The Art of Cooking

I take pleasure in cooking with a Dutch oven, whether it be over a campfire or a camp stove. There is an art to cooking in a Dutch oven. Once you get going you can invent anything that can be cooked or baked in your modern kitchen at home.

I have baked rolls, cake and even pizza in a Dutch oven. One dish meals such as stews and soups are the best when made in a Dutch oven. Meat, even the cheapest cuts can be made tender and delicious in a Dutch oven.

There are a few important things concerning the cooking source that are important to successful Dutch oven cooking. They can be the difference between undercooked or burnt food.

When I am preparing for a delicious meal such as a meat dish such as ribs, chicken or roast, what I usually do is brown the meat in the Dutch oven on a camp stove. What happens is the flavor from the browned meat is in the Dutch oven and makes the finished product tasty. It also this gets the Dutch oven hot so when it is placed on the coals, they advance the heat and energy so it isn't lost trying to heat the Dutch oven up.

The heat for the Dutch oven has to be just right. To take a line from the three bears, it must be, "just right." This might seem difficult to get perfect, but if you are using charcoal briquettes it is no harder than counting the number of briquettes to put under and on top of the Dutch oven.

Place as many as you would like of the briquettes under the Dutch oven as its size plus two more than that number on the lid. What this will do is give you a temperature of 350 degrees. Imagine if if you are using a size 12 Dutch oven, put 12 briquettes under the Dutch oven and 14 on the lid. If baking is included at all I suggest using briquettes.

If you are using a campfire you need to burn the wood down to coals and use the coals to heat the Dutch oven. I like to keep a campfire burning to replace coals as needed. Usually ever 30 to 40 minutes. This requires you to make a place outside of the campfire to place your coals for the Dutch oven. If you don't do this and leave the Dutch oven in the fire pit with the fire burning you will probably end up with the food burned on the side closest to the fire.

What I normally do is use a fire pan of some kind, you could also use the lid of a garbage can, to put the coals in. That makes for easy clean up of the ashes and you don't have coals and ashes separated all over your campsite.

Cooking with wood coals requires some skill learned by experience to conclude the right temperature for the food you are cooking. There are different types of wood that make better coals than others. We usually don't have the choice of having the best wood available every time and just use what is available. So it takes a little more watching to make sure the dish you are preparing gets done properly. I don't worry about this too much when cooking meats and stews. This may be more of a nuisance when baking food such as cakes and rolls. The correct and consistent temperature is more important when baking, so the item doesn't burn or become under cooked. Doughy rolls or soggy cake is a real frustration after all the work you go through to make them.

Another idea of something you can do is use a camp stove and not have a fire or coals at all. This works fantastic with one dish meals and dishes with a lot of moisture in them. A camp stove doesn't work that great for baked food stuffs though because there isn't any heat on the lid.

A good idea is to find a dutch oven recipe that appeals to your tastes. You can find countless numbers of these recipes on the internet or in special Dutch oven cookbooks. Just follow the directions and you will have a delicious meal in no time.

M.A. Luke is an independent writer for ioVentures, Inc. Go now to dutchovenpro.com to find exciting things to cook with your dutch oven in your backyard fire pit. Also find a large selection of gas camp stoves.