Hitchens Kitchen & Grill

Dan - Host: 0:10

Welcome to another episode of the meat & Greet BBQ podcast. So today we have Kate O'Neill from Hitchins kitchen, here to talk all about cooking for a family, which is the reason why we absolutely love their accounts. So if you haven't, make sure that you follow them, and like all their bits and pieces on Instagram, because you'll see some great ideas for cooking for the family. without much further ado, here's Neil and Kate.

Owen - Host: 0:35

Welcome Kate O'Neill to the meat & Greet BBQ podcast. How are you doing? Thank you

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 0:40

very well, very good.

Owen - Host: 0:43

Well, it's a it's a pleasure to have you here. We've both been following your social media account for, I'd say the best part of a year. And we always get really inspired by what you cook. So we're really excited to find out a little bit more about your journey into into barbecue. So for anyone that doesn't know who you are, would you like to tell, tell, tell our listeners who you guys are?

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 1:04

Well, we Hitchins kitchen and grill. So it's sort of Instagram account page started the account a few years ago, mainly when we had really young kids. Also what we're feeding our kids to this kind of progressive, they've got older and what we change that what we're cooking anyway. And in the sort of about three years ago, we got really into sort of outdoor cooking, barbecue cooking, cooking fire. And so that's basically what our page is about. And we just sort of document what we've, what we've cooked. And mainly so we can go back sort of in a few months time when we've got no inspiration and just have a look back what we've done and sort of like to look for all that was nice, although that wasn't.

Unknown: 1:44

Yeah, and it's a little bit. So over time. So yes, good.

Owen - Host: 1:49

And how have you found that transition them from? I think what strikes us quite well, we're both for fat, fat family men. And I think again, what what's great about your account is that it is, even though it's barbecue, it's very family orientated. It is well, everything that you do, it's it's about creating good quality family meals. And that's I think what really attracts us to your account. Yeah. How have you found that transition? Like you said, you started it when the children were quite young, and you've naturally kind of progressed it into outdoor cooking? Is it being quiet? Was that were you hoping it was going to head or is it just an I haven't really had a choice.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 2:29

It's always been that way we didn't start off the account with focus on like baby food. And as parents yourself, you'll know that the weaning process is getting kids onto food. We did baby led weaning, which is giving kids exactly what you eat. So although it used to have more of a baby focus, it was more here's the food we're eating. And this is how I cut it so that a baby or child can eat it. So we never really did baby food, per se, it was just the food that we're eating. And I think to start with people found it quite interesting, because when we started that five, six years ago, baby led weaning wasn't as mainstream as it is now. And actually, people were quite sort of intimidated by giving babies normal food by giving them a roast dinner by giving them salmon and potatoes and broccoli, whereas we wouldn't sort of mash it up, we would just give it to them as salmon, potatoes, broccoli, and I think people found it quite interesting to see how we gave it to them. So the page hasn't really progressed. In terms of the food we give. It's just the way that we used to serve it, I think used to be interesting to people. And now we don't really do anything with how we sell it because they just they three and six. So they just eat normal food and cut their own food out.

Unknown: 3:38

Last sort of three or four years. That's when we've started getting interested in Yeah. But they've actually shown interest in it as well. So we try and get them involved. We try and let them light it let them sprinkle the rub on and the more they're involved, the more they are keen to try it and we're lucky as well. They're not fussy. I'm not I'm not so naive as to think the fussy but so far so good. They love getting stuck in like really muscles crab like steak. They like stinky cheese. They like all kinds of food that and I don't I do like food like that when I was that little but I think just because they're always exposed to it. It's for them. It's not unusual, so they just they proper foodies that they love it. When you go out though, like chicken nuggets.

Dan - Host: 4:28

I'm very jealous because my daughter, she used to eat everything when she was young, absolutely everything. Then as soon as she started going to nursery and she was getting fed more and more at nursery. She's got an awful lot of things and I'm having to slowly integrate her back into barbecue food with hotdogs and things and moving on to proper sausages and so on and so forth. But to have children that will go straight into mussels and crabs. Just incredible. Do you think it's because you let them get involved? That really helps that?

Unknown: 4:58

I think so. I think we, we quite like trying new foods as well. So if we're ever faced with anything new, for example, like prawns and things like that we're not like oh, they will sticky where you can pull the head off and suck the brains out. Is getting stuck in with it. Yes, it is. Well, yeah. So they don't I don't know they've just they've always liked to try and make it fun. Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong they don't always like everything that they like tonight we had monkfish kebabs and one of the children really liked it, Charlie really, really enjoyed it. Oliver took one mouthful and said, I don't like it. And it had the same Rabban that we've used on umpteen other dishes. But tonight, he just didn't like it. But he loved the potatoes. And so we sort of played a little game that you kind of getting more excited. And so you it's a monthly so eventually, yeah, he ate it. And he liked it in the end. And yeah, we kind of thing. I don't know, if we try and make it fun. But also, if they say no, we want to try it when it's actually not gonna offend them in any way. We just want to be firm and make them was that or nothing so and eventually like, then I wouldn't force them to eat it. But if some of us just thought it is not their favourite part of the meal, and we're like, oh, well, just leave it then. But you're not having anything else a chance to go back. And quite often. Yeah, I think also, I don't if you find this, but often when they say that I'd like something, actually, they're just not very hungry. But quite often I'll just say, okay, then don't eat it. And then I leave it on the side. And then half an hour later, they walk past and they just start picking at it because actually they're a bit hungrier

Dan - Host: 6:40

than they know. They're not gonna get anything else. Yeah,

Owen - Host: 6:45

I puddings a big motivator. Well, we all have this, if you want some put in.

Unknown: 6:50

Yeah, you're hungry enough for that you're hungry for the absolute reason that we found similar things like all these all the time we spent trying to get good habits, good habits and good. Yes. And then they never pick up other people's good habits. That was fine. They're sort of bad habits or the nursery teacher, but I don't have that day. And I'll have this. You got no one that undoes all your good work. Yeah. Must be very frustrating.

