Smoke without fire

“WITH A BIT OF THOUGHT, YOU CAN RECREATE SUN-KISSED MEALS WITHOUT HEADING OUTDOORS”

Words: Melissa Thompson

For many people, the appearance of the summer sun in London marks the start of barbecue season. Home gardens are crowned with wispy smoke from charcoal grills while on balconies, groups of friends converge around small grills packed with sizzling sausages.

But what happens when you crave barbecue but you don’t have outside space? For lots of city folk, grilling outside isn’t an option due to a lack of outside space, or strict landlords who ban barbecuing at all. How can replicate the flavours of fire-cooked food, without the flames?

Thankfully, there are plenty of tricks for doing this within the confines of your four walls. It might not be as good as cooking over coals, but with a bit of thought, you can get close enough, easily recreating stunning sun-kissed meals without even stepping foot outdoors.

Go electric

Using a wood or charcoal grill indoors is extremely dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. The fuel uses up oxygen as it combusts, releasing carbon dioxide in the process. In an enclosed space – an inside room or a tent – this can lead to a very real risk of suffocation, on top of the risk of fire. But there’s no risk of that with an electric grill. And while I love live fire above all else, electric grills yield surprisingly brilliant results.

As your food cooks, it releases juices and fats, which vaporise on the heating element, sending smoke back up into the food. The flavour this imparts will leave your guests convinced that what they’re eating has been cooked over fire.

Choose smoked ingredients

One of the easiest ways to inject a bit of smokiness into your food is through the ingredients you choose. I avoid liquid smoke – it can dominate and make food unpleasant – but some spices and seasonings, such as the smoked paprika and smoked salt found at Spice Mountain, have already been smoked over real wood.

The best dishes are layered with flavour, and if those layers feature a lot of already-smoky ingredients – think lamb kofta, marinated halloumi and smoky hummus – then the finished dish will take on a flame-kissed aspect without any fire ever hitting the food.

Find the perfect pan

Using a griddle – a pan with raised bars built into it – is a cheat’s way of making food look like it’s been cooked in the great outdoors. This doesn’t necessarily translate into barbecue flavour, but as we eat at least in part with our eyes, those darker grill marks can help play tricks on the tastebuds.

This is definitely the case with halloumi, and with griddled stone fruits in a salad – especially peaches. Using a heavy cast iron pan to cook steaks or smash burgers is another way to build up intense heat and create a perfect sear. Just get the pan smoking hot before you start cooking.

Adopt the tin foil method

It’s perfectly possible to add smoke to food using nothing more than a tray, some tin foil and some wood chips. Add wood chips to the bottom of a fireproof metal tray. Add a rack, lay your food on top, and place the tray over a gas hob. Turn the heat up high, and once the wood chips start smoking, cover everything with tin foil and secure it tightly. Try to ‘tent’ the foil to give the smoke lots of space in which to circulate.

If you don’t have a gas hob, arrange the wood chips into a pile on the tray and ignite a small section. Once they’re smouldering, add the food on its rack, then cover with foil. Eventually, the fire will go out but the chips will continue smoking. Leave untouched for at least an hour before uncovering and then continue cooking the food on the hob or in the oven as normal.

This works really well with fish – think trout, mackerel or salmon – as well as chicken legs or wings. You can use tea leaves instead of wood chips for a more delicate but equally delicious smoke flavour.

Burn baby burn

If I can’t get access to an outdoor space with a grill, I employ whatever indoor tools I can to add some extra-intense heat. When I had a gas hob, I did this by burning foods, especially vegetables, in the naked flame. Nowadays, like a lot of people, I have an induction hob, so I tend to use the oven grill instead.

Aubergines blasted beneath a red-hot grill will essentially burn the skin until it’s blackened. Once peeled, this yields intensely smoky flesh, perfect for baba ghanoush, and no one needs know it wasn’t cooked over fire. You can do the same with other ingredients such as courgettes, leeks and even onions. Cooking them this way renders their flesh incredibly sweet and smoky at the same time, which creates the perfect foundation for a beautiful meal.

Make a flavoured oil

One of my favourite barbecue dishes is burnt leeks with walnut romesco, made by grilling leeks over fire until their skins are blackened and the flesh is completely soft. They’re left to steam in newspaper before being peeled. If fire isn’t an option, you can burn leeks under the grill of a conventional oven as mentioned above and then keep the burnt skins to turn into an oil.

Just blitz with a neutral oil, leave to infuse, and then strain through a fine muslin cloth. The resultant oil will take on a lovely smokiness that, when used to dress dishes, adds a delicious subtle flavour.

Air fry

I found out by accident that using an air fryer with hardy herbs can bring lovely smokiness to a dish. I once did this with jerk chicken, which I know could and should inspire the wrath of my fellow Jamaicans everywhere, but let me explain!

Marinate the jerk chicken as usual. Create a bed of bay branches and leaves, lay the chicken on top and cover with more bay. Air fry at 220C for 10 minutes until the leaves start to smoulder, then reduce the heat to 160C until the chicken is cooked through, keeping the lid on throughout to capture the smoke. It gives the meat a lovely smokiness reminiscent of traditional jerk. You could try the same using rosemary and thyme.

If all else fails…

If you don’t have the outside space for a barbecue at home, you can always find a patch of ground somewhere else. But one of the biggest cons ever is the disposable barbecue. They’re bad for the environment, dangerous (people have been hospitalised with burns after stepping onto the area where the barbecues had been) and, frustratingly, they don’t cook food very well.

A well-made travel barbecue, on the other hand, can cook everything from burgers and sausages to slow-roasted lamb shoulder. They’re incredibly versatile, far more sustainable and usually cost around £100 brand new, so with enough use, they’re a good investment. You can also find them second hand. They can fold up to be stored at home and brought out for use in parks, beaches or other outside spots – just make sure they’re allowed!

Fired Up: Fresh Takes and Big Flavours in 90 Modern Barbecue Recipes by Melissa Thompson (Carnival, £22) is out now.