One of the best parts of a camping trip is gathering around a fire with family and friends to enjoy a campfire-cooked meal. What could be better than the sound of crackling wood and the aroma of dinner in the works?
Modern camp stoves and kitchens make the cooks jobs easier, but nothing beats the taste and appeal of a meal cooked over the campfire.
Campfire cooking is a timeless skill that connects you to nature as well as your camping buddies.
Building your Campfire
The object is to have all the wood turn into coals at the same time. This gives an even fire with no flames reaching up to burn your food or blacken your cookware. It also yields the longest cooking time from the coals.
You will need to set up your fire perfectly depending on which method of campfire cooking you choose.
Dutch Oven
A Dutch oven is one of the most versatile pieces of camp cooking equipment you can own. Sauté, steam, simmer, fry, and bake – if you can imagine it, you can make it in a Dutch oven.
Building a fire for a Dutch Oven is sometimes tricky, as it’s not the flame so much as the coals you want. It’s a good idea to build your fire as soon as you get to camp so you can generate the glowing coals you’ll use for cooking. You know the coals are hot enough when they glow red in the middle. They should be kind of shimmery and have a greyish coating of ash on the outside.
Roasting – Place a well-oiled preheated oven on hot coals and add the meat. Replace the lid and add hot coals on top so that the oven heats from both directions. Be careful not to heat the oven too much! Cook the meat for 1.5-2.5 hours depending on the size of the meat. Vegetables like potatoes, onions, pumpkin should be added to the oven for the final 45 minutes of cooking. Throughout the cooking process, check the temperature of the oven every 30 minutes or so. Add more hot coals if needed.
Stewing – For dishes that will cook for a long time, like stew, avoid messing with the food once you put the lid on the pot. The longer the cooking time for stews the more tender the meat will become. Cook over a slow to moderate oven for 1-3 hours or longer as needed.
When adapting an indoor Dutch oven cooking recipe for outdoors, you’ll need to adjust expectations for how long it takes as things generally take longer over the fire—up to 20 percent more time.
When you get to about the time the dish would take to cook indoors, crack open the lid and take a peek. As a general rule, meat should be brown, stews should be bubbly, and veggies should be soft.
Next step…. Dish up and enjoy!
Grill and Hot Plate
The Grill Hot Plate combo is perfect for barbequing in the great outdoors.
If you’ve got one of these, then you can cook just about anything over a campfire including all the BBQ favourite like sausages, steaks, onions, chicken and even vegies.
These can be used over either direct flame or coals. Most people tend to choose coals to avoid getting too close to open flames.
Foil
This is the best method of campfire cooking if you don’t want to carry heavy equipment with you, and by far the cheapest too. Make sure you have high quality foil that won’t tear easily. Wrap your food up tightly adding a little water to the foil to prevent it from drying out or burning and place it in the embers of a mature fire. Roast vegies and some of the best campfire desserts can be cooked using this simple method. Did someone say S’mores?!
Jaffle Iron
The simple things in life are often the best. These good-old jaffle iron toasties are proof of that.
This is brilliant way to make easy camping food that everyone will love – especially the kids, from cheese toasties and pies to gooey deserts.
Once loaded with food, you close the plates of the Jaffle Iron shut, lock them off and then use the metal rod to dangle the jaffle iron over the fire. Like with camp ovens, having hot coals provides more consistent heat.
Jaffle Irons are a great opportunity to get creative with different ingredients and are a bit of fun for both kids and adults alike
Skewers
Whether you call them kebabs, or just plain skewers, these grillable meals-on-a-stick are perfect for camp cooking.
Pre-cut vegetables and marinate your meat at home, so when you arrive at the campsite all you need to do is assemble and cook.
Since these cook on a grill there is minimal prep work, no dishes to clean up and loads of fire-roasted flavour.
Jaffle Irons are a great opportunity to get creative with different ingredients and are a bit of fun for both kids and adults alike
Rotisserie
There’s nothing like sitting out under the stars and enjoying the sights and sounds of nature. The only way to make it even better is by having a good campfire rotisserie to make food on the campfire.
Rotisserie cooking over an open fire is by far one of the best ways to cook any whole meats, whether it be beef, pork, chicken, lamb or a combination of a couple of them the tenderness and flavours can’t be beaten.
This type of cooking is best done over moderate coals. Set up your camping rotisserie about 15 to 18 inches over the coals – Smoke is good and heat is good, flames are bad! Don’t let the flames touch your meat.
As a rule of thumb add an hour to what it would normally take at home in the oven for larger roasts.
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