Cooking Techniques

Please submit your cooking techniques to: chef@electrickamado.com

May 7,2011 Anchorage Alaska

We have used an Electric Kamado #5 for approximately 10 years and love it. As you might suspect 110V is perfect for most baking but even though the heavy thick ceramic walls keep the 1800 watt heat in, it is nice to be able to increase the temperature for high searing. We do this by adding a few briquettes, wood chunks or lump directly on the electric element to start them and eventually fall into the ceramic firebox We also keep some wood chips in the firebox when we are cooking with electric and simply open the drafts to allow a little combustion air which will ignite them. The electric element is left on and actually provides most of the heat.

Our plan is to upgrade to the new 220V electric burner which provides twice the wattage. We have a 220V electric dryer so we do have sufficient power to our condo. We have considered buying a new #3 electric Kamado which would not need the additional power and works fine with 110V but as you can see from the pictures our #5 is like new and has every accessory we can think of.

We have used an Electric Kamado #5 for approximately 10 years and love it. As you might suspect 110V is perfect for most baking but even though the heavy thick ceramic walls keep the 1800 watt heat in, it is nice to be able to increase the temperature for high searing. We do this by adding a few briquettes, wood chunks or lump directly on the electric element to start them and eventually fall into the ceramic firebox We also keep some wood chips in the firebox when we are cooking with electric and simply open the drafts to allow a little combustion air which will ignite them. The electric element is left on and actually provides most of the heat.

Our plan is to upgrade to the new 220V electric burner which provides twice the wattage. We have a 220V electric dryer so we do have sufficient power to our condo. We have considered buying a new #3 electric Kamado which would not need the additional power and works fine with 110V but as you can see from the pictures our #5 is like new and has every accessory we can think of.

Danny S

Ribs on upper bracket grill in rib rack

Turkey and veggies on lower bracket Low and Slow Ribs in Alaska winter

May 5, 2011

Chicken Gyros

Chicken

You will need:
3 lb boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, 4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
6 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons Oregano
juice of 1 large lemon
¼ Tahhini Dressing
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Combine all ingredients except chicken, and mix well. Place in a ziplock bag or bowl, and add chicken. Shake to ensure the marinade is covering chicken. Allow to marinate in refrigerator overnight.
Grill for roughly 15 minutes on each side of chicken breast at 375. Cooking time varies with the thickness of the chicken breast. * My chicken breast came in a package with each chicken breast weighing almost a pound so I cut them in half and.

Tzatziki
You will need:
6 oz Greek Yogurt
juice of 1/2 of a medium lemon
1 med cucumber, peeled
4 large cloves garlic, minced
Garlic Salt taste Black Pepper to taste 1 Tablespoon Dill

Slice cucumber in half, length wise. Using a spoon, scrape out seeds, dice cucumber.
Then combine Greek yogurt, lemon juice, cucumber, garlic, garlic salt, dill, and pepper. Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving.
Brush whole wheat pita bread with a little olive oil, or butter and then place right on the main grill just warm the pita bread. Then add Tzatziki, tomatoes, lettuce, red onion, and Chicken. Adding feta cheese is really good as well.

November 1, 2010

I have an overal comment on temperature in the Electric Kamado. I have used a #7 charcoal Kamado purchased in Sacramento, California over 11 years ago. I have used the Kamado one or twice each week and consider myself smewhat ofany expert cooking in Kamados. Last year, my wife and I moved to a condo and purchased an EK #3 as there are restrictions on the use of charcoal and the size of our balcony. I think the basic temperature is350 degrees is 350 degrees, for example. It doesn't matter much whether 350 degrees is in a Weber Ketter, #7, #3 Kamado or whatever. I do, however, think the ceramic Kamados cook a little faster because of the uniform temperature inside the vessel. We use the same temperature settings on our EK 3 as we used in the #7 charcoal Kamado, whether doing low and slow of charboiling steaks. You will have the best food ever!

- Bill N.

October 7, 2010

After posting the review on cooking pizzas in the #3 Electric Kamado (below), we received an e-mail from another one of our valued customers who wanted to share their story.

Double grill DiGiorno pizza cooking on #3 Electric Kamado

Chris N., Las Vegas, NV

I read C.N.'s description of cooking pizza and I certainly agree that the #3 Electrick Kamado cooks pizza far better than in a kitchen over. There is something about cooking in ceramics!

