Dutch Oven

[BS]

Best tip is if the recipe has sugar in it, use aluminum foil to line the oven. Sugar forms a crust and is hard to remove.

Any recipe that you use in the 'oven' works in the Dutch Oven..

 

[ML48]

The misses makes many good dishes in a dutch oven.
I can cook.....and I hate to cook.....avoid it at all costs....I let the misses handle that part, but I can make a mean stew.

 

[BS]

Karma!!!!

My sister-in-law came bring me a Peach Cobbler just in time for lunch!

YUM!!

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I bought a nice, small dutch oven a time ago and have used it in the kitchen. For camping- what are some of the better recipes, that is, easy to cook in the wilds and easy to clean up.

POTROAST the Dutch Oven being cast iron allows you to brown the outside of the roast before you finish cooking it, and you add potatoes onions and carrots around the sides of the roast.

Just about any casserole will work in a DO. I have an old book from my college days... The One Burner Gourmet. Out of print but you can find it. It's made to make "camping portions' (and for use by back packers) which was just the trick for a college student, BUT it's also a bunch of "one pot" meals and such, so works for a DO. The fact that it was written for campers makes it a good source IF you want to cook in camp as it takes into account a person having to lug the stuff in to the camp.

I find that sometimes a cheesy dish like mac-n-cheese will stick pretty well, so sometimes I cheat and use a disposable aluminum insert. Same for a Dump Cake as mentioned above.

I will often grill the meat and the veggies (like quartered zucchini) and bake potatoes, and use the DO for a loaf of yeast-bread or some rolls. Then when the dinner is served I put the pie, cobbler, or the dump cake in and it's ready when desert should be served.

You can try a recipe on the stove..., if it works..., try it in the back yard with briquettes or cowboy charcoal, before you try it in camp. The more you use it the better you get and if you follow proper care, the better the DO gets.

LD

 

[tom_in_vt]

To be easy to clean make sure it’s well seasoned. Get it hot and oil it every time you use it.
In the woods anything you can make at home will make in the pot.
Oatmeal, corn meal, grits, maltomeal, rice will cook in the pot but is a pain to clean. A quick bread, pancake, or Johnny cake is easier to fry up in the field.
Boiled or stewed meat is easy and cleansup with a wipe.
Raised bread can be baked if you have a lid
If your pots dirty a scoop of wood ash in water and boiled will clean it quickly, just heat dry and oil well when done

This! Make sure it’s well seasoned. I prefer soups/stews/braised meats. Much easier to clean.

 

[Hawken]

Kent Rollins has a YewTube channel on DO cooking techniques and Recipes. He takes the time to explain the finer points and subtleties that are inherent to cooking outdoors. Also has a couple excellent cookbooks.

 

[Dibbuk]

The secret to camp cooking with a Dutch oven is to NOT put it right in the fire. You put over a few coals, and add a few more coals to the lid. Just be careful lifting the lid, so you don't spill coals and ashes all over the food. For meat, use a roasting trivet.

 

[Hawken]

I think that's the secret to cooking over any fire in general. Ever notice Hollywood movies always show frontier cowboys, indians or settlers etc., "roasting" meat on a spit on a crackling fire with 4 foot high flames. Makes for better visuals maybe. You'll almost never see it portrayed the way it's really done - a bed of hardwood coals and slow smoking. A big beef tenderloin or bird takes hours. Wrap in bacon.

 

[10acres]

Dump cakes are about as easy as it gets. I love a Chocolate Cherry Dump cake myself. I prefer to use butter instead of lemon lime soda on mine. Almost whatever you bake in your oven at home, you can make in a dutch oven.

 

[Red Owl]

I think I'll try a baked apple. I'm not sure if aluminum foil is pre-1840 but it would be easy to clean up afterward and all the ingredients (apple, brown sugar, walnuts, raisins) don't need refrigeration.

Now I'm thinking Mexican, enchiladas wrapped up in foil?

 

[appalichian hunter]

Get some of those foil pie plates the size of the dutch oven, I use those especially when baking something with a high sugar content.

 

[leadhoarder]

I tried the dutch oven once. My girlfriend was not impressed.

 

[sawyer04]

I dug a Dutch oven out of a fire 40 years ago and it has been the best dinner getter since. The fire was probably a week gone by and there set that Dutch oven empty. My first comment was " What damned fool would leave his pot?" Amazes me through the years what a trek in the deep woods could turn up. Not much of that kind of bush left that some pilgrim hasn't made his presence known and if anything is abandoned it is made in china.

 

[sawyer04]

I tried the dutch oven once. My girlfriend was not impressed.

Well, a good Dutch oven with some fixens and some of these guys recipes along with a good flintlock, and maybe a huntin dog or two, I would say " can always find a girl friend.

 

[SOLANCO]

You can cook damn near anything in a dutch oven. Long as you are savvy to control the fires/coals. Biscuits don't want he same heat and duration as stews. A braise, like cacciatore, is long and slow. Got the requisite attention to the fire and patience? That fire is not controlled by a knob.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I dug a Dutch oven out of a fire 40 years ago and it has been the best dinner getter since. The fire was probably a week gone by and there set that Dutch oven empty. My first comment was " What damned fool would leave his pot?" Amazes me through the years what a trek in the deep woods could turn up. Not much of that kind of bush left that some pilgrim hasn't made his presence known and if anything is abandoned it is made in china.

So I have a small DO that is a repurposed cast iron pot, but it's the right shape for 18th century. My large, classing one was sitting in a recycling pile when I came home late one night. My goofy neighbor (great guy, but goofy from time to time) had used it to hold a fire on his deck so his daughter could roast smores during a slumber party. The next day he put it in his basement, and two years later when he was moving, it was all rusty, so he tossed it.


I spotted it as I drove by..., and locked up the brakes. I could not believe it. Perfectly sound! A little love and a wire wheel, and some olive oil, and voila, free Dutch Oven.

LD

 

[sawyer04]

You can cook damn near anything in a dutch oven. Long as you are savvy to control the fires/coals. Biscuits don't want he same heat and duration as stews. A braise, like cacciatore, is long and slow. Got the requisite attention to the fire and patience? That fire is not controlled by a knob.

If I remember, hold your hand over the coals and count to three; if more than three fire to cold, if less than three fire too hot. Feel free to correct me. It has been a while since I used a fire for anything besides heat and light. Got lazy and use stove.

 

[Red Owl]

I've used the kitchen oven with the Dutch inside to try it out, cubed pork shoulder, onions, carrots, a few cloves and garlic- came out great and not to hard to wipe clean. My issue is how do you know how hot the thing is with coals on top and bottom? It has legs.

 

[SOLANCO]

If I remember, hold your hand over the coals and count to three; if more than three fire to cold, if less than three fire too hot. Feel free to correct me. It has been a while since I used a fire for anything besides heat and light. Got lazy and use stove.

I've used the kitchen oven with the Dutch inside to try it out, cubed pork shoulder, onions, carrots, a few cloves and garlic- came out great and not to hard to wipe clean. My issue is how do you know how hot the thing is with coals on top and bottom? It has legs.

Too many variables. For starters different woods different fuel values. Air temperature. Wind. I don't think your answer will be found any way but the trial and error road to practical experience.
At home I do like to do my dutch oven braises in the oven. Your oven temp will vary more than you would expect, but once your iron gets heated its temp will not vary much at all.

 

[Red Owl]

So it is art more than science, you learn by doing.