Cooking Nice

Cooking over an open fire doesn’t mean you have to give up your favorite baked and roasted foods. You might even find that your old favorites are greatly enhanced when cooked in a Dutch oven. A rimmed lid and feet on the bottom are characteristics of the Dutch oven made for open fire cooking.

DON’T USE METAL UTENSILS Metal spoons shouldn’t be used on the inside of a seasoned cast iron pot. Heavy duty wood or should be used in place of the metal utensils which will mar the seasoned coating.

A COOK’S FIRE An hour before you wish to begin cooking, build a hot fire using hard wood. Avoid commercial charcoal or resinous (soft) wood as a fuel. Resinous woods are soft, tend to burn cooler than hard woods, and produce much black soot. Not only is this residue bad for humans, it leaves a flammable coating on chimneys, and coats your cookware with soot. Because chemical additives and binders are used in the manufacturing process of charcoal, I don’t use commercial briquettes in my cook fire. Avoid both of these problems by learning to build a good cook fire from hardwood. Make sure a good bed of red coals has been laid. An oven mitt or heat resistant cloth can serve to protect your hands from the heat while a curved piece of iron can serve as your lid-lifter.

PRE-HEAT YOUR DUTCH OVEN Use a paper towel or clean cloth to wipe the inside of the… Continue reading →