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Campfire Cuisine
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Campfire Cuisine. Is it as fancy as it sounds? Yes and no. It’s time consuming but simple once you get the hang of cooking on a fire. And it’s delicious. The same meal cooked indoors just isn’t as tasty as food cooked outdoors. The combination of cast iron, fresh air, wood smoke and atmosphere can’t be beat.
I was privileged to work with a Maine Guide and Lou Falank, an outdoors and primitive skills educator at BOW’s (Becoming an Outdoors-Woman) Introductory Skills Weekend. We led a workshop on campfire cooking early Saturday morning. We finished at 11:30 am and lunch was served at noon. I was so full I didn’t make it to lunch.
Maine Guide coffee: Mix coffee grounds with an egg… Photo courtesy of Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife
The morning started off by meeting Steve in the parking lot at 6:45. We carried our equipment up the rocked stairwell to our site under a tipi. With a few minutes to spare, the three of us had time to talk. If I have half of Lou’s knowledge and woods wisdom in my lifetime I’ll be satisfied.
We started with Maine Guide coffee. I looked forward to this coffee for weeks. The grounds were measured out then mixed with an egg, including the shell. The shell eliminates some of the acidity. When the coffee is done, the grounds and egg are removed in one piece. I had the last of the coffee and was amazed to find only a few grounds in the bottom of my cup. Honestly, the mass of egg and grounds is unappetizing to look at but you quickly forget about it after one sip of coffee. It’s worth mentioning so that nobody is turned off by the grounds when they make it the first time. Do it! It’s excellent coffee. If you’re buying a pot, get one with a metal handle to avoid melting it the fire. We used my pot on the Coleman stove to keep it whole.
Eggs, onion and seasoning were on the ingredient list for breakfast frittata. Photo courtesy of Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.
About half of the class baked a frittata for breakfast. We (I say “we” lightly. Participants did all the work.) used moose breakfast sausage, onion, bell pepper, seasoning and a dozen eggs. The meat was so lean it didn’t need to be browned prior to mixing the ingredients together. Good flavors aren’t lost to browning and make the frittata that much more delicious.
Moose sausage, ready for the rest of the ingredients.
It’s impossible for everyone to build a campfire at home. With that in mind, it is possible to cook outdoors using charcoal. We placed charcoal briquettes on a cookie sheet to keep the lighter fluid and flames off the dry pine needles and leaves. The top of the Dutch oven has a lip perfect for holding briquettes. The number of briquettes under and on top of the oven to reach 350* depends upon the size of the oven. A 10” Dutch oven needs 14 briquettes on top and seven beneath to reach 350*. They’ll last about an hour, more than enough time to cook our frittata. The frittata was done in 25 minutes. There wasn’t a photographer at class when breakfast was ready and we ate it so quickly I don’t have a picture. Sorry!
Baking the frittata on charcoal. Photo courtesy of Tammy Lea Photography.
The other half of the class made baked beans. The beans were precooked to give them a head start. Our workshop wasn’t long enough to keep them at the fire starting with uncooked beans. The mixed beans, molasses, dry mustard, two pounds of pre-sliced salt pork, onions and other ingredients. They filled the Dutch oven and placed it beside the coals.
Next on the menu, soup with moose burger, seasonings, a few bouillon cubes for added flavor, carrots and barley. The ingredient list was limited for simplicity. At home I add corn, green beans, onions, garlic and anything else that sounds good at the time. I’d give you the recipe but I don’t use them. Some of this, a little of that… We didn’t brown the burger. Everything went into the Dutch oven; we added water for broth, put the cover on and nestled it against the coals.
Lou Falank taught us about hemlock and balsam teas. Photo courtesy of Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.
Lou taught us how to make hemlock (no, not the poisonous kind) and white pine needle tea. He put water on to boil before showing us the proper way to harvest from the trees. The hemlock tips and pine needles steep in hot but not boiling water. I was surprised at how good both teas taste. I expected them to be bitter but that wasn’t the case. This is so simply and tasty that I’ll be making it here at home often. I can steep the tea in a pot on the back of the wood stove to have it ready all winter.
Hemlock twigs and pine needles steep in boiled water.
Back at the work table, participants kneaded bread in plastic zipper bags. They wrapped the dough around sticks and cooked it over an open flame. Delicious! Steve formed the extra dough into cakes and cooked them on a griddle, also delicious. They used a basic dough recipe that can easily be adapted to add different flavors.
Bread on a stick, baked beans and soup cook around the campfire. Photo courtesy of Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife
Campfire cooking is simple. Nothing has to be fancy or contain a long list of ingredients to be tasty and nutritious. It’s easiest for beginners to start with moist meals like soup and baked beans because they don’t burn. You Tube has a lot of instructional videos online.
I’ll post the handout on tips and hints tomorrow. It includes how many briquettes to use to create oven temperatures in the Dutch oven.