I am a laid off union iron worker living in Las Vegas. My wife, four kids and I had to move from a big home to a fairly nice 3 bedroom apartment with a small balcony. A lifetime of BBQ grilling ended because of the restrictions on gas or charcoal grills! By some miracle, I came across Electric Kamado website and was able to purchase a #3. Wow, are we happy! We BBQ everything we can think of and more. Even though there are six of us (myself, wife, two nine year old boys and six and two year old girls) the #3 works perfect. Of course, at the rate my boys are growing and eating the larger #5 EK is about a year away.

We have a stainless steel lower bracket and grill for cooking on the lower grill, as well as on the main grill, when we cook two pizza. We like to cook two pizza at a time rather than one after another, as we always eat together. The third pizza, if necessary, is usually cooked and done before the first two are devoured. The pictures below show our DiGiorno frozen "Supreme" pizza and a Cheese pizza. We put the supreme on the lower grill and the cheese on the main grill. If you look carefully, you can see the pizza on the lower grill. Sometimes we will switch pizzas midpoint, as in one of the pictures, in order to allow direct heat to both. As a general rule, we follow the cook times stated on the frozen pizza boxes, but now with experience we just Kook!

I can't imagine how much we saved by Kooking at home rather than going out or ordering delivered pizzas. But more important, it is fun for all of us and better pizza.

If anyone is interested in visiting us to see our #3 EK in action, we would be happy to invite you so you can check it out. We are in no way sales representatives or the like, just happy to pass on our lifesaving BBQ experience and recommend a great prodcut. Please contact Electric Kamado and they will place you in contact with me.

October 3, 2010

Cooking Pizzas in #3 Electric Kamado

We have the #3 Electric Kamado using 110V electricity simply plugged into our patio electric outlet. Our favorite is cooking pizza in the EK for my wife and I, as well as many guest we often entetain. There is absolutely nothing like the "brick-oven" taste and the uniform easy technique as described below. We often enjoy making our own pizzas but on the nights that we want a quick fix, we go to the trusty DiGiorno's frozen pizza.

(Photo courtsey of DiGiorno's)

In either case, frozen pizza or homemade, the cooking techniques are similar. I share with you, how I cook my delicious pizza in our #3 Electric Kamado.

First: Close the damper top, draft door and lid in order to close off the airflow and plug in the electrical cord to our 110V outlet. We preheat our EK #3 to 400 degree. This generally takes about 15 to 20 minutes.

Second: We place the frozen pizza (approximately 12" diameter) on a cookie sheet for softer crust or directly on the grill for crisper crust, depending upon you or your guests taste. We sometimes place the pizza on an EK pizza stone, which makes an even softer crust than the cookie sheet, as shown in this picture.

Third: Wait 25 minutes for the pizza (or the time as directed on the pizza box).One of our other favorites is the Crispy Flatbread Chicken Pizza, which only takes 11 to 14 minutes.

Fourth: Remove and let stand for a minutes and enjoy!

One pizza generally serves four and if we have guests over, we put another two-three pizzas on (separately) as the heavy ceramic walls retains and maintains the 400 plus temperature.

If a lower temperature is desired, simply open the draft door and damper top one inch or so to allow a little airflow to reduce the temperature. We normally have to do a thing! It's great! There is a much better taste cooking in ceramics rather than our oven in our and all our guest's opinion. Cooking in our Kamado really is "different and better."

We have been cooking pizza on the electric for years. Our condo has a restriction on the use of "open flame" grilling, which includes charcoal and gas. Electric grilling is allowed by both our homeowners association and the Fire Department, thankfully!

As convenient as frozen pizza is, nothing can be better than our pizzas that we make from scratch, especially when koccked in our ceramic Electric Kamado.

Electric Kooking

The first thing you observe and will be pleasantly suprised is how moist the food turns out. This "magic" is simply the fact that the moisture cannot esacpe because the damper top, draft door and lif are tightly closed when cooking with electric.