Owen - Host: 7:15

So you mentioned that the you like to get the kids involved in the barbecue. So things like you said you let you know, let them light it. And do you? Do you feel that they're kind of wanting to kind of grow into that and actually get more involved in you know, actually, in the cooking process and use it, we'll go into what your setup is, in a minute, I'd love to hear what your actual barbecue setup is. But do they like to get involved on on all your grills?

Unknown: 7:38

And yeah, they do. They do. They love being outside, and they love cooking. But also, for me personally, it's also been just like a necessity. So I'm a working parent, I work till about five o'clock. So when I come home, I've got no choice but to stand in the kitchen and make the dinner. So if I don't have them up, they're cooking it with me, then they're in another room, they're trashing another room, or they just watching TV, and then I don't get to spend much time with them. So it kind of, they get involved with the cooking, even when I'm clicking in doors, just so that I can spend a bit of time with them. And they just, they just like it don't know, don't always wanna get involved, you know, quite often they'll come and say, Oh, can I cut this? Or can I got that? And yeah, it's really good. But then everything they use, if it just makes so much more mess, like if they take potatoes or something, it's like bits of potatoes flying everywhere. And you find it all stuck to the cupboards and things. So it's lots of fun, but it's lots. It's lots more showing interest. And, yeah, I'd like to turn on the trigger and dial it in the right number and figuring out if we say get it to 250 He'll like watch the numbers go up to 250. And yeah, I like light in five stars in the commodity. Oh, and finally just loves fire and anything dangerous. And I like the fireball. They love stacking the logs and light in that sort of Yeah, so they do like getting involved in all of them. So they show some sort of interesting.

Owen - Host: 9:08

Alright, so you've already kind of mentioned a little bit about what grills you've got, but talk us through your setup. Tell us everything that you've got.

Unknown: 9:17

We started out I think we yeah, we actually started in barbecue mainly through my fantasy of wanting to look nice on the on the deck and so I sort of read landscapes I garden I built a nice deck in we put the furniture on it another gap in the middle was like we need to fill that gap the barbecue we went shopping, we saw the ceramic barbecues. I was like I want one of them because it just looks so nice. So we got one of those didn't really know what to do with it. We know sort of a low level ceramic barbecue Modo. And after sort of doing a static read on it, we sort of looked into it a bit more than nine found found some Instagram sort of pages and realise its whole potential. So after we had that just on its own For about a year year and a half after that, I sort of saved off and got a commodity job wanting to pick the one didn't wait that time we realised that actually we really enjoyed cooking for friends and having as well as boys who I don't think early on we got the commodity No, no no not when we got the first one but because we kind of wanted to cook everything on it that we started off just doing what everybody probably starts off with burgers and sausages but then we wanted to do a veggie potatoes everything so so we thought we'd only use it once every few weeks, usually two or three times a week. So we kind of thought actually we want to get a bigger one bigger bigger and then we thought we were gonna spend the money getting a bigger one we might as well get the top of the range one so that we can sort of do everything with it pizzas low and slow everything that was that sort of first big purchase Sparky wise and then you were very comfortable at first Well you

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 10:55

told me once that you can crack this

Unknown: 11:01

this is a good bar he fell for you early on I open all the vents to Pizza opened up on van over the top and walked away with charcoal. Wow that cycle was caps temperature got back and it was like 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Why close the close of the vents because I thought close events I stopped the airflow I'll call it down a bit but obviously shouldn't have closed with vents because their heat had nowhere to go and I came back a few hours later and saw it like completely come apart from the ceramic. So that was a that was a learning curve. not to panic. Since then, Kate was really nervous about breaking micromanager. You because of that you saw people using the trader and stuff in you can get involved with a trade if you wanted to trade it if you wanted to. I guess when we looked into getting a trade, you know say you like things like Neil really enjoys tinkering with the commodity Joe getting the temperature just right. And he'll really enjoy sort of the process and spending I don't know I was gonna say an hour, it doesn't take an hour but he'll like spending time tinkering with the vents getting it just perfect. Or as I think I've got haven't always got time for that sometimes it is nice to just flick it on. And sometimes when you've got both kids and you sort of press buttons differently than you so that's why originally you liked the trigger. Yeah, and then what was it the other the other ones are fireball. That's just another one where that's more of a social thing. So we could we don't really do a lot of clicking on that. It's just like marshmallows and sausages and suddenly it just keeps you warm especially in the lockdowns last year when you couldn't have friends around inside your house but we wanted to see people so it was nice to be able to sort of socialise and in winter as well to sort of stay outside for a bit longer. Like we don't use that often it's more like Bonfire Night New Year's Eve

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 13:04

should use it more. Yeah.

Owen - Host: 13:08

Chain with the weaker a lot. Yeah pretty bad

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 13:21

got one big hook. We couldn't improvise and overcome. But it just looked funny hanging on.

Owen - Host: 13:38

So you know, we've been talking about pellet grills quite a lot recently. And I think we're, I think we're probably surprised at how many people have pellet grills or how many people are interested in getting pellet grills I think obviously, again, typically most typical British barbecue is we'll have a cheap Argos or a BBQ BBQ and they might have a little gas one to go with it. But yeah, there's a big market isn't around around pellet grills and convenient convenience seems to be the biggest draw for that.

Unknown: 14:10

Exactly. Yeah, so everyone's busy everyone's working everyone's sort of you can't you haven't got hours to sort of like barbecue and be by all the time have you you've got other things going on like cooking cleaning tidying. There's so is database certainly serve a purpose. They have the sort of place don't know Yeah, I think that's probably what attracts its people still getting that sort of woodfired flavour. But without having to sort of learn the process too much. It kind of does it for you. And not having to sort of babysit either. So yeah, they are growing. I mean, you've got a lot of your friends, female friends, have you watched you and sort of, they want to part of it. They've come around and tried it and they've enjoyed the food and they want to do their own. recreate it at home. Definitely. So they've sort of bought their own sort of Trager or version of Yeah. But yeah, so it's certainly growing market. I think I think every sort of Barbie brand was growing last last year, so it's definitely easy, wasn't it? Yeah,

