How to cook with embers and ash

At Scott Calhoun’s Philadelphia restaurant Ember & Ash, every dish contains a component either cooked over embers or incorporating ash. He even uses his restaurant’s namesakes in cocktails, cold-smoking egg whites with embers from the grill.

“We use a mix of live hardwood from white and red oak and ash trees—the same that the dining tables are made from,” Calhoun says. “Our wood sources come from Appalachia and are first kiln dried (over a period of three months) so that there’s less than 7% moisture.” Ember and Ash burns through about half a cord of firewood a week on their custom-built grill.

As Calhoun demonstrates the easy reconfiguration of his grill, raising and lowering its grates depending on what he’s cooking, he shares his favorite tips on how best to cook with embers and ash.

1. If you have the space to move your logs around on your grill, have the logs burning in the back and slowly move the coals up front, where you will be cooking.

2. Before you start cooking, you want your coals to get red hot and almost start to be extinguished. They should have a little white on the outside and that’s how you know you’re getting the most heat from the charcoal. You don’t want to see black in the charcoal anymore.

3. Put whole vegetables directly on the coals. I’ll even bury vegetables in the embers, such as turnips, without cutting them open. Cabbage is my favorite. You don’t realize how much flavor you get penetrating the center of the cabbage by charring it on the outside. When we peel the charred layer away, the center becomes translucent.

4. You can roll a whole pumpkin or squash in coals, burning the outside until it’s black, and then slow roasting them raised above the embers, which takes about an hour or two.

5. Save your charred vegetable skins. We make vegetable ash all the time, saving the skins from charred cippolini onions. Powder onion skins and turnip skins in a blender and they’ll taste like the ghost of an onion or turnip. Use these to season other dishes.

6. Have a bunch of cake testers and timers on hand! If you overcook protein, there’s not a lot you can do. We use cake testers to check for resistance in the cooking process of say, a whole fish, which can take 12 to 15 minutes.

7. Make bone broths on the embers. First, roast your bones for about 45 minutes to an hour. All our stocks are made from roasted bones, roasted about 3.5 feet in the air. Place bones in a pot, either over fire or on a stovetop, and cover them with at least an inch or two of water. Simmer chicken bones for 4 to 6 hours (you can go overnight but you don’t get much more flavor after 6 hours). Beef bones we let go for 8 hours.

8. Flat fish like fluke and flounder are great for stock. For whole fish, after we fillet or turn it into crudo, we’ll hang the bones out over the fire to dry and get some smoke on them. We will simmer them for 45 minutes to an hour for a sort-of dashi stock.

9. Fire-roasted bone stock makes a great base for sauces!

10. Don’t expect to have much arm hair.

Serves 4

For the squash:

• ½ lb/250g candy roaster, koginut, honey nut, or butternut squash 
• 1 cup/200g heavy cream 
• 1 tsp/5g salt

Method

1. Start a fire with a few logs and let the wood burn out completely into charcoal or light conventional charcoal.

2. Roast squash on a rack 4-6” over red-hot embers to achieve a nice char and color on all sides.

3. Wrap the squash in foil and place it back on the rack for 45 minutes to an hour, until tender.

4. In a small pot bring the cream to a simmer and shut off the heat.

5. Once cooled to the touch, remove the skin of the squash.

6. Place the cream, squash and salt in a blender and blend until super smooth.

For the salsify:

• 1 cup/200g olive oil
• ½ cup/100g orange juice
• ½ cup 100g lemon juice
• Peel of 1 lemon
• Peel of 1 orange
• 2 tsp/10g salt
• ⅛ cup/30g sliced ginger
• 1lb/500g salsify, peeled and cut into 2.5” lengths

Salsify glaze:

• ¾ cup/150g soy sauce or tamari
• ¼ cup/50g mirin
• 2 tsp/10g rice vinegar
• ½ cup/100g brown sugar

Method

1. Place all ingredients in a heavy-bottomed small pot, ensuring the salsify is covered in liquid.

2. Bring liquid to a simmer.

3. Simmer for 45 mins to an hour, until salsify is tender.

4. Place the glaze ingredients into a small pot and bring to a low boil to reduce the liquid by half.

5. Place the tender salsify on the rack over your embers. Continuously brush the salsify with the glaze as you rotate it on the grill until you’ve achieved an even char.

For the dukkah:

• ½ cup/100g panko
• ½ cup/75g pistachios, toasted and finely chopped
• 2 tbsp/20g sesame seeds (mixed black and white)
• 2 tbsp/12g ginger, minced
• 2 tbsp/12g garlic, minced
• Zest of 1 orange
• 1 tbsp/12g sugar
• 2 tsp/10g salt
• ¼ cup/35g butter
• 1 tbsp/15g olive oil

Method (can be prepared up to 7 days in advance and stored in an airtight container)

1. Melt the butter and olive oil in a medium sauté pan on medium to high heat.

2. Add the ginger and garlic and fry until light golden brown.

3. Add the panko, stirring constantly to toast until light brown.

4. Add the sesame seeds, pistachios, and orange zest and lightly toast, then add the salt.

5. Add the salt, reduce the heat to low and stir for another 1-2 minutes. 6. Remove from the heat and pour contents onto a paper towel-lined tray.

To plate:

1. Spoon the squash sauce onto the plate.

2. Sprinkle an even layer of the pistachio dukkah onto the squash.

3. Arrange the salsify on top of the dukkah and then sprinkle some more dukkah on top.