Dutch Oven Favorites: More of the Best of the Black Pot

CHAPTER 1

Easy Dutch OvEn REcipEs

Keep it Simple!

A LONG TIME AGO, a friend of mine and I were talking, and he asked me to give him some good, simple recipes. His church group was having a dutch oven event, and he wanted to get in on it. He wanted something that was delicious and fancy-tasting, but not difficult to pull off or overwhelming for a novice chef.

That got me thinking. I know a lot of really good, simple recipes, and I ought to put together a series of blog posts on them. It’s also good for a first chapter in a recipe book. It’s wise to start out with the easy ones and then move on to more complex, difficult recipes in other chapters.

I did some digging and came up with some recipes in three categories.

One-pot, one-step meals: These are dishes that are full and hearty and simple to do. You assemble the ingredients right in the dutch oven, put it on the coals, and cook your food. Simple, clean, easy.

Two-step meals: These are dishes that have an extra preparatory step. You might have to brown the meat before adding all the other ingredients, for example. You might have to cook something in one pot and then add more to it for the final cooking.

Easy breads: Breads have lots of steps and are tricky to cook, so I made a separate category for them.

Even though I’m trying to keep things simple, I’m also trying to make them from scratch as much as possible. It’s easy to pour ingredients from cans and heat them up, but I find it much more satisfying to go deep and make things as much on my own as possible.

I also want to dispel the idea that simple is bland. You can take easy dishes with few steps, and with some cool spices and flavors, make them elegant and special.

One-pot, One-step Meals

A Simple Beef Stew with Everything

Tools

12-inch dutch oven

18–20 coals below

Ingredients

2 Tbsp. oil

1–2 lbs. stew beef

2 medium to large potatoes, quartered and sliced

1 cup sliced mushrooms

2 sweet peppers, chopped

(I like to use one green and one of a different color, like red or yellow. It adds more color and a slightly different flavor.)

1–2 large carrots, sliced

1–2 celery stalks, sliced

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

1 jalapeno, seeded, cored, and sliced

1/2 Tbsp. crushed bay leaves (or crumble a few whole leaves)

1 Tbsp. parsley

1/2 Tbsp. thyme

2 Tbsp. minced garlic

liberal shakes (maybe 1/6 cup) balsamic vinegar

1 (14 oz.) can beef broth

salt

pepper

2 Tbsp. flour (added at the end)

This stew is in category one—a one-pot, one-step meal. Sometimes I call these dump meals, because you just dump everything into the dutch oven and cook it!

I started by lighting up about 25 coals. There will be extras to help with lighting fresh coals. While those were heating up, I prepared the dutch oven inside. I put a little oil at the bottom of the 12-inch dutch oven, along with the beef at the bottom. Then I started chopping and slicing veggies. I just added everything into the dutch oven directly, stirring it up as I went. You can make this with just about any veggies you happen to have in the fridge. I think the only ones that are required are the potatoes and onions, and maybe the carrots.

With all the veggies and meat in, I poured in the can of broth and added the salt and pepper. I’d keep adding salt and pepper to taste throughout the cooking process. It doesn’t really matter what order you put things in. It’s all going into the same pot, and then it gets added to the heat.

I took the pot outside onto the front porch and spread out about 18 to 20 coals on my cooking area (a small metal table) and set the dutch oven (with the lid on) on top of it. Within 15 to 20 minutes, it was boiling, so I removed a few coals (maybe 4 or so) to reduce the heat a little. I still had some coals going in my side fire, and I added some to it from the bag from time to time to be able to have hot ones to replenish the ones under the dutch oven.

Every half hour or so I’d open the lid and stir the stew. Having that much liquid, and cooking mainly from the bottom, makes this dish an easy one to learn on, since regulating the heat isn’t that tricky. As the coals died down, I’d add new ones from my side fire. The total cooking time was an hour and a half to two hours. My gauge is the potatoes. When they’re done, I’m safe, though I usually cook it a bit longer for more flavors.

Just at the end, I added the flour as a thickener. I imagine I could have added it at the beginning and it probably would have been okay, but I think it maintains the thickness better when added at the end. I’ve heard that tapioca powder is a really good thickener, which can be added at the beginning.

This is a yummy basic stew. To take this to another level, put the dutch oven on the coals with just the oil. Let it heat up a bit, and then brown the meat, onions, garlic, and mushrooms. Once they are browned, add everything else. Also, when you serve it, garnish it with a few crumbs of feta cheese!

Chicken and Potatoes

I remember the night when my son Brendon and I did a demo for our church’s women’s group. They invited me to demonstrate dutch oven cooking, so, I did my old standby of chicken, onions, and potatoes.