Dan - Host: 15:09

I'm still I'm fascinated that you went straight in for a ceramic grill because of what they look like. I mean, I've just got one myself literally today, and kind of set up and everything. So I've got a monolith yet I did a lot of kind of research and I wanted something that I wanted a ceramic grill that was decent quality. But also if it cost an arm and a leg, I wasn't afraid to get involved and get used to it, just as you said, Kate, because you do hear stories of people who get it wrong, and then bad things can happen. So you filled me with confidence with what you've said. But all the all the

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 15:49

900 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah,

Unknown: 15:51

that and I've heard that the best thing to do is start off with like almost minimal charcoal and slowly build it up to get the temperature you want, rather than rushing. But what are your top tips to someone who's a new Kamado owner? There's so many don't go and cook a brisket straightaway. Get your get your temperature control right first or practice on some cheaper cuts of meat like a pork shoulder or pork ribs and just practice getting that temperature set and stable since the very first time to use it because we have had a few sort of disasters and it always seems to be when we have the same popular friends over so we swear they must think their food is disgusting. So yeah, cool friends. Another thing is the great thing about the ceramic grill is when you finish cooking into shut events and any any charcoal that's left, you can use it next time so there's no waste. That's a really good one. Never let it get too hot. It's so easy. It's so easy to increase the temperature but once it's got hot, it's hard to get it back down. So nice. I slowly slowly build it up because we've had a few words overshot the temperature and we've ended up doing a fast hot and fast brisket rather than a slow Yeah, but that's fine. It's still nice

Owen - Host: 17:24

we welcome your stories we want

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 17:29

to set the fire on fire but

Owen - Host: 17:35

tell us how you managed to set a trigger on fire.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 17:37

When you want to know how is that the garage on fire. I want to know I was just completely my phone and they'll say

Unknown: 17:44

I'll get me a tray go I'll clear out all my training all the cloth for it. I was too lazy to clean out Nelson's me you need to make sure that the grease, you need to make sure everything's clean because I was thinking something. I wanted to do something really high temperature

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 17:59

hot and fast after you've done a little

Unknown: 18:03

something quite fatty. And he said to me, I said I'll just do one more cook. And then I switched it on and I was in the kitchen doing something which you're not supposed to leave them whilst they're lighting. And then he said your trade was really smoking. I was like it's a pellet grill is the smoker. It's meant to smoke. Don't worry about it. He was like no, he's looking out the window. No. It's really really smoking. Don't worry about coming out the back. It was all good. Yeah. It wasn't actually the grill that was on fire in the grill. Fine. But we cleaned it all it was fine. It hasn't happened since the Morial week we clean Do you panic and ran off and left me to deal with it. That's true. But yeah, that's only happened once we learn we learn from alleyway.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 18:55

Yeah. Typically.

Owen - Host: 18:58

What about the carriage carriage was always

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 19:01

doing an overnight brisket clip.

Unknown: 19:03

Before you get into the story, the time before when Neil had done a brisket. He set the he set an app on his phone to keep to go off whenever the temperature drops. And I didn't get any sleep because he kept getting up to pick on it and he kept getting up to tinker with it. So I said to him if you're going to do an overnight Kirk, Don't wake me up or I will kill you whatever you do, do not wake me up or I will go absolutely mad. Because last time I didn't get any sleep. I got loads last time. So I set it up. It was all going fine. And I emptied I'm normally empty my you know you've got the little drawer at the bottom of the commoditizing MTBF. I chuck it in not the metal bucket. Anything of it I've got I've got this old bag of charcoal. I've been chucking acid when it's really cold and definitely not lit but I wasn't thinking it was like one or two in the morning or something I just went out and chop that up the ash roar into the old bag of charcoal with all the dust in it didn't think anything of it went back to sleep when I woke up in the morning luckily because my sort of phone went off to tell me that it was getting too hot or something I went out and opened the garage door and it was full of smoke I was like

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 20:15

yeah, I picked

Unknown: 20:17

it up I pretty burned my hands are picked up the bag Chuck's out onto the sort of patio in the back luckily I hadn't touched anything else it was away from other things so I got there just in time yeah went out and then I'll sort of what should I do and I'll put it out with the hose went to the hose it was it was in like February it wasn't a hose was frozen so I couldn't put it out with a hose. The hose pipe was fully frozen so what did I get? A little mini watery can my house wasn't thinking I was trying to put this out but yeah so anyway, I didn't set this bag of charcoal follows in the garage next to it

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 20:58

what is it smell on fire and then there was all this stuff in the garage up here so you told me you'd kill me if I didn't want to wake you up this fire

Owen - Host: 21:25

I take away from that. I take away from that is that you care. You said UK you want you to sleep and you've got your sleep. I think that might have been

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 21:37

in the process. But yeah, I

Owen - Host: 21:38

think on the 20th to the 22nd of August, the UK largest barbecue festival be hitting Colchester for three days of all things grilling, music and family fun. And if that wasn't enough, the British barbecue open Championships will be held there by teams will compete in numerous rounds of barbecue classics. For the panel of judges to cram the best British barbecue team

Unknown: 22:03

to find out more and get your tickets visit smoke and fire festival.com/tickets. We can't wait to see you there.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 22:11

I want to hear from your disasters now make me feel a bit more normal. Yeah, as we

Unknown: 22:18

say, Dan, you've been sent loads. Yeah, I always I have lots and lots of disasters because I'm the world's clumsiest person. So when you add clumsy and fire together, it just it's a recipe for absolute disaster. What have I done, which I've not talked about before? I know so this was a long, long time ago. Well. This was in our first house that my wife and I had and we had a relatively new barbecue that we bought from think was being cute was kettle barbecue. And we set up and everything we started cooking on it. And there was some sort of remnants of like one of the fire lighters on the side. And it just didn't look like it was a light I'd already like considered sort of cooker and so I was like I just take that off. I'll put it to one side. It'll be fine. started cooking. I was like something smells like burning but the food seems absolutely fine turned round. I put it on the box cuz I'm lazy and I haven't got rid of the box. Bang thing it goes straight up. And it was literally okay, it's on a metal trades on a metal tray. Obviously the metal tray is hot enough to move that to the end of the garden. Watch it from a distance because it can't spread until it Yeah, exactly till it calms down. So what I've learnt there is pay attention to where you're putting hot things, particularly if they could be on fire. But luckily that didn't affect the food at all. I got away with it because Steph was inside sorting something upstairs. So the fire had gone out by the time she came downstairs. There's a lot of smoke because it was a barbecue. It's gonna Yeah, that was that that's the closest to a full on fire that I've come to be fair. What about your own? Do you have any others?

