KEY POINTS:
It's hardly a strain to cross the deck, flick the switch on the gas barbecue and fast-cook the steaks. It's the McDonald's method of cooking outdoors, admittedly less hassle than building your own fire pit, but lacking in pioneering spirit and, occasionally, flavour.
So sideline the barbie, and experience some more adventurous ways to eat outdoors. Sure, it's a slow burn, but these cooking methods are well worth the effort, and fortunately, don't involve breaking any fire safety codes.
Viva consulted two cooks who, given the opportunity, would happily abandon the kitchen for a chance to sizzle outdoors.
Annabel Langbein spent much of her youth with only an open fire to rustle up a feed, and has journeyed to some remote places to experience curious outdoor habits. It's not every day you spit-roast a wild boar or fire-grill a guinea pig in the company of a heavily armed Bolivian general and his troops in a tent on the shores of Lake Titicaca. She agrees there's a real sense of freedom in cooking outdoors.
"It's very informal. There is not the same sense of gastronomic expectation from anyone - cook or guests - that you get with a kitchen-cooked meal."
Langbein advises newcomers to "chill out and expect a little mess" when cooking outdoors. "You're not out there in a little strappy silk dress - it's all much more casual. And as a result, everyone feels more relaxed. The food tends to be simpler and more casual, the whole thing feels less intimidating and you are almost expected to burn things."
An acclaimed food writer and chef in his native India, Devarpan "Dev" Malik is the newly appointed head chef at the Shed restaurant at Te Motu Vineyard on Waiheke Island.
Malik, and owners Paul and John Dunleavy, have created a new way of cooking the restaurant's signature dish, Peking Duck, beyond the confines of the kitchen. In a new twist on a tandoori oven, the pair have re-configured a wine barrel to slow cook the ducks. So how does it compare to the conventional oven method?
"It has more intense earthy flavours due to the duck drippings introducing a shot-smoked effect to the oven. The duck skin is crispier and firmer, exactly what we're looking for in Peking Duck - and the flesh exudes more intensely the five spice flavours."
There are some entertaining ways to cook outdoors. During one memorable camping holiday, my father spent days flattening a piece of corrugated iron to use as a cooking surface for his makeshift outdoor oven.
The damper never tasted so good.
If you're really handy you can make your own Horno (that's Spanish for oven) from clay dug out of your backyard. Garden prunings will fire up a basic oven, but it always impresses the guests if you can use the traditional method of faggots - bundles of brushwood, no thicker than a finger, which produce a more intense heat.
More sophisticated wood-fire ovens requires careful planning, and it's advisable to consult experts like John and Robert Hancock, designers of the impressive Roman Black Oven. It takes a few hours for the dome-like fire cavity to heat up, although it will get much hotter than a conventional oven and stays hot for some time.
Langbein uses a portable Italian wood-fired oven at her holiday home in Wanaka, which takes only 40 minutes to heat and has a thermostat on the front. To fire it, the family gather a mix of manuka and softer woods like pine or macrocarpa. Langbein will cook whole salmons, chickens, suckling pigs and vegetables in a cast-iron paella dish.
"It's perfect for us in this tiny cabin to feed a crowd."
In the outdoors, you can choose between wet or dry methods of cooking. In the city, Langbein uses a charcoal barbecue, using it for direct and indirect grilling, and sometimes wrapping and steaming in leaves or paper. In her latest book, Healthy Grills, she advocates drier grilling methods for foods with natural sugars or those transformed with a marinade to caramelise them.
"I wrap foods that are dense - a whole fish, or a wet patty mixture. Also, it's good to wrap foods that might dry out in the time it takes to grill them."
She says it is important to spend time marinating meats and vegetables and enhancing the taste by preparing tasty dressings or toppings. "I enjoy meals which combine grilled foods and fresh, such as tossing grilled sliced meats through salad greens with a tasty dressing."
At the Shed, Malik is in the courtyard whipping up the dressing for a Caesar salad. It's a live outdoor culinary show, as he entertains the guests with the back story on the famous salad.
Malik has done his prep work - the table is scattered with small ramekins of eggs, anchovies, garlic, lemon, finely grated parmesan and olive oil.
The former head chef at the Olive Bar and Kitchen, the first Mediterranean restaurant in India, and 2005's Best Restaurant, makes outdoor cooking look easy. A multi-lingual chef, with a resume that headlines top restaurants in Toronto and Southampton, Malik has a curious way of describing his cooking style. "I believe in the mof mof school of cooking." The what? "Minimum of fuss with maximum of flavour."
He favours one-pot cooking for outdoors. "I am driven by the tastes of Spain and the South of French. You can't be expected to carry around the entire kitchen, but you can get so much flavour using garlic and herbs."
Flavour-packed stews and casseroles are a stress-free way to cook outdoors.
"You can cook a chicken with 40 cloves of garlic and some lemon. It takes around two hours to cook and it's wonderful to eat."
He suggests steaming seafood and vegetables in Asian-style bamboo baskets. and enhancing the flavour of vegetables by stuffing them before roasting them on the embers. He's already a big fan of steamed mussels with garlic, parsley and white wine.
Langbein says outdoor cooking is hands on. "You can't just walk away and let something simmer, as the heat source tends to be less controlled and often is more intense. There is a lot of moving things around to cook them evenly."
It's hard to imagine the celebrated author spent her youth living with no electricity and an outdoor kitchen. "As a teenager I lived for a couple of years on the marae at Ranana on the Wanganui with two friends. I cooked everything over a fire. I bottled fruit, and made wonderful bread in the camp oven.
In her 20s, Langbein took up possum hunting, living rough in the bush in the Ureweras. "I spent each winter in a rundown DoC hut in State Forest 93 and a fire was my only heat source. I had a toastie-pie maker, which was very handy for a hot snack as it didn't require the fire to be in embers."
Later, she travelled around South America cooking in homes with only small charcoal braziers. "We cooked whole sheep in the Argentinian crucifix style, and Brazilian chicken stews on the coals ."
As you move outdoors to cook, Langbein says patience is the key. "It means waiting until you have good embers. Often people rush it, ending up with food that is burnt on the outside and raw in the middle."
It's harder than turning up the dial on the stove - but far more enjoyable.
ANNABEL LANGBEIN'S TIPS:
* Get good quality charcoal - one that produces dense, long-lasting embers.
* Wait for good embers and, if possible, create a big fire that you can draw embers from to cook on, adding more embers as needed.
* Don't try to cook too much food to start. An average fire (without re-stoking and having to wait for it to settle and ember) will give you about 20 minutes' cooking time, which is perfect to cook food for up to four people max.
* Adding sugar or any other form of sweetness to marinades also makes food burn more easily.
* Cook food in small pieces or slice it quite thinly before cooking so it cooks quickly and does not dry out before it is cooked fully through.
* Use well-trimmed, low-fat meats and avoid lots of oil in marinades or bastes to prevent flare ups, charring and smoking.
* Par-cooking foods by boiling or microwaving saves time.
