Exploring a cookbook: "On Fire" by Francis Mallmann

This cookbook came out a few weeks ago, and I've been looking forward to it's release for a few months now. This is his second cookbook, with "Seven Fires - Grilling the Argentinian Way" being his first from five or so years ago. Cooking over live fire has been one of my favorite ways to cook for over 30 years, and Seven Fires was the first book in a long time that I found to be inspirational and revelatory. I've cooked my way through almost all of Seven Fires a few times at this point, and even in just a few weeks have put a dent in On Fire. So far I'm loving it.

Seven Fires introduces a concept of seven ways of cooking over fire - Parilla (grilling), Chapa (griddle), Infiernillo (screaming hot fire above and below), Horno de Barro (wood oven), Rescoldo (directly on coals), Asador (indirect over campfire), and Caldero (cast iron pot on fire, or dutch oven). On Fire recaps those techniques, and then follows them through most of the recipes. Where On Fire differs from Seven Fires is that it has no focus on Argentinian cooking or ingredients.

This is a great thing. Mallmann has plenty of experience with cuisines outside of Argentina, and that showed in Seven Fires. He makes that explicit in On Fire as he travels around the world with portable grills (check out posts on Chiditarod to see how much I love that idea). Seven Fires clearly went beyond traditional Argentinian cuisine, and it's great to have a book from him where he stays true to Argentinian methods, but feels free to expand upon it.

So...cooking from the book. Ironically Mallmann has inspired me to grill in different ways, but his two cookbooks have my favorite vegetable dishes, many of which are even uncooked. For example:

Shaved Artichokes a la Plancha with Comte Cheese



This is basically a griddled garlic bread with charred shaved artichokes and Comte cheese. Like many of Mallmann's recipes it's something I never would have thought of, but it made sense as soon as I saw it, and the taste is better than the sum of the parts.

Another great example in this vein is Beet and Orange salad with Arugula



It's a really straight forward salad, but the orange, feta, beet and arugula make a great combination. The recipe nails all of the ratios exactly, and it's an incredibly well balanced salad.

Other great things include Pork Loin Chops with Thyme Oil and Roasted Grapes



He has recipes for a few extract oils that are great, and very easy to make. The roasted grapes work really well with pork, and I'm thinking about other ways to use them.

And grilled pears wrapped in prosciutto



Overall this is another incredible cookbook from Mallmann. If you don't have Seven Fires you should probably buy that first, but this is also a great cookbook. I've made many more things from the book than I've posted here, and will post more in coming days.

Oh - another great meat one he has in On Fire is Smashed Chicken Breast in a Potato Crust with Tomato and Arugula Salad.

The basic concept is to thin slice a bunch of potatoes on a mandoline, and then cover a chicken breast with them and grill the whole thing.





This is, ummmm, difficult to flip. I found that a pizza peel worked best.



Surprisingly, I felt that the potatoes did keep the chicken more moist, and gave it an improved flavor. While I had decent success on the first try, I know I can do much better with a couple more attempts, and plan on doing so.

I'm still working through the book, and really liking everything I've tried so far.

Two cooking habits I picked up from "Seven Fires" are charring tomatoes and carrots to a point beyond what seems reasonable. Both seem to gain a lot of flavor from this, and carrots gain a complex sweetness that's really nice. He builds upon this in "On Fire" with grilled carrots with aged ricotta and oregano on toast.



Like all of his recipes, the concept is deceptively simple. Char some thinly sliced carrots on the grill, char some Ricotta Salata on a griddle, and place on sourdough toast (toasted on the griddle of course) and cover with thinly sliced red onion, oregano and lemon zest. There's also garlic and a few other things in the recipe, but that main idea is the core of it. It, is, great.

On a side note, I was surprised to find that Mariano's on Ashland has Ricotta Salata. I had only worked with it once before in another Mallmann recipe, but it's a great cheese that I'm planning to use more frequently.

I did another recipe tonight that turned our incredibly well. This one was "Octopus in an iron box with Chard, Green Beans, Tomatoes, and Eggs". Other than the eggs* I did everything on the grill almost exactly as he described in the recipe.

One thing that was new to me in this recipe was the way he cooked the octopus before throwing it on the grill. The technique was very specific - you plunge the octopus into boiling water for 10 seconds and then remove it a few times before you leave it in to simmer for a bit. Even after that he has you removing it from the heat for an equal amount of time that's it's been on the heat, and then returning it to a simmer....and then shutting off the heat...and then turn it on again...Anyways, I don't cook octopus (or squid for that matter) nearly as much as I'd like, and his method works incredibly well. I'm not sure if this is a normal way to do it that I've never heard of, or if it's something new.

Overall this is one of the more ambitious recipes in the cookbook. It calls for heating 4 iron boxes over a hot wood fire (I only had three, but I made it work). Other than braising the octopus everything is cooked on the grill. Each box is wiped with Olive Oil and then gets sliced half head of garlic placed in the oil. After the garlic softens a bit you wipe the pan with the half head and really infuse the oil with the garlic. This is something that could also work with a griddle or pan, and I'm definitely going to be trying this technique for other things. Everything gets charred/cooked the iron boxes (without a lid) and then drizzled with a Salsa Provenzal of garlic and parsley. Oh, and there are small potatoes too. You boil those and char them as well. All of it just goes on a plate and it's good to go. Really simple overall, but it makes for a frantic cook having all of that stuff on the grill at the same time.



The octopus was more tender than any I've made before (tho' I'm not an expert in that area), and the egg really worked well with the potatoes. This was actually the recipe I've learned the most from so far - the garlic heads in the iron boxes, the octopus baths, and the egg on charred potatoes. Woo hoo!

*I tried doing the eggs on a griddle on the grill and discovered that my grill was not as level as I thought - they went right into the fire so I did the eggs on my camp stove instead.