Dutch oven recipes?

[Gunslinger808]

I bought my wife a Lodge #8 Dutch oven a few years back, and she'd really like some recipes on how to use it on an open fire rather than a oven.
Yeah, I've Googled, but with the wealth of knowledge here I'd rather trust you folks.

Chicken and dumplings, roasting (esp. wild game), and winning bread/pudding ideas are especially welcome.

Any tips or ideas are welcome as we're both new at the fire pit cooking.

 

[rwsmith]

Dutch oven recipe

1) Let one under bed covers

2) Shove little brother's head under covers

3) Bake until done


Seriously, no open fires. Make bed of coals and put oven on coals, rake coals up around the oven and on top of the oven.

 

[mr-mom]

Here is a picture of a chicken pot pie with home made biscuits I cooked over coals at deer camp in my Dutch Oven. PM me and I will share some ideas.
Dave

 

[Grayfox]

The Boy Scouts have several Dutch Oven recipe books avalible.
Here's an on-line book put together of some great scout recipes and all the basic instructions for using a dutch oven.

Dutch Oven Cooking

 

[cballman]

Also go to the Lodge website. They have recipes to download and books to sell. I have bought plenty of books from them. I am also a Scout leader who has learned to cook many different things in them. When I was younger all we did was use them to heat up canned stuff in. When my Son went into our scout troop I was taught how to cook in them not just to reheat in them. Also recipes can be found in many places on the internet also,


Charlie

 

[samwood]

Take a look at this website Cee Dubs Dutch Oven Cookbooks supplies and More | Dutch Oven Classes Equipment cookbooks & Outdoor Cooking supplies | Cee Dubs. CW Welch had a Dutch Oven cooking program on TV here, in Idaho, for a few years.

He also has several cookbooks, which I made good use of, when I was into Dutch Oven Cooking about 15 years ago.

 

[SmokeStack Lightning]

Ain't nuttin better than being at a rustic campground, charcoal up the fire pit, dig a whole and burying the old 'Dutch Oven'.

Lots of campers are amazed and have never seen, let alone eat a meal from one.

After I explain to them this is the true 'Cowboy Way' of making biscuits, pies, cakes and meals while on the famous cattle drives, they end up wanting to buy one, too.

I bought a new cast iron 4qt about 5 years ago and it still has the tags on it cuz it's too heavy for motorcycle camping trips which is the kind I've been doing lately.

If any readers buy one, make sure it's cast iron, has legs (tall enough for a good coal bed to be placed under it), the lid fits tight with an integral inside seal, (to keep out the ashes) and the sides of the lid 'turn up' (sorta like a shallow frying pan) so charcoals can sit on top of the lid w/o falling off for even heat distribution.

My 4qt weighs in @ 12lbs cuz it's pretty thick, which is what you want in a true Dutch Oven.

 

[J. R. WEEMS]

Have a BIG fire, let burn down while enjoying an adult beverage, fill oven with fixings, bury UNDER coals, go hunting, (next morning) dinner will be ready the next afternoon.

 

[the ringo kid]

Here is a picture of a chicken pot pie with home made biscuits I cooked over coals at deer camp in my Dutch Oven. PM me and I will share some ideas.
Dave

Those biscuits are to drool for. Im fairly good at baking but--yours is on another level. Please share some info in public too. Ive never used a Dutch Oven and would like to learn more.

 

[the ringo kid]

One important question: I know this sounds a bit dumb but, do you have to do the same treatment on Dutch ovens as you do for frying pans?

 

[Alpo]

Ringo, if by "the same treatment" you mean "seasoning" - yes you do. Clean the factory preservation grease off it, get it hot, wipe it down with lard, fry bacon, whatever, to get grease in the pores of the metal.

 

[mr-mom]

Biscuits

"Those biscuits are to drool for. Im fairly good at baking but--yours is on another level. Please share some info in public too. Ive never used a Dutch Oven and would like to learn more."

We do several fur-trade rendezvous each summer and cook most everything over open fire, or coals, in the Dutch Ovens. I'm happy to share. The biscuit recipe is from one of the Masters, Mr. James Beard. I learned this from him in his home kitchen in Greenwich Village:

2 cups bread flour
1 tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 stick butter
3/4 cup milk or cream

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl. Cut in the cold butter until the flour and butter are very fine particles. Add cold milk or cream and stir into the dough just enough to make it stick together. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead only a few times, then pat out to form a rough round shape approximately 3/4" think. Cut into rounds (I use an empy baking powder container) and place touching one another on a greased baking sheet. Bake in preheated 450 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. (The secret to wonderful fluffy biscuits is to NOT OVERWORK THE DOUGH. Work it only enough to keep together, while keeping the butter cold. This is not a soft, smooth bread dough).

