Food Safari Fire
Food Safari returns in a blaze of glory to explore how cultures across the world cook with fire. In this visually-spectacular 10-part series, host Maeve O'Meara learns the secrets to grilling, smoking, roasting, and baking from some of Australia's top chefs, cooks, and barbecue devotees.
- 2016-2016
- 1 season
- Documentary
Food Safari returns in a blaze of glory to explore how cultures across the world cook with fire. In this visually-spectacular 10-part series, host Maeve O'Meara learns the secrets to grilling, smoking, roasting, and baking from some of Australia's top chefs, cooks, and barbecue devotees.
Season 1 Episode Guide
10 Episodes 2016
Episode 1
Cooking with fire
26 mins
In this flame-cooking master class, host Maeve O'Meara meets an impressive line-up of chefs and food purveyors from across Australia.
Episode 2
Street food
25 mins
Maeve explores the best chargrilled street food from around the world, including Greek pork souvlaki, Abruzzese arrosticini, Malaysian satay, Vietnamese beef in betel leaves and Mexican fish tacos. This episode is a celebration of street vendors' passion for charcoal, wood and fire. As Maeve can attest: "There's nothing as enticing as food cooked in the open air where the spices and marinades come to meet you halfway down the street, drawing you in like a magnet, preparing your taste buds for heaven".
Episode 3
The wood-fired oven
25 mins
From a healthy, six-minute 'stand-up' fish to Neapolitan pizza, slow-cooked goat, sourdough bread and sensational Greek pie, Maeve explores the versatility and uniqueness of cooking with a wood-fired oven. Dating back to Ancient Egypt and early Mediterranean civilisations, wood-fired ovens begun as both heat source and cooking device. Today, they are a symbol of 'the good life'. In this episode, Maeve chats to a baker, a universally acclaimed pizza maker, and several chefs with a fiery passion for this style of cooking.
Episode 4
Grilling passionate
23 mins
Maeve explores how fire and coals create some of the world's most beloved recipes, including traditional Turkish kebabs, Portuguese sardines, marinated Chilean pork belly and a spicy masterpiece known as South African braais.
Episode 5
The tandoor
26 mins
Over the past 5,000 years, the basic design of the tandoor oven has not changed, making it one of the oldest cooking devices on earth. In this episode, Maeve seeks out recipes from the subcontinent and Armenia cooked with this ancient oven, including tandoori chicken and prawns, naan, lamb kebabs and an elaborate roast pumpkin. Don't be surprised if you end wanting a tandoor in your own backyard.
Episode 6
Spit-roasting
25 mins
The ancient tradition of roasting a whole animal over a fire has always been visually spectacular and incredibly delicious. In this episode, Maeve explores the Argentinian style of a la cruz cooking, and learns the secrets to Brazilian churrasco, Sardinian suckling pig, Portuguese piri piri chicken and a crowd-pleasing Greek Easter lamb.
Episode 7
Pots and pans
25 mins
As the cuisines of the world developed different techniques to cook with flame, they also developed a unique range of pots and pans. This week, Maeve discovers the secrets to Spanish perol, Croatian peka, Chinese claypot, Moroccan tajine and Lebanese saj - and why they taste so good.
Episode 8
Asian barbecue
25 mins
This high-energy episode celebrates classic Asian recipes cooked over coals. From the Vietnamese lunch staple bun cha (marinated pork), to Chinese cumin lamb, Thai grilled chicken, Korean barbecue and the popular Japanese cooking technique, kushiyaki, Maeve enjoys a sensuous feast of Asian flavours.
Episode 9
Smoking
25 mins
Maeve explores the ancient art of smoking, a cooking technique that was originally used as a preservative, but is now applauded for its ability to impart flavour and texture. Meeting smoking masters from across Australia, Maeve tastes hot-smoked salmon and kingfish, the West African condiment shito, flavoursome smoked lamb, Irish cold-smoked green bacon and Kansas City-style ribs.
Episode 10
Barbecue safari
26 mins
In this series finale, Maeve celebrates the ingenuity of the homemade barbecues and learns just how adaptable a 44-gallon drum can be. She meets a former pearl diver who uses the vessel to smoke barramundi, and a Jamaican chef who prefers to harness its cooking capabilities for jerk chicken and pork. Catching up with other barbecue devotees, Maeve discovers there are many ordinary objects, including fridge parts, wheelie bins and lawnmowers can be welded into cooking devices. There's even a car boot barbecue, a homemade Cypriot kleftiko oven and a Samoan umu feast.