The methods of cooking are a little different depending upon whether 110V or 220V electric element and to a certain degree the size of the Electric Kamado. Whether gas, charcoal or electric the magic of cooking in the Electric Kamado is the retained heat in the ceramic walls. It is the ceramic mass that radiates the uniform and brick oven taste and moisture like no other cooking vessel. The damper top, draft door and lid are normally closed during cooking, there is no moisture or flavor escaping to the atmosphere but rather all moisture remains inside your heavy walled Kamado. Your personal cooking experience after a few cooks in the Electric Kamado will be all that is necessary to develop your own ideas and techniques. It is next to impossible to not have successful first cook and soon to be one of the best. Many of the tens of thousands of charcoal Kamados have switched to the Electric Kamado because of homeowners restrictions preventing the use of gas or charcoal grills. On the other hand, there are many earlier Kamado owners who have found the easee of operation of the Electric Kamado is perfect but more importantly, the food is better by being moister than the excellent results we have had with the charcoal Kamado; since they add a little charcoal or smoking chips for flavoring. Note that all Electric Kamado's have a ceramic "firebox" charcoal or wood holder that is used for flavoring and not necessarily for heat source, since the damper top, draft foor and lid are closed when cooking so there is no combustion air to ignite the charcoal or wood chips, however, they do emit the desired barbeque flavor.

We have hotel resturants using #9 Electric Kamados and for obvious reasons, do not attempt to give advice to expert chefs other than thank them for expandng the reputation of "cooking in ceramics."

The following links belows should give you a head start to years of excellent Kooking.

110V Electric Element

Two 110V Electric Elements

220V Electric Element

Cooking with 110V Element. This is the simplest operation as the electric element is just plugged into the ordinary household electrical outlet and the electric element temperature remains constant and the cooking temperature control is done "manualy" by configuration or placement of the cooking grill or baking stone depends upon whether smoking (lower 200F degree range), baking (medium 350F degree range) or broiling (searing in the 450F range). Baking temperatures are normally reached in about 10 minutes and another 10 to 15 minutes for the walls to become heat soaked. When the walls have been "heat soaked" the extraordinary magic of ceramic cooking occurs from the radiation from ceramic mass.

Broiling would typically be configured with the cooking grill on the lower bracket and closer to the electric elements. Another accessory option is the adjustable grill which can be lowered within a few inches of the electric element for searing and later raised to a baking height.

Baking is normally on the main grill, with or without, a baking stone/heat deflector on the lower bracket.

Smoking lower temperatures would be achived by opening the damper top and draft door and placing the heat deflector on the lower bracket. It is suggested that a few pieces of your favorite smoking wood blocks (larger chips) be placed in the firebox that will give an authentic smoking flavor to the food, yet will not ignite because there will not be sufficient combustion air into the cooking chamber.

Cooking with two 110V electric elements. With this set-up, one element is installed in the base of the Electric Kamado and the second element is installed in the lid of the Electric Kamado. Either 120V element is plugged into any ordinary household electrical outlet or both elements into their individual outlets. Inital heat up is very fast; approxiamately 500 degrees achieved within 5 or 6 minutes as shown by the external probe temperature guage. Typically, it will take an additional 10 minutes or more to heat soak the walls.

Broiling would normally be done with both electric elementsplugged in and food cooked on the main cooking grill.

Baking would be done with either the upper element or the lower with food on the main cooking grill. High baking temperature, both elements might be used with a heat deflector on the lower bracket with a drip pan placed on the heat deflector.

Smoking with either the upper or lower electric element is used, but only use one.

Cooking with the 240V electric element. 240V is the standard household current used in Europe and most countries, except the United States. We highly recommend converting 120V to 240V, if not already installed, as this is a simple conversion and doubles the watts or heat output with the same amperage. Please see converting from 120V to 240V for instructions on this conversion procedure. All Electric Kamados with 240V electric elements have automatic temperature controllers, which allows you to set the desired temperature degree on the dial, much like you would do in your kitchen oven, andthe temperature will remain steady within a few degrees. After the desired temperature is dialed in there is a red light illuminating when cycling. The temperature rise is extremly fast and usually about 600 degrees in close to 10 minutes. The walls will absorb the heat equally fast and ready to cook at any time. We do like to cook with the walls "heat soaked" for uniform and reatined ceramic heat doing most of the baking and smoking. However, for searing steaks it is recommended to use the lower bracket and grill close to the electric element where temperatures are much higher when set to highest on the temperature controller.

Broiling at high temperature setting of 550 degrees and food placed on the main cooking grill. Searing may be done on the lower bracket and grill, or with the adjustable grill where temperatures are approximately 700 degrees.

Baking is set at approximately 350 degrees or as desired and noramlly food is placed on the main cooking grill with the heat deflector on the lower bracket.