Holidaying with the GMG Davy Crockett

I got back from a great holiday in Devon (England) a few days ago. 9 adults and 5 children in 4 cottages.

This holiday had been planned since last year, so when I bought my Davy Crockett pellet grill in December, the folk immediately commented “A portable grill? You are taking it down to Devon with you, aren’t you?” I hadn’t been planning to, but I was soon persuaded.

Fortunately, the largest of our cottages had a private garden, which made it easy to set up for the holiday.

We had no fixed plans for food – we were planning that sometimes we would do our own thing, and other times we would all muck in. As we were going out a lot, I wasn’t intending to spend long hours with the grill, so the first thing I did was just grilled burgers and sausages for everyone. (No pictures, sorry!) However, I started out smoking the burgers first, before turning up the heat, and opening the driptray for direct heat. Once the burgers were cooked, the sausages went on, and it was a great hit. The hint of smoke in the burgers was much appreciated.

The next couple of days, I let others take the culinary duties, but mid-week, I decided I felt like a quiet day at the cottages, as we had been out every day. So I decided to get a couple of pork shoulders and do pulled pork, to cook Wednesday, but eat Thursday. At the same time, one of my friends had asked if I could help her do greek-style kebabs, that evening. I was more than happy to do this, but I wasn’t sure if my pork would be finished in time.

So what we ended up doing was this. The pork shoulders were seasoned overnight, and put in to smoke from early Wednesday morning. By Wednesday tea-time, they were doing well, but not completed, so I removed them, and finished off in the oven, which allowed us to do the greek-style kebabs.

Which went down a storm:

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In the perforated tray is pork, which was marinated with fresh rosemary and parsley, dried oregano and thyme, mustard powder, smoked paprika, a chopped red onion, lots of olive oil and the juice of a lemon, plus a slug of cider vinegar. At the back are beef kebabs formed from beef mince, onion, fresh parsley, cumin, and other various ingredients. In the foreground was a space to grill individual pitta. These already been cooked once in the oven, but grilling them as we served, warmed them, gave them a bit of a toasty taste and produced attractive grill marks.

As for the pulled pork, this is what it was like after a couple of hours in the smoker.

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This is after completing in the oven

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And this is the pulled pork, ready to be refridgerated overnight. I do it in a mustard and cider vinegar sauce – it is a bit more yellow than usual, as I used a prepared mustard, rather than my usual mustard powder, but it calmed down on reheating the next day.

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Thursday evening, we served the pulled pork with rice and potato salad, as a change from the bread and sandwiches we had been eating earlier in the week. Also, as an extra surprise, another friend came over to see us, bringing his portable pizza oven. Needless to say, we were stuffed.

All in all, it was a fairly successful excursion. Unfortunately, on the very last day of the holiday, I was asked to grill some chicken pieces, and it came up with an error (code E10), which I was unable to clear. However, this was not a disaster, the chicken simply got cooked on the kitchen grill, and was enjoyed by all.

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