Owen - Host: 24:16

Yeah, so I've got one from a while ago. It kind of wasn't my fault. So I'm just gonna say less

Dan - Host: 24:21

words fail.

Owen - Host: 24:23

Your fault. Wasn't Yeah, it wasn't okay. It was It wasn't a fire, but I did cremate some food quite badly. My sister had moved into a new place and she hadn't got anything set up. So she bought a little disposable barbeque. She didn't even have any tongs. But she had a couple of forks. So I use them and I was cooking some sausages in the dark. There was no outside light. So I was trying to hold a torch while I was trying to use two forks to do cook it all these things on a barbecue and I just cremated everything. It was a proper kind of

Unknown: 25:01

From a disposable barbecue, we've never had much luck with them. My cremation is always asparagus. Oh, yeah, it just Yeah, Ava falls pretty great. Or I'm just writing it. The last time I did it actually worked out quite well. The first dirty cook I ever did was because I accidentally somehow managed to drop a really thin steak. I was like quickly gloves, right? Take the grill off. Here we go. We're just doing it. straight on. There's absolutely fine. It tasted great. So, you know, you learn from your mistakes, literally no situation. When he said to me, I wanted to try this style of cooking. And he explained it to me. I was like, what? On the charcoal. He was like, Yeah, it's cool. Cooking it dirty. So because you'd said about picking it. I was expecting it to have like, bits of charcoal and stuff. I was really pleasantly like that. Like, we know cooking that way now. It's not. It's like, yeah,

Owen - Host: 26:05

it's that crisp Enos that you just don't get? Yeah. On the on the actual on the grill?

Unknown: 26:10

Yeah, you can't recreate that kinda. It's just Yeah, so good. Because it feels like proper caveman as well, which is half the fun. If you just imagine it, can't you get off the cow and chuck it on.

Owen - Host: 26:25

So actually, I'm interested to know, what would you say is your ultimate barbecue meal? I mean, on your on your page. There's a lot of kind of diversity about what you cook. So what would you say is your ultimate barbecue meal?

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 26:39

So I really like seafood and vegetables.

Unknown: 26:45

As a meal, you need a bit of everything that you you need to start. I would say Tombow or like a big fat ribeye. So you can slice it you can share it. Yeah. And it'll be very fun. I'd say. Yeah. Like support groups. I actually prefer lighter food. You do? Yeah. So and I think actually something which a lot of barbecues do is everything is quite like heavy. It's all about big burgers. Big bits of steak big big big. And I think sometimes I just like like tonight it was nice actually. We had monkfish kebabs that were just monkfish and sliced pepper and then I made some couscous and stuff but it had just I just asked Neil to while he was out there doing the kebabs just chargrill some vegetables and stuff and then I had some like fish trees and stuff do you

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 27:37

Well, nice. Well, pretty nice. Like

Owen - Host: 27:42

a big tomahawk.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 27:43

Yeah. Ultimate

Unknown: 27:48

My favourite thing I think probably took is like a bag of ribs of that with some sort of mashed potato. Red wine sort of do like you. Drinking

Owen - Host: 28:19

milk. To be fair, I think both of those meals. Yes, steak and potato, fish and veg. Yeah. I think that's

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 28:30

boring. It's like

Unknown: 28:34

looking at the fact that you cook for the family all the time. What do you think is the strangest thing you've cooked? And what I mean by that is something that no one would ever think would go on a barbecue because it looks like you cook everything on there. Which people most people haven't expected but I really liked it when I did that salmon on crew. That was so happy to see no one else cooking on barbecue. But if there have been like, yeah, most people don't expect that sort of thing. I've seen a few people do Beef Wellington, which is a similar sort of version of it, isn't it? But yeah, the salmon on crew that was sort of an unusual one. But yeah, really good. And when I made banana breads, obviously, you had to make the naan bread. Even if you didn't do Banana Banana breads. I did some cookies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The crap that we did, we had a big massive, massive crab. That was really nice.

Owen - Host: 29:36

For a whole grand.

Unknown: 29:38

Whole crap. It was like, bigger than a dinner plate, wasn't it? Yeah. Our meat and seafood delivery guy and we get it all from Ford and Sam's. He is scared of them. And he said it was literally he could hear it crawling around the back of the van. And he was like, I'm so glad to get that off the fan and he said I'll put your really big one. So why I was expecting like, I'd eaten import crabs before, but I took them at home when I still live at home when I was younger but you've never had so I was kind of anticipating a crab shell like this big. Or when he said big one this thing but honestly it shell was like, isn't it bigger than a dinner plate? Just the shell and the claws were as big as my hands. But that's how. And he he was so frightened. Touch it. So yeah, that was quite an unusual thing. We cooked that inside just in boiling water, and then we put that on the barbecue to sort of smoke it and that was really really tasty. I think that's something people don't really well.

Owen - Host: 30:43

I want to love so much. I just, I just can't get on with the flavour

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 30:49

as well, though, is it the taste of it?

Owen - Host: 30:53

Mainly the taste and the taste. No, but I want to and I think they look so lovely when they're dressed in the shell and

Unknown: 31:00

yeah, like other seafood or is it just not your thing?

Owen - Host: 31:04

I'm a kind of tuna. I grew up. So a lot of my family. You know, the fishermen or you know, I grew up in a fishing village like little fishing town. But I just it's almost like I've had so much fishing my youth complete.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 31:20

Yeah.

