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 is so much fun to harvest in the garden early on a summer morning! Today I got lots of tomatoes and they look beautiful! Decided to combine my favorite comforting flavors: tomato-potato-bread crumbs. Try this in your wood fired oven or in your conventional oven (in this case just add 10-15 minutes to the cooking time).

tomato harvest

Pomodori al forno

6 medium tomatoes, ripe but firm

2 russet potatoes

1 cup of olive oil + 2 tablespoons

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 teaspoons dry oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

Cube the potatoes and boil them in salted water. When they are done, mashed the potatoes with a fork. Set aside.

With a sharp knife cut off the top of the tomato. Holding the tomato in the cup of one hand, gently scoop out the pulp, making sure not to tear the tomato. Keep the pulp and juice, you will use it later.

ready for the wood fired oven

Ok, so I am partial to making my own bread crumbs. This may be because I just can’t trow away good bread, so I always keep some handy in the fridge drawer, stored in a paper bag. Baguettes are the best for this sort of thing. Break the hardened bread in pieces and process in a food processor. The crumbs will not be uniform size and some will be a bit larger, which is good.

Place the bread crumbs in a bowl and add about 8 tablespoons of the tomato juice and pulp you set aside. Mix in the 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the 2 teaspoons of dry oregano, and salt and pepper to taste. Then add the mashed potatoes and mix. Scoop this mixture into each tomato.

Place the tomatoes snugly either in two loaf pans or other metal pan. Add the olive oil so that it comes up about 1/2 inch. Baste the tomatoes with some of the olive oil.

Bake in a 300 degrees F oven for 20 minutes. Take out and baste the tomatoes with the olive oil in the pan. Return to the oven for another 20 minutes.

pomodoro al forno!

Mmmmh… so good with some aged goat cheese or pecorino!

Buon appetito.