Cobb

Last year during the pandemic we decided it would be great if we didn’t need to go to the supermarket as we did previous years during summer. The less contact with people, the less possibility getting Covid.

We did some analyzing about what kind of food we buy regularly. Most of it, we could buy upfront the vacation, like canned food, conserved milk etc. What a problem could be was bread. Our family is a real bread eating family. So, with the lack of an oven in Casper we searched for a solution. The search finished with the Cobb.

Most of you maybe heard about the Cobb a long time a go. The hype is already over and we finally discovered it 🙂

We saw the Cobb and find out that it’s not only a barbeque. It can also be an oven. Besides that, it can also be used to smoke meat and fish. So last year we bought the Cobb and used it a lot.

Making bread

I am the lucky person of the family who is awake early. So….at 7 in the morning I’m moving from my nice bed to the galley. My process start with heating up some water to use later on in the process. Then I measure:

• 400 gr. Flower
• 270 ml hand warm water
• 30ml oil
• 7 gr yeast
• 15gr sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

I mix water, sugar, yeast in a cup and then mix the flower with the water mix and the salt and oil. When everything is mixed I try to knead the mess to a nice dough. All of this by hand, kneading takes at least 15 minutes. The dough goes into a bowl. I take a towel, make it wet with the warmed water and put it over the bowl. Then I’ll pack all of this in a plastic bag and let it rise for 1 hour. ( in the Netherlands the temperature is not always warm enough to rise the dough by itself) In the meantime, I make some tea, go outside and prepare the Cobb. With 6 briquettes and 3 fire blocks, the Cobb heats up in an hour. Half way this process, I knead the dough short and put it in a baking mold. When the briquettes are gray/white the baking mold goes onto the Cobb. After my second cup of tea the bread is done(30 to 45 minutes). So at that time, the rest of the family woke up by the smell of bread and we’re going to have a breakfast. Yes, it’s a lot of work but also a lot of fun.

Doing other stuff on the Cobb

Besides making bread, we also smoke chicken and salmon on the Cobb. It’s really delicious. After smoking the chicken we use the smoked chicken on bread, but also in salad etc.

Sometime we take the whole afternoon and we’re creating pizza’s on the Cobb. That’s also a nice time together. Everyone is cutting vegetables and meat and preparing the pizza. When one pizza is done, we share it together, meanwhile the next one is already on the Cobb.

Conclusion:

The Cobb is a really nice tool on the boat. I must say, baking bread by hand costs a lot of time this way and you must love the process to make it by yourself. If we would live on a boat, it’s more efficient to have a bread baking machine.

We did a couple of times a barbeque on the Cobb, but I think it gives a big mess to clean afterwards. Smoking meat and making pizza is great!