Owen - Host: 31:21

But Ford and sons. I use Ford and sons as well. They are such such good delivery service. It's great quality meat. And I really liked the fact that they've now branched out into Billingsgate and to Springfield as motion get you through age.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 31:37

Yeah. Yeah. Great. Isn't it bad

Unknown: 31:39

in? Yeah, they're really, really good. We've used them since sort of the first lockdown, haven't we? Yeah. And he started it when people couldn't get anything from the supermarket. Would you have a word and get him to stretch out to suffer a little bit more? That would be great. And he's actually looking to kind of go a bit further afield. He said, Hey, I think he's trying to take over the world. So I would say watch this space. That'd be great because I feel like I'm literally just over the software No, I don't see anything I could do you know from see you know, in multiple times a week because of work. I'll make Ford and Sons plus Oh, in as my delivery service.

Owen - Host: 32:22

From Yeah, I charge a brisket handling fee.

Unknown: 32:28

Something that we haven't asked anyone. Do you have a cook you haven't tried yet? That you're looking forward to giving a go? Yeah, well, it's not very barbecue but obviously I want to get on the barbecue. I really want to do a whole roasted cauliflower. Nice. I've been looking at doing that because some of my close friends from University have become vegans particularly in the last year or so. Oh, and shaking his head i know i if they weren't so nice people I'd be more aggrieved but they're lovely. When they and they recently had a little one as well so recently, literally turning one tomorrow so I'm happy birthday Isaac. But when they come over, I want to do them something that is going to blow their mind.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 33:21

But look charred. I have not looked it up look all vegetarian, vegetarian but all great recipes.

Unknown: 33:32

There you go. I'm writing down now. But I really love the idea of because I love cauliflower anyway, and the smokiness and the fact that just carries flavour so well but part of me is like well Mike's do like a hot sauce version of it. But I'd also kind of like to do a whole cauliflower cheese as like an experiment. I just think it'd be different. Yeah, I did a cauliflower cheese and broccoli cheese midnight on the Bob crumb on top. It takes on the smoke nicely and yeah.

Owen - Host: 34:01

How do you plan the whole head? What mean No, Kate?

Dan - Host: 34:07

Yeah, how would you cook the whole head

Unknown: 34:10

Hmm Well, this is why I haven't done it yet because I'm not sure I looked that far into this is what NATO is this I say I want you guys what should you need to grow? How do you want to do it? How do you want me to break up? I'm like, That's your job. You thought about how I just run the brains behind the ingredients. You you sort everything else that I'm working on how to do it. But um, I don't know. I don't know. Would you smoke it fast or slow? You don't want it cauliflower does have a tendency to go a bit soggy if you ever cooked it and I wouldn't want it to go so gay.

Owen - Host: 34:50

Would you just want to on the edges a bit charred, you know,

Unknown: 34:54

finished off a bit higher just a bit of colour and yeah, like charred but not I was thinking doing like a Tikka Masala one and maybe marinating it in like yoghurt and tikka masala paste and stuff. Sometimes, as far as I've got early stages in the early stages of the recipe planning

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 35:17

we need to do is I pesticides and veggie game?

Unknown: 35:20

Well we got a delivery book this book a delivery box this week from a company called cook away. And it had part of a Bikaner with it, but the side so actually our favourites. And actually both of the sides are they weren't thinking they have to cheating. But apart from the fetter, I think the sides were vegan, it was like chargrilled push it and asparagus. So all the stuff that we're always usually rubbish at cooking, but it was really nice. I think we always focus so much on the meat and the main part of the meal that we kind of all we've been cooking

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 35:54

in sweet corn.

Unknown: 35:55

Yeah. What should we do with it? And we'd never think about it until the last minute. So I think we need to think about and again with better sides. And that kind of brings the whole meal together. Yeah, I

Owen - Host: 36:06

think the meats the fun part. Oh

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 36:09

yeah, unless you're vegan. Yeah.

Unknown: 36:13

problem for me. I love anything that has had a pulse at some point. So whereas I I'm not a huge fan of fruit, and I had the certain veg that I absolutely despise, like cucumber shouldn't exist.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 36:30

How can combust for snack? Yeah,

Unknown: 36:33

I look into that as a not a good sign. But because of that, I always focus so much on the meat with the barbecue and don't get me wrong. I love a cauliflower cauliflower, a mac cheese you love cauliflower. Love a mac and cheese do mac cheese quite a lot and like potatoes and things like that. But for some reason, I always forget about the sides on a barbecue or the salad is German. So the last minute Yeah, what we do. It's really really really quick. What should we do then we just search the frequency was but yeah, it's never been much we need to pre think it don't plan

Owen - Host: 37:12

just out of interest. This is for anyone. What can you do chips on the barbecue. I've really struggled to get decent chips cooked on the bowl. Okay, we've ever tried,

Unknown: 37:22

actually. But we have deep fried on the barbecue. We deep fried chicken wings. Alton students a Valentine's Day cooking competition. And it was three girls, three boys. And we each had to do a thing. So I did chicken wings. And I did deep fry the chicken wings on the tomato. So I would imagine you could do just that way. Yeah, we have done I'm not checked, but um what those Taito triangle things hashbrowns. So we frozen hashbrowns on the barbecue before, when we've done a breakfast, we've just done them on the cloud side. So I would imagine actually, they did go really, really quick space. So as long as you kept turning the price, I would probably do chunky ones, you probably could cook them on the cast iron. Because the hashbrowns turned out really tasty and really crunchy. We tend to just do potatoes and light wedges or half them in the name put them in a cast iron. And that goes to isn't it sort of if we just don't want to think about anything? No, I think if you're gonna give checks, there's probably easier ways than trying to deep find the barbecue because I didn't want any help from near on that cook. Because our normal roles that we just kind of fall into is Neil does tend to do most of the cooking over the barbecue. And I tend to prepare most of it purely because. And I tend to just naturally the boys kind of come to me more to sort of play with them and stuff when he's cooking. But with the Valentine's night, I didn't want anyone to be able to say Oh, well Neil just did it all for you. So I literally didn't want any help. Because it was like an all girls team versus the boys team. I was like, No, I don't want your help. And I think your heart was in your mouth and I was deep fine on the commodity I was on fire would cause an explosion bacon effect of you. I don't know if you've got a rotisserie. You got a rotisserie in any of your barbecues. I've seen people you know, it's sort of I don't know how well that's done out. But I've seen a few people do that. So it's all of them and oil and put them in a basket and rotate them that might work over sort of quite a high direct heat. Maybe yeah,

Owen - Host: 39:33

I've just I've just tried chips and stuff in a foil tray. Yeah, and you just end up getting really burnt on not burn bottoms are really crispy and then just a bit salty and

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 39:46

moving a bit more

Unknown: 39:48

more of an indirect heat rather than so that they're not burning but I don't know if we've not tried to we're trying to say that you get when you spin that will you begin to land on chips on purpose, aren't you?

