Tom Hancock tells Hilary Biller about the Eastern-inspired ceramic outdoor cooker that reinvents the kettle braai and is now available in South AfricaA Big Green Egg is a ceramic outdoor cooker modelled on an ancient clay cooking device from the East called a kamado . American servicemen would take them home to the US from Japan during World War 2, and Ed Fisher opened the first Big Green Egg store in Atlanta in 1974.The Big Green Egg comes in all sizes and is like a kettle braai in that it consists of a lid, cooking grid, charcoal grid, lower chamber, venting system and legs, but a Big Green Egg is infinitely versatile - it can grill like a normal braai or slow-roast for 15 hours. It is a smoker and can bake anything you would bake in a normal convection oven.Charcoal (never briquettes) is placed in the ceramic firebox in the base of the egg and lit with one eco-firelighter. The lid is left open for about 10 minutes to ensure airflow, then closed and the vents adjusted to achieve the desired temperature - from 60°C for low-and-slow to over 400°C for a quick sear.The Big Green Egg's ceramic design allows for precise temperature control, durability, cooking versatility, safety and convenience.For a quick meal with last-minute guests, my choice would be thick-cut sirloin, two minutes a side at 400°C for perfect medium-rare, with a chilli-garlic butter sauce. One of our favourite family-and-friends occasions is pizza night. It's all hands on deck to make your own. I do the baking four minutes per pizza at 325°C.It is also great for the "less sexy" cuts of meat (brisket, pork butt) cooked very low and slow for many hours. We recently hosted an event where the chef smoked chocolate cheesecake in the egg.A variety of accessories are available, from pizza tools to thermometers, different grid types and wood chips. My favourite is the dual probe thermometer, which helps me get the internal temperature of whatever I'm cooking just right - from a distance of up to 90m.The egg uses less charcoal than most other cookers and you can re-light unused charcoal the next time you cook. We recommend Big Green Egg all natural lump charcoal, made from waste wood from the paper industry, which burns hotter and longer and produces less ash.The egg has a lifetime warranty on the ceramic construction: the internal ceramics are essentially self-cleaning with any excess fat burning off at high temperatures. The stainless-steel grid fits most dishwashers. Every so often, you scrape out any ash build-up from the base with the supplied ash tool to maintain the optimal airflow.Some of the world's top restaurants, such as Noma in Copenhagen, use the Big Green Egg in their commercial kitchens. In South Africa, we count Reuben Riffel, Margot Janse, Bertus Basson and Marthinus Ferreira as Eggheads.If you are catering for a crowd on Heritage Day, the lesser-known cuts of meat, such as beef brisket and pork shoulder, are more economical and becoming very popular. Cooked low and slow with maybe a few smoking chips thrown amongst the coal is the perfect way to get your meat fix for a crowd.Priced between R7,500 and R70,000. Visit www.biggreenegg.co.za..