Finding Fire: Cooking at Its Most Elemental (Second Edition)

In his acclaimed Sydney restaurant, Firedoor, author Lennox Hastie has no gas or electric powered cooking sources, only wood-fired grills, ovens, and a hearth. This has not limited his menu—it has inspired it.

This is not a book about barbecue. This is a book about the basic element of cooking—fire—and how to harness it in service of flavor and creativity.

In Finding Fire, Hastie covers practical matters such as knowing your environment, reading the fire, and sharpening your instincts, as well as the life-cycle of a fire (crucial to knowing what to cook when).

He then goes into depth on the subjects of building a fire (with techniques for various vessels and cooking tools), and selecting wood (including a comprehensive chart analyzing wood types and their use). In the over 90 recipes that follow, sidebars offer recommendations for the type of wood, the heat level, necessary equipment, and more.

Recipes include: okra with roasted chilli, ginger, and garlic; asparagus with mussel cream and rye; bone marrow with sea urchin and purslane; Otoro tuna with fennel and edamame; abalone with black bean and beach herbs; and even whole goat. Dessert recipes include cape gooseberry pavlova with elderberry cream, and blood orange upside down cake. There is also a section on fire-enhanced cocktails with recipes including pear and lemon thyme bellini; grilled ginger daiquiri; and chestnut roasted negroni. And the list goes on.

Hardcover. Full color photography throughout.