Outdoors Articles Library

What is the difference between a bean pot and a Dutch oven? The bean pot is missing the trio of legs commonly found supporting the Dutch oven. The bean pot is more suited for stove top cookin' with its flat or slightly rounded bottom. Both should have a very tight fitting lid with a lip curl to corral coals and be constructed of heavy cast iron. No coals in the house. (From personal experience).

When buying a new cast iron Dutch oven, you will want to look for uniform thickness throughout the oven and a handle that’s resembles an old metal barn door latch. Rivets, bolts, and pins, with the heat and cooling sequence, tend not to hold up well for long. The three legs under an oven are much better for camp cooking. You can perch it above a nice set of coals and slide new coals under the oven as needed.

If you buy a new Dutch oven they come in aluminum also, but I never used that style. To season the cast iron ovens, clean it up with soap and water and towel dry. Then slowly heat it up on a gas grill outdoors. After it’s just hot enough to burn your fingers, (from personal experience), you will want to oil the pot inside and out with a vegetable oil. Then put it back on the burner while it seasons. If you’re getting a lot of blue smoke you may be a bit to hot, so adjust the temp back and then reset the oven to the heat.

The heated pot evaporates any moisture in the metal and opens the metal to accept the oil coating. If you invert the pot when you’re oiling and heating the lid and oven, it will keep any oil from burning and pooling in the pot bottom. Two times through the hot oil treatment and you should be ready to burn your first course. (From personal experience)

Okay what to cook and for how long? This is an easy one. You can cook anything you want and cook until it tastes perfect. So sez Betty “Trout Whisperer” Crocker.

My first attempt was with some very nice sirloin tip beef, chunked into bite sized pieces. Lots of fresh cut green pepper and mushrooms with quartered new potatoes. This was in a layered sequence with sweet sliced onions and whole cherry tomatoes.

After my earthen fire pit was reduced to glowing white ash and orange coals, I set the feast for kings into the pit and topped the lid with some set aside coals. The oven, I bought, was a 12 incher rated for stews and it’s about five and half inches deep. When I put the lid on that oven it was stuffed. I figured an hour should bring the ingredients to an award winning beef stew.

By sliding a dowel under the handle, I extracted the oven from the fire pit. (From personal experience, I now own a leather welders glove), knocking the coals off and lifting the lid, I gazed upon a charred pile of black crusted lava. It took better than twenty minutes to get my first emulsification out of that inside of that oven. I refilled that oven and tried again and one half hour of cooking was a very nice meal. I might add the coals were less intense the second time. My trial and error became edible.

You can go online today, or to the regular old book store, and get Dutch oven cook books now. They will boil down oven size and weights and pretty much nail cooking times. The variable is the coals. Like anything, your gonna have some surprises.

So why bother with the Dutch oven? You can cook your dinner while you’re splitting wood. A pot of venison stew is done about the time you get back from your deer stand. Meat cooked under the coal covered lid is about as tender as it gets. The entire flavor is completely sealed in your oven and forced into the meats and vegetables. That’s my kind of marinade. Dutch ovens are great for large gathering cooking. Big crowd - big pot. If you do not finish everything the first day, do some reloading and its ready to go with richer flavor in the second batch. (From personal experience)

When you’re done scooping the goodness from old ironsides, do not wash the oven with soap and water. Scraping after it’s cooled with metal utensils is another no-no. This is where you can use a clean piece of peeled birch and rub the remains out. Then, with a clean cloth, rub any smaller residue from the insides and under the lid. Lightly coat with oil. There are some sprays at the grocery store that work in a jiff.

I'm your basic meat and potatoes coinsurer. I have not tried a pineapple upside down cake in a Dutch oven yet. From personal experience, I could probably get the upside down part correct.

The trout whisperer