This morning my son and I hopped on our bikes and rode to Bunnings to pick up some briquettes as I was out. The round steak I had chopped up the day before and let marinate overnight in some soy sauce and my leftover custom rub.

I then dried them with a paper towel and sprinkled them with a good helping of DL Jardine Steak Seasoning.

At 11:40am, I fired up the chimney and had the pit going 20 minutes later.

At 12:20pm, I noticed that the briquettes don't seem to have lit as the temperature was really low, so I'm starting up another charcoal chimney. First time trying this different brand of heat beads, maybe they're no good. Anyway, 10 minutes, the meat went on and about 20 minutes later I noticed smoke pouring out of the smoker and the rangehood was at 180F.



At 1:30pm, the rangehood had risen to 220F, which is more than I'd like. I decided to close 2 vents and the other was half closed. Unfortunately, at this point I got distracted watching movies with my son. An hour later and the rangehood temperature had risen to 300F and the jerky had been burnt :(

Oh well ... better luck next time.

Since watching the anime Food Wars (Shokugeki no Soma) and loving it, there was an episode where Sōma Yukihira makes what is known as Chaliapin steak, a piece of meat that has been tenderised by the enzymes. I read up on this and it was a dish made in 1936 for the Russian opera singer Feodor Chaliapin when he visited Japan. At the time, he was suffering from toothaches and said, "I want to eat a tender steak." This dish was devised to answer to his request.

So, I grabbed a piece of round steak, a tough piece of meat and chopped up some onions and left them on top for an hour. I didn't have a meat pounder either, so I used my fists like a man. I'm also going to smoke some tomato, potato and carrot.

At 12:34pm, I lit the fire and 15 minutes later, I put the meat and veggies on. I got this wonderful smell of smoke coming from old plum wood chunk from the last cook, as it hadn't burnt all the way through. I then went off and played some Star Wars Battlefront and at 1:15pm, it was smelling awesome. I just had a quick little peek and onions were cooking nicely on top of the steak.

So, how did it turn out ? Well, the steak was tenderer than normal, but nothing special. It was Round steak, which is a tough piece of meat. Maybe next time I'll leave the onions on longer or try a different cut of meat.