What is indirect cooking?
With direct cooking, food is placed directly above the embers. This method is perfect for searing and quick grilling. In contrast, indirect cooking is not about grilling, but roasting your food as you would in an oven. This technique is done with the barbecue lid closed and without direct contact between the food and the heat source. Indirect cooking allows heat to circulate evenly inside the kamado, so your food doesn’t burn, cooks evenly, stays juicy, and retains all its flavor. The heat circulates just like in a convection oven. For certain foods, this method is the best way to achieve both delicious taste and optimal nutritional value.
What should you cook with indirect heat?
Indirect cooking is ideal for foods that require a longer cooking time, meaning more than 30 minutes. It’s especially suited to thick cuts of meat (over 5 cm thick), whole pieces, or delicate foods like certain whole fish, fillets, or skewers. It ensures even cooking throughout the flesh. It’s the perfect method for poultry—discover our tips for perfect whole chicken on the BBQ—duck breast, vegetables, or any cut you want to enjoy meltingly tender, such as leg of lamb, turkey thigh, beef or pork brisket, which all benefit from slow, gentle cooking.
Discover Jacky’s beef short rib recipe, a barbecue enthusiast—and above all, a Kokko lover!
And with direct cooking?
Direct cooking is perfect for foods that don’t need long on the grill—less than 30 minutes. It’s great for all kinds of sausages, chipolatas, merguez, andouillettes, skewers, cutlets, chops, and burgers. Even with short cooking times, direct heat is best for foods that are robust enough to handle the flames, like the meats listed above or certain vegetables such as grilled peppers. For seafood, shellfish (shrimp, lobster, prawns, etc.) and fish like sea bream, sardines, or sea bass are perfect for direct grilling, as they only need a few minutes on the grate. Our tips for perfect fish on the barbecue and for grilling seafood on the barbecue.
Keys to mastering indirect cooking with your Kokko
With a classic charcoal barbecue, you can achieve indirect cooking by moving the embers to one side and placing your food on the other. But the Kamado, with its lid, is the ultimate barbecue for mastering indirect cooking.
With a Kokko, it couldn’t be easier. Simply place a heat deflector inside your barbecue. There are two types: the lava stone and the ceramic stone. Both create a barrier between the flames and your food, absorbing and then evenly diffusing the heat for perfect indirect cooking. The ceramic stone is also the essential accessory for making pizza on your Kokko.
What’s more, you can cook different dishes at the same time in your Kokko thanks to the half stainless steel grate and half cast iron grate on one side, and the half plate for indirect cooking on the other. This half plate is perfect for gentle indirect cooking of delicate foods like vegetables, fish, or seafood.
And with this stainless steel poultry roaster, you can also enjoy indirect cooking on your Kokko and serve up juicy, tender poultry that keeps all its flavor and cooking juices in the dish.
Our recipe ideas for indirect cooking on your Kokko:
Discover another way to cook on your barbecue: smoking. Find out how to smoke your food with the Kokko.
