Fun with a Flambadou

A what? 

A flambadou is used to melt fats or butter over whatever it is you are preparing to add flavour and to add a last-minute scorch of heat to finish off the cooking. It consists of a metal cone with the wide opening at the top and a much smaller hole at the bottom – the cone is attached to a long handle. You put your butter in the top and it melts out of the bottom and onto your food. I got mine from Axel Perkins whose strapline is “Cook outside more” (very happy to do so) and it cost about 50 quid. 

The flambadou can be used in 2 different ways, kind of analogous to grilling or cooking low and slow. The low and slow way is to hang the flambadou above your food so that it receives only gentle indirect heat from the fire. This means the butter will melt gently and baste your fish or steak or vegetables as they cook. The second way is much more intense (and much more fun). This method involves burying the flambadou in the embers of your fire until it is almost red hot. At this point, any fat dropped into the cone will instantly catch alight, melt super quickly and will cook and caramelise the food below. It is spectacular, particularly if you have guests, but stout heat-proof gloves are a must. 

I have tried this method both with beef fat rendered from the trimmings of a whole beef forerib and with flavoured butter on meat and vegetables. Although both are delicious, I think I prefer the butter since, as the food cools down the beef fat tends to dominate the flavour a bit too much for my liking. Cold butter remains delicious, cold beef fat does not. 

My ambition is to recreate Niklas Ekstedt’s flamed oyster recipe from his “Food from the Fire” book and I will let you know how it goes the next time I have some oysters, but for now these 2 recipes are the ones that have worked best for me so far.  

Steak with herby garlic butter 

For the Butter  

100g butter at room temperature
A good bunch of Tarragon – substitute any leafy herbs you like if you are not a fan – parsley works just as well.
A clove of garlic
An anchovy fillet
A drip or two of Pernod (optional)
A drip or 2 of hot sauce 

The method is a doddle – chop the tarragon as finely as you can and smash the garlic and anchovy fillet with a pinch of salt in a pestle and mortar until you have a very fine, smooth paste. This is important as big chunks of anything will block the flambadou and frankly it is a bit of a bugger to clean. Now add the Pernod and blend with the butter. Lay a sheet of cling film on your work surface and put the butter in the middle – if you can, make it into a kind of log. Now roll up the cling and twist the ends so you get a tight sausage of butter and then stick it back in the fridge to set. The reason for this is that it is then very easy to slice off the amount you need, and it’s the right shape to go into the flambadou. 

For the steak 

You can use any kind of steak for this, but when I tried the flambadou for the first time I had a good slab of rump which was perfect. Light your barbecue, let it heat up and then cook the steak how you like it. Leave time to let it rest for a good 10 minutes on a cooler part of your grill, well away from the heat. While it’s resting, stick the flambadou into the burning embers to heat up – it should be shimmeringly hot. Slice the steak thinly and then lift onto a warmed dish or plate. Now invite your audience to gather round, but make sure you keep them at a safe distance with their cameras at the ready. This is the fun bit. Wearing heat proof gloves, hold the cone over the steak and add a couple of slices of your tarragon butter; it should catch fire immediately, but if it doesn’t, move the cone back over the coals, as if you were lighting the brandy for the Christmas pud. As the butter melts, move the flambadou so each slice gets doused. As soon as the butter has all gone, the flames will die down. I’m lucky that I have the fire cage with hooks to hang the flambadou on to cool down, but if you are having a go yourself, make sure you have a safe place to put it down. Serve your steak immediately and bask in the glow of the adulation from your guests. 

Root veg with fennel butter. 

This is adapted from the recipe in “Charred” by Genevieve Taylor.
For the Fennel Butter 
100g goat’s butter
A teaspoon of fennel seeds
A teaspoon of honey
Salt & pepper
Root Veg – 4-6 carrots and 4-6 parsnips, peeled and sliced in half length ways – if they are massive then quarter them. If you get really fat parsnips, I recommend chopping out the woody core as well. 

To make the butter, toast the fennel seeds in a hot dry pan until you can start to smell the aroma and see a little colour on them. Take them off the heat and let them cool completely. Now grind them up – I used a pestle and mortar but a coffee grinder would do the job – and blend with the butter, honey and a pinch of salt and a grind of pepper. Make a sausage using cling film as for the previous recipe and cool in the fridge. 

To cook the carrots and parsnips, you are going to need direct and indirect cooking areas on your barbecue so once your fuel is lit and burning nicely, bank the embers to one side. Toss the veg in a little olive oil and salt and pepper and place them, cut side down, directly over the hot embers and leave them for a minute or two to get nicely charred. Now turn them to do the other side. Once you have those lovely grill marks all over, transfer the whole lot to the other side of your grill to finish cooking gently. If your barbecue has a lid, put it on. I used the Fire Cage for this and it took longer than I thought it might and I ended up charring the parsnips a bit more than I would have liked, but never mind. If I was doing this again I would use my Big Green Egg I think. 

Once everything is cooked, take the veg off the grill and transfer to a warm dish and put the flambadou in the flames. Once hot, melt the fennel butter over the dish and toss the carrots and parsnips around a bit to get an even coat. Serve immediately – they are very delicious! 

Afterword

For those of you who choose not to chuck a good chunk of your disposable income at your cooking, you can achieve a similar kind of effect to using a flambadou by adding the flavoured butter on the top of your cooked steak or vegetables and melting it with a big chunk of burning charcoal. It’s an idea I nicked from Marcus Bawdon and it really does work well.