Hang Fire Southern Kitchen
In the space of a few years, Sam and Shauna of Hang Fire Smokehouse have gone from a pop-up to a brick-and-mortar restaurant to a BBC series, via a cookbook. Buzz caught up with Shauna Guinn to find out more about their stratospheric rise to success.
In 2012 Samantha Evans and Shauna Guinn decided to quit their jobs and ramble across America, uncovering the best (and the worst) of American BBQ, finding all its secrets, and supposedly, trying to meet Dolly Parton. What led them to want to bring this back to Wales?
“The whole idea of slow and low, big hunks of meat that get smoked in a smoker for a really long time at a really low temperature, that was something that we wanted to bring back to Wales,” Shauna Guinn recalls. “The journey really began when we came back in 2013 and we hitched up our smoker in a little boozer The Canadian in the back streets of Splott. Bit by bit, through twitter and social media and feeding barflies, it just gathered momentum – it was kind of a cultish following around us. When we sent out one tweet in 2015 saying ‘vote for us’ in the BBC Food And Farming Awards, we won the Street Food category.”
“Off the back of that we have a cook book The Hang Fire Cook Book: Recipes And Adventures In American BBQ, and it got to the point where our customers were saying, “Girls we love you, stop dragging us to street food stalls in the rain for a pulled pork sandwich!” When we started our little business, we called ourselves Hang Fire Smokehouse, but when we decided to come to Barry, we called ourselves Hang Fire Southern Kitchen. When we were a smokehouse, the only piece of kitchen equipment we owned was a smoker but now we’ve got a grill and various other pieces of kit. It’s good honest southern hospitality, in the Deep South… of Wales.”
Of course, that classically American style of ‘slow and low’ cooking is unique to the area, so what challenges did Sam and Shauna face in trying to adapt to these islands? “There’s so many dishes in America that wouldn’t translate in this country,” says Guinn, “but the idea of using wood to smoke meat wasn’t going to be difficult for Welsh people to get a hold of, because we love meat in this country. Wood and charcoal is the only thing that touches any of the meat to cook it, and that itself imparts a particular flavour.
“We always knew that was going to come with us – however, the farming practices, and the meat, between America and here are very different. For example, the vast majority of brisket is smoked and eaten in Texas, which is a desert, so a lot of those animals are grain-fed and they really bulk up. In Britain the vast majority of our cattle are grass-fed which means they just don’t develop like those animals do.
“It’s been a real journey for us to meet suppliers as two of the only women in Wales who specialise in American BBQ. Here we are five years later and that just feels like one tiny piece of the jigsaw that we’ve finally managed to crack. We’ve got awesome, local, Welsh meat.”
With their recent expansion to TV with Sam And Shauna’s Big Cookout on BBC 1 Wales, we wondered: what makes this show separate from other TV cooking shows?
“When we won the Food And Farming award, that really put us on the BBC’s radar and they were keen to do a show with us, but we didn’t want to do a cooking show just for the sake of it,” says Guinn. “It took us a couple of years to really iron out and refine what the TV show is about and we really had to look at what it is Sam and I love. We love eating, music and we love bringing people together for big celebrations.
“The TV show has more in common in with DIY SOS than anything, because we involve the community in every part of it and we spend a week with them. We do this for real – it’s not like when the camera cuts we go off to our luxurious trailers. We are there with these people for a week. Whether it’s Brecon Mountain Rescue, Barry Town United, the Cefn Hengoed Majestics Marching Band or The Llandysul Paddlers Canoe Club – all four of those communities have a massive impact on the areas in which they are located and they entirely rely on volunteers. BBC 1 Wales have commissioned a second series, which we start very soon. It’s also a really great opportunity for Sam and I to drive around Thelma And Louise-style in a little 1959 Ford Consul.”
With veganism and the ethics of eating meat a constant debate, especially as the meat industry is one of the largest contributors to climate change, we asked how Hang Fire’s local and open ethos fits in.
“We need to know more about the meat we eat and we should be into eating less meat, but of a higher quality,” Guinn suggests. “It’s also about teaching people about where meat comes from, so in the TV show we do these big cookouts. One of the most economical ways to eat meat is to buy a whole animal and make best use of that whole animal. Meat does not come from cellophane packets in a supermarket, when you buy four burgers for a pound. In the Barry Town cookout, we took a whole pig and buried it in the ground – that pig cost us about £220. We used the entire animal, fed 150 people and there was still meat left over.”
Few people know as much as Sam and Shauna about BBQing. With the season upon, many of us will be dusting off our tools and getting prepared for our own cook-outs. Most of us have an embarrassing tale of an attempted BBQ gone wrong – burnt chicken, burnt hair, too much beer, not enough charcoal…
“There’s a reason why we’re not very good at it in Britain – we only get three days of sun every year. All the Southern states, and all the countries across the world that are prolific in BBQing, have beautiful weather. So top tips for BBQing in the UK: you’re going to need a gazebo and a rain mac, because the only way you’re going to get good is to practice.”
What’s the number one mistake that we here in the UK keep making? Guinn: “You buy a BBQ and you panic-buy charcoal from a petrol station, you quickly set it up and you dose all of the charcoal in lighter fluid and then you burn the biggest inferno that you can. Then you put the tiniest bit of chicken on it and wonder why it’s burnt on the outside and raw in the middle. That’s British BBQ. A better way is to buy a whole hunk of meat that you can leave in a smoker or a BBQ for a long time. We need to get away from this hot and fast BBQing, which is more grilling.
“The other mission that Sam and I are on is to make people think about the fuel that you use to cook it. Different types of wood for different types of meat, all indigenous and sustainable. The stuff you panic buy from a petrol station is generally full of chemicals and usually doesn’t come from a very ethical or sustainable source. If it’s going to add a flavour profile to the meat it might as well be the best quality that you can afford.”
Hang Fire Southern Kitchen, The Pumphouse, Barry. Info: www.hangfiresouthernkitchen.com
Sam and Shauna’s Big Cook Out is currently available on BBC iPlayer.
Maque Choux
Promounced ‘Mak-shoo’, this Louisiana corn dish is, for us, an essential side dish to our barbecue. Its thought to be a marriage of creole (spices)and native american influence (the corn). It’s vibrant, tasty, sweet very simple and has all those beautiful Creole flavours that go together like horse and carriage.
Ingredients (Serves 4 as a side dish)
2 ears of fresh corn on the cob
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
3 sticks of celery, diced
1tsp fresh thyme leaves
2tbl Creole seasoning
1 teaspoon salt
100ml single cream
2tbls unsalted butter
1tbl vegetable oil
3 spring onions, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, deseeded and diced
a handful of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
a handful of coriander (finely chopped)
sea salt flakes and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
Method
Add the butter and oil to a heavy bottomed pan over a medium heat. When that’s melted and starting to foam, add the onion, celery, thyme leaves and peppers. Sauté until soft, around 6-7 minutes or so, keeping the ingredients moving. Now add the Creole seasoning and stir for minute. Run your knife down the ear of the corn, away from you, to cut all the kernels off. Add the corn to the pan and cook on a low heat for a further 8 minutes until soft. Add the cream and salt and pepper and keep stirring for a further minute or two, on a lower heat, until it absorbs into the corn. Taste and adjust the seasoning as required, it may require a pinch more. Finally stir in the parsley, coriander, tomatoes spring onions, serve immediately.
Please note: Recipe taken from Hang Fire Cookbook, available on Quadrille: www.hardiegrant.com/uk/quadrille
photo PAUL WYNCH FURNESS