Owen - Host: 39:58

I haven't put chips on there but Yeah,

Unknown: 40:02

just just some chips. So after my own barbecue fail, which I may as well talk about now I've slowly been perfecting roasties. And also chips depending on if you count them as chips on the barbecue. So what I did originally was kind of parboiled potatoes and everything's when I was doing roasties. But then I tried to smoke them with Applewood. And that didn't work too smoky. And not just that they probably cuz Applewood tasted quite a lot like apple. And they are a similar family who's well, so and it just, it just didn't work. But um, so what I found is upping the temperature not using words, you can kind of do it in a very similar way as you would in the oven. If you can hold the temperature at like 200 and just put them in after pour boiling the chips slightly if you cut them into tip shape with a tiny bit of oil in a pan and just shake them every sort of, yeah, 10 or 15 minutes, they come out quite good after about 40. But then they're basically just different shaped groups potatoes. So depends if you count. But that that works quite well give that a going.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 41:12

Yeah, that does sound nice. Yeah, we'll

Owen - Host: 41:15

do. So part of your barbecue journey, then you've you're you've become brand ambassadors over the last year or so. years. Yeah,

Unknown: 41:27

we've been so lucky to have the like, I don't know, what's it called an ambassadorship? Yes.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 41:34

We've been asked to sort of represent companies, I guess. Yeah, we've been reading about it. But I bolttech Yeah,

Unknown: 41:41

charcoal company glow Baltic. They ferocious. The only lockdown. Yeah, I think they were sort of just coming over to the UK. And they were looking around for sort of a few people to sort of get their charcoal out there. Yeah, we use that they were really impressive. Actually, like it's such a Have You Ever Have you ever used it or have you not? Yeah. Yeah, it's such a big the original charcoal was such big chunks, like consistently big as well. There was very little ashes, sorry, dusted the bottom of the bags. It lit easily. It sort of burnt for a long time at high temperature. So yeah, we, we, we used it and we loved it when we were really pleased sort of upsetting them and sort of use their charcoal. So that was that was the first one.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 42:21

Yeah. And well, no, then Jimmy.

Unknown: 42:26

Oh, do you mean the food? Yeah. We're really lucky that we did say that. We are so fortunate. Yeah, we've got a charcoal covered. We've got four and Sons sort of supplying us meats. And he's he's been so good to us so far. Like for the last year, anything we've wanted. We just asked him and he would sort of send it to us. Yeah, yes. And then was it was quite a joy was a commodity. I have been for several quarters. Omus just asking if he was the worst, but I'm literally like I was mister I love Komodo joy. Like before, everything. He messaged us saying hi guys. Could I just chat to you about potentially been on the fire squad and that that was it. And we lost his I was running around the house like England, in school in the fight or something? And then we message back said, oh, yeah, that'd be great. But when do you want to talk and we just heard nothing for a week who like, oh, maybe he's changed his mind. Maybe he sent it to the wrong people. He really kept us hanging like he was just him being useless. So we have a purpose. To talk about it. We didn't hear anything for about a day and a half. And we're like wasting time. Yeah, so they asked us to be on the fire squad, which is really good. We've done a few sort of themed clips of them on my Oktoberfest and a couple other ones. And we've done sort of Cook along with some of the other five squads where we, yeah, we did the beef ribs. And before then we'd always send them low and slow, but then it was with and he did them hot and hot and fast. And then and then after you bought your trailer, you type them in a couple of things I've seen must have seen you using it and they liked sort of like say the family aspect. I think they Yeah, the earlier on here, they sort of whole the whole theme went towards sort of getting the whole family involved in doing that. So that I think that's maybe what they liked about our page, then we sort of get the kids doing it. And so they asked us to be part of the sort of UK team which was yeah, I remember that campaign because it wasn't the whole thing is anyone can use a trigger and they had like little children setting it up. So 25 At the time, Sonali was five and he was he did a whole meat preps all the all the board room.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 44:46

Everything. So

Unknown: 44:48

I asked him to do a little video, which he absolutely loved doing I think because he sees us do one every now and again. Like he thought I'm part of it now. So yeah, he thinks he's the youngest trader of Ambassador It's not the Gambian talents, little baby. So yeah, we've been really lucky that we've got sort of both of the barbecues that we've got, we've sort of help help represent and get their name out there. And we've also got our fuel supplied and sort of meat. So at the moment, we're sort of just very fortunate that we are, we don't think it will probably last forever. But at the moment, we're sort of really lucky and appreciate it and just sort of try and cook as often as we can sort of make the most of it. Really. Yeah.

Owen - Host: 45:27

What would you say? In your barbecue journey?

