Steps for Cooking With A Dutch Oven

You needn’t forsake your favorite roasted or baked foods when cooking over an open fire. Recipes that you didn’t think could get any better are sometimes improved with this method. When cooking over an open fire, use a Dutch oven with a lipped lid and three feet on the bottom.

METAL UTENSILS SHOULDN’T BE USED
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
Build a hot fire using hard wood at least an hour prior to the time you wish to begin cooking. Avoid commercial charcoal or resinous (soft) wood as a fuel. Soft, resinous woods (like pine) tend to burn cool and produce a lot of black soot. This residue makes a mess of your cookware, builds up a hazardous film inside your chimney, and isn’t very pleasant for the cook. I don’t use charcoal briquettes for my cook fire because of the chemical additives and binders used to manufacture the product. Learn to build a nice fire with hard wood and you won’t be bothered with either of these. Make sure a good bed of red coals has been laid. Use a sturdy piece of curved iron as a lid lifter and have a thick cloth or potholder available to protect your hands from the heat.

PRE-HEAT YOUR DUTCH OVEN
Use a paper towel or clean cloth to wipe the inside of the lid and pot. Set the lid onto the pot and set it near the fire to warm while you prepare your ingredients. This is pre-heating your Dutch oven just as you would a modern standard oven. Pre-heating your pot will allow the oil to penetrate as the iron warms and allows the food to properly cook. Securing the lid will keep ash out of the interior of the pot. If your recipe calls for peppers, onions, or carrots, I add them to the oven at this point to simmer a bit and to provide a cushion between the bottom of the pot and the rest of my ingredients.

ADDING THE FOOD
Pre-measure and prepare the ingredients. Don’t forget your seasonings. Set the heated oven a safe distance from the fire’s heat. A curved metal rod is useful as a tool to carefully remove the hot lid.

The remaining ingredients should be layered into your oven at this point. If rice is part of your recipe, add it and the water or broth at this point. The vegetables should be added next. The meat rests on top of any vegetables, rice or potatoes so that it may flavor them as it cooks. Be mindful of the depth of your pot at this point as you don’t want your food to touch the underside of your pot’s lid. If you are baking bread or a desert, place the batter/dough/ingredients into the pot just as you would before placing it into a regular kitchen oven. Replace the lid.

SETTING THE OVEN IN THE COALS
Shovel a small pile of hot coals to the edge of the fire. This is safer than trying to arrange the oven directly over or in the fire. After placing the oven onto the pile, use your shovel to place more hot coals on top of the lid. Once you’ve evenly covered the lid with hot coals, and made sure there is a good bed beneath, shovel a bit of ash over the live coals. This is called banking your fire. By covering the coals, they are ‘banked’ or shielded from oxygen, allowing them to burn slowly and steadily.

Allow your food to cook about the same time as you would in a conventional oven (assuming you have a good bed of coals), possibly 10 minutes more. Use a shovel to scoop the live coals off of the lid of your Dutch oven when cooking is complete. Use a fire-resistant brush to remove any remaining debris. Using a pad, lift the pot by the handle, protecting your hand from the heat. Carefully lift the pot off of the hot coals and move it away from the heat. Lift the lid with a sturdy piece of curved metal and set it to the side. Check the food to see if it’s done. Serve with a wooden spoon if the food has finished cooking. Should the food require more cooking, replace the lid, return the pot to the little pile of hot coals and scoop more coals onto the lid. Wait a few more minutes and check again.

It’s okay if your first effort results in a few burnt edges. With practice you’ll learn how to avoid this. The wonderful aroma of hot food will soon silence the critics that will gladly eat around the burnt edges. There aren’t often leftovers. Your guests will be more than ready to eat.

CLEANUP
For cleanup, gently remove any food residue from the pot with a soft sided scrub pad or wooden spoon. As your pot becomes better seasoned, you’ll find that a paper towel will likely be enough to remove any bits of food. In the event you find that you have some food that has become glued to the pot, set the oven next to the fire to reheat and cook those to ash. Dutch ovens should not be run through dishwashers or submerged in dishwater. This will strip it of its protective seasoning. Re-apply a protective coating of oil to your oven after each use. When you are able to see your reflection in the bottom of the oven, you’ve gotten a nicely seasoned piece of cast iron. Replace the lid for storage.

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