Dutch Oven Cooking

There's nothing like cooking over a fire. There's nothing like the flavor of a meal cooked over a fire. There's simply nothing like the satisfaction of preparing a delicious meal in a quiet room over a bed of coals and a softly crackling fire....

The right equipment for cooking over a fire makes all the difference in a pleasant time and a harried time. The most versatile and most important of all your fireplace cookery equipment is the Dutch Oven.

Dutch Oven is the name given to a number of kitchen appliances, but the one we will discuss is the heavy cast iron, lipped lid, three legged pan.

The art of Dutch Oven Cooking can come in so handy when you move to that homestead and begin to cook on your wood stove! Another advantage in using a Dutch Oven is it's adaptability to open fire cooking. Here are some pointers and instructions for cooking with a Dutch Oven (DO) for you to save and refer to when you begin to cook with one, or to use to improve your cooking skills with one right now.

The instructions here are for Open Fire cooking with a DO. When using a DO on the woodstove or indoor stove and oven, it is used just like any other cast iron pan. It is slow to heat up, retains its heat for a long time and works best when used at lower temperatures except when frying.

Dutch Ovens come in all shapes and sizes but the most usable size is solid cast iron, 12 inch diameter with legs, a bale handle on the body of the pan, a small loop handle on the lid itself, and a lipped lid. The heavier the better, buy the heaviest DO you can afford.

There are specific reasons why this is the best type of oven. 12 inches in diameter is a large pan, but not so large that a meal for 4 people would be lost. When you are cooking for a crowd of 8-10, this size will also suffice.
A heavy pan will retain heat for longer periods and therefore use less fuel and cook your food more evenly than a thinner pan.
Any pan you use on the open fire needs to have a bale handle. You need to be able to slide a stick or pot lifter under the handle to move it, and Dutch Ovens are moved alot during cooking.
You could buy a DO with a flat bottom, but these pans are best left to the conventional or wood stove top. The flat surface of the bottom will not allow heat from the fire to evenly absorb into the iron, you won't be able to get the coals up under it, and it will not provide an even cooking for your foods. Look for a DO with legs, and remember that 3 legs are more stable than 4 legs.
Try and find a DO that has an addtional small loop handle on the lid, it will save lots of time and burned fingers trying to take the lid off and checking the food.
Finally, the lipped lid is an absolute necessity in a DO. A DO with a lip running all around the outer edge of the lid will hold in hot coals and make your job regulating the temperature easier. A lip will also keep the hot coals on the DO when you are moving the pan around in the fire area.
Most DO lids are somewhat dome shaped and can be turned upside down and used as a griddle or frying pan on the hot coals. One or two eggs fit perfectly inside the small cup shaped depression of the DO lid.




After you have purchased your pan it is necessary to season it well in order to make it as non-stick as possible and to lengthen it's life. Some pans that are well taken care of will last for generations. I own 4 Dutch Ovens which have been passed down to me, the oldest being 210 years old! I still use all of them.
Wash the new pan with soap and warm water very well. There is usually a laquer on them that must be removed or it will burn onto the first food you cook in the DO. Old, rusty pans can be scrubbed with steel wool and washed with soap and water, too. Be sure to clean any vestiges of steel shavings from the steel wool out of the pan, they can hang up in the iron.

Dry the pans well and use a clean towel or paper towel to rub a thin layer of shortening or other vegetable oil all over the cooking area of the pan. You may want to oil the outside of the pan also, purely for appearances. Do not use animal fat if you can help it, lard and tallow will become rancid much more rapidly than vegetable oils.

After rubbing the oil into the pan well, place the pan in a warm oven, 250* F, or over warm coals for 2 hours. Replace the coals so that the temperature can be maintained for the whole 2 hours.
Cool the pan and repeat the oiling, heating and cooling process 2 more times.

To clean your DO after this oiling and baking process, wash with warm water and dry thoroughly after each use. Do not use harsh soaps or detergents, but for good sanitation you should use soap. Try homemade lye soap or other gentle soap.
Each time you wash your pan dry it completely in a low oven or on warm coals. Then oil it lightly and bake in the oven or over coals again. There is no real short cut to having a perfect cast iron DO or any other cast iron pan.

This process, known as "curing", creates a smooth surface of baked oil over the pores of the iron. Done correctly, curing can make a virtually non-stick surface in your DO. Taken care of correctly, this finish can last a lifetime.

When using a Dutch Oven on an open fire it is necessary to know the terminology of Dutch Oven cooking and how to achieve the desired results for your food.