Unknown: 45:31

Up in the sides? Yeah. The next I think is getting out and meeting people, hopefully. So all the people we've been chatting to, through Instagram and sort of through the barbecue community, like getting out there. And yeah, there's so many people should be meeting them that it would be really nice to me. Yeah. So we actually met Ben forte from Morocco for the first time, a couple of months as I thought it was it a month ago or so. He was doing an event at Olson Sparky world and sort of it was a commodity Joe sort of day. And he actually came all the way down from PDS miles away, doesn't he? So it's actually nice to meet him our three daughters to be on the team never seen. So it's good to sort of meet face to face and watch him Kirkus. He's impressive watching him. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it, really. So getting out and meeting people. We'd never been to sort of competition, barbecuing and stuff like that. We'd like to win the stuff open a bit around and sort of see some of the competition cooking and stuff. And I think go to the shows go to Yeah, like some of the shows and stuff. Because I think for us, because we do enjoy spending time with the boys and stuff that weekend. We wouldn't want to go to shows and stuff without them. But we wouldn't be able, we wouldn't be able to kind of join in with the competition aspect of it. But we'd like to go and see that and like try other people's we would love to do like a road trip round America and go to a local good barbecue thing. So that's good. But yeah, we have we've been married for eight years. And we haven't been on honeymoon yet. So we said for our 10th anniversary. Well, no supposed to plan something. Yeah, but things change. 10 year, honeymoon theme, but then you went in? Yeah. I think it sounds like you're gonna take Ben to America. But we've actually, because we can't go anywhere. And we've we've actually bought a camper. So the next thing as well is travelling around sort of the UK with our little Thai barbecue or travel versions of barbecues and sort of Yeah, going away with the holiday like with the family cooking, still cooking, while the kids that was a prerequisite so I've wanted a camper van for years and years and years. And I haven't and no, not really more of a hotel and pool kind of person whereas I have always grown up campaign. And so he would refuse to send a 10 so I managed to persuade him to get a campaign on the condition we get a Joe Jr. Quite a job. The small one the travel one although I'm saying this to trouble one they still put heavy on they tried. Yeah, but still we were gonna get one of them. And that's how I persuade you to kneel to actually get the campaign

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 48:22

out in the field and do something but yeah, he was

Unknown: 48:25

like it's just boring sitting there all day unless you've got some ribs or something to sort of tinker with and I was like, Okay, we'll get a barbecue he was like Okay, so

Owen - Host: 48:36

I'm at Hotel it's all about luxury. In a hotel

Unknown: 48:45

we built one with nature outside 10 minutes to have a wash that said way. I'm washing up the dream. My brother in law has a camper van and I always think it'd be amazing to get like a Joe Jr. and drive up to Scotland go buy a lock and just set up his by a lock.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 49:10

That's the dream. Yeah,

Unknown: 49:12

well we'd like to share our booth for like a whole week and a half up work and then we try to put some campsites in a little taken so we'll have to do that you guys can just lay bys up in Scotland you'd be fine

Owen - Host: 49:28

you guys gonna head up to the smoking fire festival?

Unknown: 49:31

I think we all Yeah, we it was more than last year for us, which was really close to us but she's Colchester I think this year. That's right. We would love to go there. And we've got we got tickets are we about to get some we're gonna get some tickets. Some of our really good friends live in Colchester. So we're going with them very so though we'll be on with them and for looking around for a taste for the food. Meet again meet some more people who are you sort of going to try and get there?

Owen - Host: 49:57

Yeah, so this might be fire festival or partners for this season. Oh, yeah. So we're going to be there all weekend plugged in about and main people trying to

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 50:09

call me up. Yeah. Have a drink. Yeah.

Owen - Host: 50:12

Yeah, definitely. That's, that's the thing. It's so exciting to be able to get to do this after such a long time, right? Yeah.

Unknown: 50:18

I'm just looking forward to seeing other people cooking on a barbecue. It's been that long from being able to go out and to see people and look at different techniques and how people are doing things differently. So to have all of those different people set up, I cannot wait. Just walk around and watch that and taste everything. It's going to be fantastic. What we always find really fascinating is like the big American style smokers and I remember one of the things on the trailer on the trainer shower, remember last time they had things like when it was in mould, and they had like a car that they've turned into a smoker and stuff in. It was like they turned some really weird wonderful things into smokers. It was really interesting. Fascinating. Kind of

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 51:01

smoke fire. That's gonna be really good. Yeah.

Owen - Host: 51:04

Talking about those American trailer ones. They're like, what are caravans are like, they're so big.

Unknown: 51:10

Yeah. Like a bit like like the big shiny silver Airbus ones. Oh, yeah. They're cool.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 51:16

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown: 51:20

So are you going to the opening night? You're going to be there the whole weekend? whole weekend whole campaign. Gonna be an Owens garden. It's gonna be orange garden because Owens houses like, what? 1015 minute walk

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 51:39

already? Yeah, yeah.

Unknown: 51:42

Yeah. Originally, we wanted to go for like the whole weekend and they wanted to camp and things and then we kind of thought actually, no, we're going to have the kids with us. So I think we're just gonna go for the day now, aren't we? I think it might be quite like boozy and noisy. Having the Kids campaign we taught them how to cook, can we find a trigger and how to get prep everything, they will literally be fine.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 52:21

They'll be fine.

Owen - Host: 52:24

Right, so we've come to the show part of the show called barbecue bingo. We'd love you to cook, do a challenge for us. So every week we'll we'll spin a wheel which I'm about to pull up on the screen now. It's got lots of ingredients and whenever it lands on it's really high tech chips. Yeah, unfortunately, there's no chips, although I must add them on. One of the things we've put on here is mice my signature dish so what would your if that lands on my signature days? What would that be for you guys? You can take that one.

Unknown: 53:00

It would probably be some kind of crap. Or muscles. I like that something very different that we haven't had anyone do before. So definitely. Yeah. Kevin

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 53:16

if no one there

Owen - Host: 53:17

we haven't. No

Unknown: 53:22

we haven't. No, it's not going to is what that noise was.

Owen - Host: 53:27

To be fair, I've kind of every time we've been updating it we can week. It takes me longer and longer to think of some ingredients because we try and think of some things that are quite easy. Some things are quite accessible and trying to think of some things that might

Unknown: 53:41

be one thing. Never Done. Looking at that we've not done pork neck. And we've not done this and you're on the bucket. I've made lasagna before with leftover brisket. So that's been really it was smoked it was really really nice. Actually, that was myself. But we didn't cook it on the barbecue did Ray know that we'll

Owen - Host: 54:07

put the pork neck just before I spin the wheel. Yeah, I had a lovely piece of pork neck from Ford and sons. Yeah, and I could I clicked on the rotisserie for about an hour and 20 minutes and it was so tender. It's ready

Unknown: 54:20

to roll it like you would know

Owen - Host: 54:25

it came like a piece of pork belly just to sort of you know rectangular piece of meat and I literally just stuck it stuck. Yeah, yeah. Oh.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 54:35

Skin and stuff on it.

