Burnt

‘I adore dissonance in food – two tastes fighting each other.  Charring or burning adds an extra dimension… the right amount of burning or charring can be delicious….I believe that many chefs and cookbooks make entirely too much of harmony’. Francis Mallman

Everytime we run an outdoor cookery class at High Grange Devon I talk about Francis Mallman and the art of burning food. For those of you who aren’t outdoor cooking nerds, then a bit of background on Mallman, one of my food heroes. He is the great Argentinian chef who has turned cooking with fire into an art form – His book ‘Seven Fires’ is the seminal work on the subject and my then girlfriend bought me back a signed copy of it from a solo South American holiday, just after we met. I obviously married her shortly after. 

It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that Sara buying me that book changed both of our lives and set us on the path to Devon and High Grange and the business that we now run together. Up until reading it, I was very much an ‘indoor’ cook - working in fairly conventional kitchens in chalets, yachts, private residences, restaurants and other venues all over the world. I had classical skills and focussed on achieving exactly the kind of harmony that Mallman mentions above. Classical cookery is all about balance and purity - clean flavours complementing each other and then looking pretty on a nice plate. There is, I hasten to add nothing inherently wrong with this - I love a Sole Meuniere or a good saffron chicken as much as the next man but with Mallman I had a culinary awakening.

At one of our recent barbecue cooking classes (Fire School), we literally threw some goose skirt steak directly onto hot coals –5 minutes per side and this fibrous but flavoursome cut is charred and well done in places – rare in others and medium in parts too. Try burning tomatoes – sliced in half and in a hot pan – leave them to blacken, bordering on bitter and the contrast with the soft sweet flesh within is stark and fascinating. Why anyone would cook with that most insipid of kitchen gadgets, the water bath when fire is available is beyond me. That inexpensive cut of steak was SO much more interesting, more challenging and yes, more delicious than a poor piece of water-bathed fillet at four times the price. I’ve decided that I don’t want bland ‘perfection’, consistent ‘cuisson’ and harmony. I want texture and smokiness, gnarliness and char. 

The word ‘harmony’ is interesting as it invokes musicality - I keep thinking about the influence of The Sex Pistols when I think about Mallman. Never mind the Bollocks came out the year that I was born and swept aside the glam rock and power ballads that had preceded it. The lack of harmony was the secret and the anger,  dissonance and the energy was simply unstoppable. They simply didn’t care about what went before them or what was deemed ‘acceptable’ and so it is with Mallman. He ripped up the rule book and decided that fine food, fine dining even, could be done with fierce coals and great infernos. He could burn things and they would be good. Not harmonious but still delicious. 

I’m not advocating uncontrolled food burning by the way. A burnt sausage is still only good for the bin. Meat generally doesn’t do well with burning - caramelised, yes - acrid, no. The joy of burning comes mostly from vegetables - my favourite are leeks, carrot and beetroot and sometimes fruit - think apricots or pineapple. Like anything it takes skill to get it right but adding ‘burnt’ to your outdoor cooking repertoire will take you to the next level.