Quad Cooker Demonstration

I was recently invited to a cooking demo of the Quad Cooker, a high-temperature, naturally fired cooker with the inventor, Ray Palermo. If you’re not familiar with the Quad Cooker from Kickstarter page, have a looky-loo at Kickstarter page or this video.

“The Quad cooker grill cooks pizzas, steaks, and is the first naturally fired home cooker that lets you achieve professional temperatures of 900˚F for optimum flavor.”

Ray was cooking up a storm, working no less than four of the Quads on his porch. He made a variety of foods while cheerfully answering questions about the inspiration, development, and use of his invention.

Paella in the Quad Cooker

As he stated in the video, Ray’s inspiration for the Quad Cooker came from wanting to make paella. He whipped up two very large pans of the stuff and it was simply delicious – cooked to perfection.

Cooking paella on a grill big enough and hot enough

Cooking paella on a grill big enough and hot enough.

During this time, I snuck my first feel (of many) of the side of the cooker block. The surface is ever so slightly warm to the touch, with hot charcoal cranking out 900ºF temperatures just a couple of inches away. Remarkable, and perfect for little reaching hands that might be burned by the sides of a typical grill.

Seafood Paella

Seafood paella cooked on the Quad Cooker. Simply delicious.

Next, Ray put out a pizza stone and made several small pizzas in succession. The Quad Cooker cooked them quickly and evenly – though sometimes quicker than one man watching four cookers at the same time can keep up with!

Pizza on the pizza stone - Quad Cooker Demonstration

Pizza on the pizza stone.

It seems unlikely that anyone else would try to run that many Quads at once, so if a home cook were carefully watching their pizza masterpiece, I think they would be very pleased with the experience and the results.

Pizza - Quad Cooker Demonstration

The finished pizza.

The quads - Quad Cooker Demonstration

Three quad cookers in various modes – covered, wok, and grill.

After the pizzas were done, Ray removed the stone and set about searing some beef. It came out wonderfully, with a great sear and a nice red center.

Grilling beef – Quad Cooker Demonstration

Beef on the grill.

Delicious beef

Delicious beef!

On another Quad, Ray used a wok ring and a wok to start a fry party, starting with fish and some really satisfying onion hay, and finishing up with delectable zeppole!

Fish to be fried – Quad Cooker Demonstration

Fish, ready to be wok-fried.

Fish frying – Quad Cooker Demonstration

Fish frying.

Grilling pineapple and jalapenos – Quad Cooker Demonstration

Meanwhile, pineapple and jalapeños grilling on another Quad.

All four quads and frying onion hay

Making onion hay – you can see all four Quad cookers in this shot.

Onion hay – Quad Cooker cooking demonstration

Onion hay in the wok.

Zeppole - Quad Cooker cooking demonstration

Zeppole!

The Quad Cooker is more affordable and has higher top-end temperatures than a Big Green Egg, but (I assume) without the smoking capabilities, which is fine – I see no problem with just buying a smoker if that’s what you want. We already have one anyway.

Basically, it seems to offer all functionality of a standard grill plus extra forms of cooking at even but extremely high temperatures, as evidenced by the demonstration. Considering all of these factors, it’s a more versatile grill for about the same price as some of the decent grills out there. Of course, we can’t yet be sure how long it will last, how durable it is, etc. but the Quad Cooker is certainly a very intriguing piece of cooking equipment! If you’re looking for high heat and versatility, I would definitely recommend checking it out.

(Being that this was a cooking demonstration event hosted by the head of the company selling this product, Adam and I received the food we sampled without charge. Regardless, the thoughts and words in this post are our own.)

We had a great time at the demo for a great product, eating great food. Thanks to Ray Palermo for cooking and Malika Bowling for organizing and inviting us. Shout out to foodie friends old and new spotted at the event, including David Jones of EatBufordHighway, Andrea Janise, and Ale Sharpton.

emily

Nerd. Foodie. Gamer. Homecook. Perpetual planner. Gardener. Aspiring homesteader. Direct response graphic designer. I use too many damn commas.

3 thoughts on “Quad Cooker Demonstration”

  1. Hey just wanted to say Ray and the QUADCooker team are coming back to Kickstarter thanks to their grandkids with a smaller, picnic-portable, actually affordable naturally-fired cooker follow up, the HEXX starting tomorrow (Tuesday 9/30). If you’re at all interested you can check out our campaign preview here or just search HEXX Cooker tomorrow. Knew you guys loved great food and clearly Emily loved QUAD so figured I’d share 🙂
    http://bit.ly/HEXX-cooker

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