Building a Tandoor
I love cooking outside and as a family we do a lot of cooking on wood which you'll have realised if you've read my blog. We had a gas grill for a while which I hated (I refuse to call it a barbecue) and as it died fairly spectacularly last month I was relieved to get back to our elderly charcoal barbecue and cooking on a campfire when the weather is nice. Sadly, that's not much at the moment; it would be like trying to light a fire in a monsoon.
We've been talking about building a pizza oven for a long time but we never seem to get started and I am also conscious that they use a lot of fuel, although in theory it could burn on Tudor-style faggots of twigs, but then that's another thing to source, make and store. We'd also need to decide on a permanent position to site it, so all in all it's still under consideration.
But then homemade tandoors have been popping up recently, on tv and on the internet. They can be made moveable, are reasonably versatile and with the right constituents are pretty much an assembly job. Father's Day was coming up and it was the perfect time to make one.
I read various articles on how to make one and combined a couple of methods, mostly for ease. Several suggested sawing the bottom off of a terracotta pot, which takes hours, so I used a chimney pot instead.
A tandoor in principle is an insulated clay cylinder with an air intake, with a fire lit at the base. In mine, the cylinder is the chimney with a small pot underneath to hold the charcoal, insulated with vermiculite and held in a large terracotta pot.
We were assembling it around the corner of the house so my husband wouldn't see it before it was finished, hence the rather dingy setting.
I bought a large terracotta pot from a local plant nursery. It wasn't too expensive as it was a second (but I haven't found what's wrong with it) and I got a second smaller pot that would fit inside it. This will be where the fire is lit.
A friend helped us drill extra holes in the base of both and this was the hardest bit of the whole thing. The factory made pot was relatively straight forward but the big pot was very thick and drilling took a while with one person dripping water on the hole whilst the other drilled to reduce heat and particles. These holes will be the air intake for the fire.
The small pot needs to be raised to allow air flow so I found bits of crock which I placed in between the air holes of the large pot and balanced the small pot on top. I'm not sure I got this quite straight so I may redo it at some point. We'll see.
We packed around the small fire pot with vermiculite.
We moved it onto the patio, sitting it on some old bricks to let air in underneath (and discovered problem number 2- the vermiculite wants to escape through the air holes underneath. Going to think if we can do anything about that) and lit a fire in the bottom.
Tandoori seasoning
mix together equal parts of
salt
cayenne
cumin
coriander seeds (ground)
fennel seeds (ground)
turmeric
ginger
mustard powder
paprika (sweet or hot)
chilli powder
Use as a rub (in which case add garlic powder to the list) or mix about 3 tablespoons with half a cup of natural yoghurt and 2 tablespoons of lime juice and some crushed garlic to make a paste.
Cover the meat/vegetables/fish to be cooked in the mixture and marinate for a couple of hours. You don't want to leave it too long in a yoghurt/acid mix as it might soften the meat too much.
Thread onto skewers and cook!
We served them with raita (natural yoghurt with salt, turmeric and chopped mint as it's too early for cucumbers here), bombay potatoes, chopped crunchy lettuce and a red and green cabbage slaw with carrot and onion in a lime and oil dressing and garlic and coriander naan breads.
We've been talking about building a pizza oven for a long time but we never seem to get started and I am also conscious that they use a lot of fuel, although in theory it could burn on Tudor-style faggots of twigs, but then that's another thing to source, make and store. We'd also need to decide on a permanent position to site it, so all in all it's still under consideration.
But then homemade tandoors have been popping up recently, on tv and on the internet. They can be made moveable, are reasonably versatile and with the right constituents are pretty much an assembly job. Father's Day was coming up and it was the perfect time to make one.
I read various articles on how to make one and combined a couple of methods, mostly for ease. Several suggested sawing the bottom off of a terracotta pot, which takes hours, so I used a chimney pot instead.
A tandoor in principle is an insulated clay cylinder with an air intake, with a fire lit at the base. In mine, the cylinder is the chimney with a small pot underneath to hold the charcoal, insulated with vermiculite and held in a large terracotta pot.
We were assembling it around the corner of the house so my husband wouldn't see it before it was finished, hence the rather dingy setting.
I bought a large terracotta pot from a local plant nursery. It wasn't too expensive as it was a second (but I haven't found what's wrong with it) and I got a second smaller pot that would fit inside it. This will be where the fire is lit.
A friend helped us drill extra holes in the base of both and this was the hardest bit of the whole thing. The factory made pot was relatively straight forward but the big pot was very thick and drilling took a while with one person dripping water on the hole whilst the other drilled to reduce heat and particles. These holes will be the air intake for the fire.
The small pot needs to be raised to allow air flow so I found bits of crock which I placed in between the air holes of the large pot and balanced the small pot on top. I'm not sure I got this quite straight so I may redo it at some point. We'll see.
The chimney pot was balanced on top and we filled up the large pot with vermiculite. This is when we realised how light vermiculite is so we improvised with bits of broken pot to try to stop it blowing around. We'll eventually find something else to weigh it down, maybe broken slate or something.
We moved it onto the patio, sitting it on some old bricks to let air in underneath (and discovered problem number 2- the vermiculite wants to escape through the air holes underneath. Going to think if we can do anything about that) and lit a fire in the bottom.
 |
| Smoke! |
 |
| Flames! |
We let it burn and get up to temperature, adding a bit more charcoal occasionally. We're experimenting with a lid (old rice cooker bowl) on and off to see if it helps. Meanwhile I'd made lamb and prawn kebabs and some naan bread dough...
Delicious! And Dad was very pleased with his present. Now if it will just stop raining we can try it out again.
Tandoori seasoning
mix together equal parts of
salt
cayenne
cumin
coriander seeds (ground)
fennel seeds (ground)
turmeric
ginger
mustard powder
paprika (sweet or hot)
chilli powder
Use as a rub (in which case add garlic powder to the list) or mix about 3 tablespoons with half a cup of natural yoghurt and 2 tablespoons of lime juice and some crushed garlic to make a paste.
Cover the meat/vegetables/fish to be cooked in the mixture and marinate for a couple of hours. You don't want to leave it too long in a yoghurt/acid mix as it might soften the meat too much.
Thread onto skewers and cook!
We served them with raita (natural yoghurt with salt, turmeric and chopped mint as it's too early for cucumbers here), bombay potatoes, chopped crunchy lettuce and a red and green cabbage slaw with carrot and onion in a lime and oil dressing and garlic and coriander naan breads.
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