Now there is no doubt that this was a bit of an extravagant buy. We have a Big Green Egg, so why get another Kamado? For us, there were a couple of reasons actually.
Primarily, we wanted something that was more portable. Our BGE is the small size, but that weighs in at about 60KG and even for an athlete like me it’s just too big to move around easily. We travel and camp a lot and love campfire (or gas-fueled) cooking so the fact that the advertised weight of the Aldi Kamado is only 20KG was an enticing one. Secondly, the price. EIGHTY QUID! It almost seemed too good to be true but in that price range we felt we could take a bit of a punt and not feel too burned if it turned out to be a bad buy.
It is not a bad buy. Rather worryingly, the delivery guy left the box on it’s side by the front door so I panicked at first when I picked it up to hear the ominous grating of ceramic on ceramic. We’ve all seen those clips of Amazon drivers lobbing parcels over fences and I was worried that I was about to have to get on the phone to Aldi and organise a replacement. However, it turned out that is was the inner firebox rubbing on the main shell so, you know, panic over.
The Kamado comes with the above-mentioned 1 piece firebox, a 25cm grill (which is nice and heavy and sturdy-looking) and a tripod stand which needs to be assembled with a few bolts. You get a cheap spanner and screwdriver in the pack for this – they look ropey as anything but they do the job. You also get a daisy-wheel type cap for the top of the dome – this is like the old-style BGE cap but looks like it is stamped out of a metal sheet, rather than being cast iron. In all honesty, I would say this is the only part of the package that looks cheap and nasty. The Kamado itself looks great – the outside is smooth, not dimpled and the black finish is really good. The hardware holding the top dome to the bottom looks nice and sturdy and the springs at the back do noticeable help when opening it up. The felt forming the seal looks OK, but it has been applied a bit haphazardly so my guess is that this will need to be replaced before the end of the summer.
It really is portable. I haven’t weighed it, but I would guess it would be in the same ball park as a sack of flour. Or a biggish dog. Or three quite podgy cats. Suffice it to say, I would have no problem getting it from the garden to the van to take away with us. The tripod stand really is good and keeps everything nice and stable.
Having loaded it up with a couple of handfuls of charcoal, I lit a small fire just to try to warm it up quite gently for it’s first outing. It worked really well, but already I can report that the top vent cap is shockingly poor. It’s incredibly loose and so each time the dome is lifted, it falls open. It also doesn’t seal particularly well so when you’ve finished cooking, it doesn’t really shut off the fire very well. It’s my only quibble with the whole thing I think and sourcing a third party replacement is going to be something I look out for in the coming weeks.
Anyway, on to the cooking which is, I guess, why most of you are here anyway. The first thing I did was chicken thighs marinated overnight in a shop-bought teriyaki sauce. I cooked them whole and sliced them up to serve as part of a Japanese-style salad. They were absolutely lush! I got all the benefits of Kamado cooking and the chicken was firm, juicy and delicious. The thighs did stick to the grill a bit, but I put this down to the sugar content of the marinade coupled with the fact that I probably should have oiled the bars a bit to try to get them seasoned up.
The next thing was venison burgers from Marks and Spencer’s. They were amazing; super lean as you would expect venison to be but still juicy and really tasty. The cheese you see in the photo is bog-standard, plasticky Monterey Jack which melted perfectly, just like the Marshmallow Man at the denouement of Ghostbusters. We had them simply served in a ciabatta roll with ketchup and a Greek-style salad that Polly put together. They were great.
All in all, I think the Aldi Kamado has been a great buy. It does what we need it to do, it’s easy to move around and I am sure it will get a fair bit of use on our travels this summer. The 25cm grill is big enough for 4 burgers and 4 chicken thighs, so I guess for a family meal you’d have enough space. It’s pretty efficient on charcoal and gets nice and hot quite quickly. Adjusting the temperature is more of a challenge because of the poor quality of the cap, but perfectly serviceable if using it just as a grill. I notice there are guys on eBay selling deflector plates for about £30 that will allow one to cook low and slow – maybe I’ll take the plunge and report back. To sum up, I would say that for £80 it’s a proper bargain. If you are looking to get into the BGE/Kamado Joe world, getting one of these would be a great place to start.
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