I've found that cooking in the Dutch Oven is not a lot different from the home oven, it's just more fun. Place the contents inside on top of a cast iron trivet. Place covered Dutch Oven over a bed of fresh red-hot coals, away from the fire, and cover the top with additional coals. Sit back with a cool adult beverage, enjoy the fire, and bake for about the same amount of time you would cook it in the home oven. An occasional peek inside will not hurt a thing. For a treat beyond belief, bake a peach or apple pie in the DO, the slight wood smoke flavor is something you won't forget. Good eating!
Dave

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

The wife was a camp fire girl's camp counselor the 2 summers before we married and cooked 1 or 2 meals a day over the fire. Here are a few hints. Any thing you can do in the home oven, can be done in the Dutch Oven (we have a #10 &#14) you need to reduce the moisture a little as steam won't escape. Things that take a long time need to elevated from the floor the trivet mentioned above is a good idea. A friend baked a very good Meat Loaf and elevated it with an upside down cake pan. Pizza cooks pretty fast and with practice the crust won't get singed. Things like cobblers can be tricky- avoid the syrup getting baked onto the side or lid, the floor should not be a problem. Your fire can be in the fireplace or wood stove, use the dutch oven to one side and make additional coals at the other side. REMEMBER: cook with coals not fire! Ivan

 

[hangnoose]

TACO BELL & A DOWN QUILT

Get the lodge cookbook for starters. a few of my favorites were pot roast, pineapple upsidedown cake, stew, wild pork shoulder, biscuits, hash browns in the am. basically ANYTHING you could cook elsewhere, you can make better over coals, once you get the hang of it.

 

[carpriver]

We have used our Dutch oven to cook everything from a roasted chicken to baking a ham. Coal are the trick to cooking with a dutch oven. I like to bake a pie in a DO, line the bottom of the oven with a pie crust(home made or store bought) add the filling, for me it's fresh raspberries' and rhubarb sweeten, add the top crust poke some hole in the top, add the led and place it on the coals. Digging a hole and cooking in the hole seems to speed the cooking a bit.

 

[SgtLumpy]

Dutch Oven Recipe -

Place ~1 lb bacon on bottom of pan.

Place nearly anything else on top of that (meat, fish, eggs, veggies, bread, fruit, more bacon).

Place ~1 lb bacon on top of all that.

Cook for hours or until the smell makes everyone from every surrounding campsite come around.

Eat in 15 minutes or less.

Take nap.


Sgt Lumpy

 

[hangnoose]

DUTCH OVENS

You can cook with 1-2, but the rest of the beer needs to stay in the cooler.

 

[mtgianni]

Fry 1/2 lb bacon then fill the oven 3/4 full with 80% sliced potatoes and 20% sliced onions, Scrape them off the bottom every 15 minutes, turn the oven @ the 1/2 hour mark. Top with cheese the last 5 minutes and serve @ 50 minutes.
I forgot, take the inches in diameter of your oven most are 12. Add three to the 12 and place 15 [12+3] briquettes on top. Subtract 3 from 12 and place 9 briquettes on the bottom. You will have a 350F oven.
Do the same for chicken only cool for 60 minutes. For bbq pork ribs, add your favorite bbq sauce and 1 can of beer or sugared soda. That helps to tenderize but you will have to recure your oven if you put tomato base products in it.

 

[wildenout]

2 lbs of chicken breasts cut into pieces, 16 oz. bag of frozen peas, 16 oz. bag of frozen carrots, 2 cans cream of mushroom soup, stuffing. Mix all the above together in an oven, cook till chicken is done. Mix stuffing on side, pour over top and serve! It's easy, delicious and awesome..
Easy dutch oven cobbler, jar of peaches, 1/2 box of yellow cake mix, 16 oz of sprite. Mix all ingredients together (including peach syrup) bake until done!

 

[nocheese4u]

LINK

This is where I get all my info. They have a whole section for recipes. One think I thought was neat to do was to make the Krusteez no knead bread (grocery store or Wal-mart) in a dutch oven.