Indirect wood fired oven - Fish "plaki" Greek recipe

Discard the guts and thoroughly rinse fish under the tap. Dice the onions into large chunks, dice the garlic cloves into smaller chunks, thinly slice the carrots, and finely chop the parsley leaves. Add the onions, the garlic cloves, the carrots, the canned tomatoes, and the parsley to a clay baking tray. Mix well all of the ingredients together. Add the salt and the rest of the spices and mix again. 

Spread this mixture to cover the surface of your clay baking tray and add the chub mackerel on top. Add the tomato paste to a cup of olive oil and dissolve it (as much as you can). Then, pour the olive oil over the fish. Add a little water, so that your ingredients are covered halfway with liquid. Now, it’s time to cook in the indirect wood-fired oven.

Before preparing the ingredients, preheat the indirect wood-fired oven. Place thin pieces of dry hardwood and kindling (alcohol-soaked cotton) on the floor of the oven’s lower chamber. Place thicker pieces of dry hardwood on top, which can maintain strong heat – that’s necessary after all. Light the fire and leave the door open for a while to speed up the burning of the wood. Then, close the door and wait until the oven is hot enough (200⁰C/ 392⁰F) and there are only embers left inside the chamber.

Then, place the clay baking tray with the “Plaki” inside the cooking chamber of the indirect wood-fired oven. Close the oven’s door and slow-cook for 1.5 hours without adding extra pieces of wood to make the fire stronger. In a well-built indirect wood-fired oven, you can slow-cook your food, while the temperature drops slowly and steadily. 

When your food is done, well-cooked and there’s only oil inside the tray, remove the tray from the oven and wait for a while, until it cools down. 

It’s served warm. You will also need fine white wine and a good company to enjoy it. 

Happy cooking to everyone! Enjoy this recipe with your friends!