Owen - Host: 54:37

Oh no, it had lucky no luck. A tiny bit of fat but no,

Unknown: 54:46

you're gonna like this. I imagine a pork neck is up to pigs have long

Owen - Host: 54:50

necks. I think

Unknown: 54:55

I say that pace that way. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking it was that pace. Like

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 55:07

the American gun.

Owen - Host: 55:09

I think the Americans call it money the money muscle like incompetence, IQ. I think I'm not 100% Sure, though, but anyway, right, let's spin the wheel and see what you can

Unknown: 55:19

connect to Now one way you can do you know, what I always wanted to do is like candied bacon. Yeah, when you make it like remember, like, it goes that hard? Yeah, yeah. All like like full on sugar and caramelised so much to go off it goes bacon.

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 55:46

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think Kobe. All bacon.

Unknown: 55:52

No, you can you can use it in a meal. If you use it. Use it as an ingredient in something but I recommend candied bacon with like big fluffy eggs. Oh my god. You could make your own bacon. That would be good. I could make some

Hitchens Kitchen & Grill: 56:07

when do you need this cookbook?

Owen - Host: 56:12

An hour's time obviously we've we've found out lots about you and and your journey. Is there anything that perhaps we haven't talked about on the podcast in this episode or any other episode that you would actually like to, to talk about whether it's barbecue or not.

Unknown: 56:30

It's your time to talk to barbecue fans about anything you want your choice.

Owen - Host: 56:36

You have any fans? Think you've got lots of fans?

Unknown: 56:43

Already think of anything? Not mentioned. Just if you don't do it, try it. It's so much fun. I always think it makes cooking so much more fun. It's easier to clean up when everything's done outside. We we like doing it because the kids can be out there playing we can still keep an eye on and while we're sort of cooking. So rotten people really. Anything you can cook inside you can cook outside on the barbecue provided you've got a lid. And it just tastes better.

Dan - Host: 57:12

It does. It really does. Yeah.

Owen - Host: 57:16

I mentioned quiet. So do you want to give yourselves a final plug? Tell people where they can find you, your cooks and your accounts and things?

Unknown: 57:31

Oh, you can find us Hitchins kitchen and grill where you'll see a real mixture of sort of family food, grilled food, travelling our camper van and a bit of baking disaster. And that's on Instagram. Yeah, on Instagram. Yeah.

Owen - Host: 57:48

Great stuff. That's it. I think

Unknown: 57:54

it's coffee guys. Because I love everything that you do on the account, you can tell that it's real, if that makes sense. And that you're actually cooking to eat rather than Yeah, that's why I'm that we've actually been offered a few like paid opportunities for things. And we quite often, well actually always really turned down the paid stuff because they'll say we'll offer you this much money and we want you to do this. But you we want you to do this. We want to do that we want you to do this. And we was like no, what we do is we cook dinner for our family and then we snap a picture. We don't have time to cook for Instagram like we don't cook to take photos like we cook it that's what we eat. And often we're in such a rush to take the pictures because the boys are like trying to get at the food and I think it would kind of detract partly I want to improve our photography so that our photos are better. But actually at the same time so many people have actually said to me like your photos are actually a bit now. thing that I've made yours will look like mine you know I think oh sorry. I think sometimes you see something and you think wow that looks amazing. And then you make it and you're like that doesn't look like what this looked like and you'll never see any light scattered leaves around the side or scattered pine nuts because I've got time if we get a bit of flour up and then have to clean up Why would you make more clear enough for yourself?

Dan - Host: 59:33

Something over to

Unknown: 59:36

that looks nice and arty. I do think what you see is what you get, like styling. I think we'd probably do better if we did food styling but no, I didn't know the thing about your pages. It's so authentic in like a great way I mean, we've had this conversation before I don't think media or anything I do I think there's enough people following you to suggest that definitely isn't the case to be fair, but you can look at certain accounts and just think that looks fantastic, but it also doesn't look real. Whereas everything you've learned will tell you to be eaten. But I think Do you know what I do still love looking at those kinds of accounts because some inspiring is anything. And it really like some of the people who we follow only like him for example, photos, he's videos, they must take him hours for like a 32nd video. It must take him on a good few hours to film it, edit it and things of beauty. He's got like over a million followers on Tik Tok because he's so good at his videos. Yeah, so I think there is there is a place on Instagram and there's I think yeah, this space about these people who kind of this is what you can aspire to do and look how great my food is. And I don't mean that in a horrible way like Oh, look how good it is. But who genuinely takes such passion in presenting and they really typography skills and stuff but we don't have any photography skills so we just don't

Dan - Host: 1:01:16

point and shoot for as cold

Unknown: 1:01:19

my cameras like my phone is a bit that's what we take our photos on.

Owen - Host: 1:01:24

Tape together fun yeah, my Oh, thank you very much guys for coming on.

Dan - Host: 1:01:34

It's been great speaking to you as well. You too.

Unknown: 1:01:36

Yeah. Well, we will actually look you will come and find you. That sounds sinister. We will find like five

Dan - Host: 1:01:48

big labels on our tops will be easy to find. Don't you worry. Thanks, guys. Thanks. Bye

Owen - Host: 1:02:07

That's it for another episode of the meat & Greet BBQ podcast. It was great to chat with Kate and Neil about their BBQ journey and how they make it a real family affair and get their children involved cooking on their commando and Trager. You can find their Instagram profile on Hitchins kitchen and grill on Instagram. Likewise, you can find us at meat & Greet BBQ podcast on all social media channels at meat & Greet BBQ podcast. Make sure you follow the hashtag meat & Greet BBQ podcast and BBQ bingo. I want to reach out to all of our listeners. Again if there's anything that you would like to hear on the podcast, anything about barbecue that we're not talking about, please let us know and we'd be more than happy to have an open discussion about anything barbecue related. So please do get in touch either through our social media channels through our websites via email. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please like subscribe and hit the notification bell so you can hear more great content that we put out. Until next week, keep on grilling