the oven will slowly release this accumulated heat for many hours of cooking cycle, gradually cooling off.

When the fire will have burnt down you can move the coals and ashes with your ash stick either to the right side or the left side of the oven.  (If you are planning to bake pizza, then place a small wood piece onto the coals to keep a small flame throughout the pizza making process.) Check the temperature with your handheld laser thermometer provided in your Los Angeles Ovenworks’ kit.  Start your cooking feast!

You can have a lot of fun experimenting with different woods:

Alder: Imparts a light flavor that works well with fish and poultry.
Apple and pear: Nice and subtle flavor, use with pork and game.
Apricot, Plum, Peach, Nectarine: Flavor is milder and sweeter than hickory.

Photo B. Box fire.

Hickory: The most famous smoking hardwoods, imparts a strong, hearty flavor to meats, used mostly for pork shoulders and ribs.
Maple: Mellow smoke fragrance traditionally used for poultry, pork and seafood.
Mesquite: Produces a very hot flame perfect for grilling steaks.
Pecan: Sweet and mild with a flavor similar to hickory, but not as strong.
Oak: Favorite wood of Europe, strong but not overpowering. Used for beef or lamb.

Photo C. Place oven door on outside of arch

Walnut: Heavy smoke flavor, great to bring out the natural goodness in mushrooms, potatoes and vegetables. Mix with lighter woods like almond, pear or apple to dilute the smoke flavor if needed.

Buon appetito from Los Angeles Ovenworks!

Even in California the fall is showing off its first chill and some rain. It pays off to have a good stack of dry wood saved, especially as the holidays are approaching and there’s a lot of baking to do. And that’s the key to heating up the oven properly: a nice stack of dry hardwood. What is hardwood? See the list here for the most common kinds of hardwood.

A great fire in the oven

Place the wood pieces crosswise, with the smaller pieces on the bottom, in the middle of the oven floor. You will need about 10 or so, smaller pieces of split wood and one or two larger ones. Place a non-toxic fire starter cube on the bottom of the stack and light it.

Keep the fire burning, adding about another 5 split logs as it burns. After about one hour the fire is down to mostly ashes and coals. Now is the time to push the fire, or what is left of it, to the left or right side of the oven.

Wait about 10 minutes, and then brush (with a natural bristle brush) the remaining ashes off the floor to the side. Take a temperature read with your infrared laser thermometer and you can start cooking. You can bake your pizza right on the oven floor or you can roast meats, fish, vegetables in pans, sliding them into the oven.

This beautiful oven has plenty of wood stored...

If you are planning to roast a turkey for the holidays, you will need to make sure you have given the oven an opportunity to accumulate an extra amount of indirect heat inside the walls and floor. So let that fire burn for an extra 15 to 20 minutes beyond the hour.

You can then scoop out the embers from the oven and place the meat inside to slowly roast with the oven door closed.

Buon appetito!