Outdoor cooking > Info > Dutch oven cooking

Dutch oven cooking

I've been using dutch ovens to cook meals since I was about nine years old, when I first got involved in cub scouts.  We were taught how to make everything from mountain man breakfasts to peach cobbler to dinners that would have the Emporer of Ancient China drooling.  Getting started can be a little tricky at first, though, so here are a few basic dutch oven cooking tips.

Dutch oven cooking is like taking care of babies.  You have to watch what you're doing!  Don't feel that the lid has to stay down.  A lot of the rookie mistakes could easily be avoided if you just glanced at the food every once in a while, so don't be afraid to do so.

Another basic tip is to rotate your dutch oven.  Rotate it a quarter of a circle (that's ninety degrees for you math people) four times throughout the cooking, or if it's particularly long cooking, than once every fifteen minutes.

To cook your food evenly on a campfire, you'll want to either use a dutch oven cooking style that I call “buried” or a style I call “coaling.”  If you want to bury the dutch oven, the aim is to get the entire dutch oven inside the heat of the flame, usually buried until coals on all sides.  The other option is the have the dutch oven atop the heat with coals on top of it, so you'll get even cooking.

Dutch oven cooking is fun and the results are incredibly tasty!  You learn best by doing it, though, so get out there and cook!