Brendon and I did a short twenty-minute demo where we poured all the ingredients into the dutch oven. While the ladies attended other classes, we put it on the coals to cook. After the evening was done, they all came back and sampled.

This is one of the most flexible meals you could ever cook. The ingredients can adjust to whatever you have on hand, including the spices and flavorings. You can prepare it in stages or as a dump meal, where you just dump everything into the dutch oven and cook it. It’s kind of like a good jazz tune. It comes out different every time I cook it.

That night, we went herbal, and we made it simple.

This recipe serves about 4–6 people, and can be done in a standard 12-inch dutch oven.

Basic Meats and Veggies

Tools

8–10 coals below

16–18 coals above

Ingredients

a few Tbsp. of olive oil

2–3 medium to large onions, sliced

3–4 boneless chicken breasts, cubed

3–4 potatoes, quartered and sliced

2–3 carrots, sliced

3–4 stalks of celery, sliced

2–3 sweet peppers, sliced

about a half pound of bacon, cooked crispy

flavorings (herbal-style)

1 heaping Tbsp. minced garlic

liberal shakes of

parsley

rosemary

oregano

a few shakes (about a tsp. or so) balsamic vinegar

and, of course, salt and pepper

We started by lighting 25–30 coals before the demo. While those were getting glowing and hot, we sliced up our ingredients. Since we chose a simple dish, we put everything into the dutch oven and put on the lid. We made a ring of about 8–10 coals and set the oven on top. Then we put about 16–18 coals in a ring around the top of the lid.

I left a few coals burning aside. After about 10–15 minutes, I put about ten fresh coals on those. They got lit, and by the time the coals on the dutch oven had burned down, they were ready to be replenished.

We cooked it for about 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes, until the chicken and the veggies were done. We checked the softness of the potatoes as a good gauge of doneness.

Here are a couple other suggestions for flavoring combinations.

Some Like it Hot

Ingredients

1 heaping Tbsp. minced garlic

1–2 jalapeno peppers, sliced. If you don’t like it really hot, you can seed and core them first, or use fewer peppers

a few shakes of cayenne pepper, chili powder, or Louisiana-style hot sauce (Tabasco)

a few shakes of paprika

about 1/2 bunch of fresh chopped cilantro

juice of 1–2 limes

salt and pepper

or, just pour in your favorite salsa instead of or in addition to the above ingredients

Springtime Lemon

Ingredients

1 heaping Tbsp. minced garlic

1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1–2 lemons

salt and pepper

Here’s how to kick it up a notch and make it even more delicious!

Cook the bacon in the dutch oven over 15–20 coals. (Make sure it’s good and crispy.) Then remove most of the grease. Sauté the onions and garlic in the bacon grease until they’re translucent and sweet. Add the remaining ingredients and cook as above.

Another great idea is that after you take the dutch oven off the coals, just a few minutes before serving, coat the food with a layer of your favorite shredded cheese. Let the oven’s residual heat melt it. For the herbal flavorings, I’d recommend mozzarella. For the hot and spicy version, cheddar or colby jack. With the lemon style, I’d crumble feta onto the dish once it’s served.

BBQ chicken

Another simple and traditional dutch oven favorite is barbecue chicken. At its easiest, you simply thaw some frozen chicken breasts, put them in the oven, smother them in your favorite commercial barbecue sauce, and bake them until they’re done.

It can be served as is, or pulled apart with forks and served on buns for a delicious sandwich.

Here’s a version that picks the flavors up a bit but is still simple.

Tools

12-inch shallow dutch oven

10–12 coals below

18–22 coals above

Ingredients

chicken for 3–5 people (3–5 chicken breasts, 3–5 entire chicken legs, or 6–10 chicken thighs), thawed.

1 medium yellow onion

1 green bell pepper

2 (14 oz.) cans of beans (different kinds)

1 (18 oz.) bottle barbecue sauce

(or see the recipe to the right)

Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients

1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce

1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste

3–5 Tbsp. mustard

3–5 Tbsp. molasses

liberal shakes of

salt

black pepper

garlic powder

paprika

and a touch of chili powder

I start this dish off by thawing the chicken, patting the chicken dry, and firing up the coals. I lightly season the chicken on both sides with a bit of salt and pepper. While that’s being absorbed and the coals are heating up, I’ll dice the onion and the pepper. If I’m using a homemade sauce (see recipe above and instructions below), I would mix that now too.

I drain the beans and add them, along with the onions and the peppers into the dutch oven, stirring it all up. I layer the chicken over the bean mixture and cover the chicken using the entire bottle of barbecue sauce. (If you’re using the homemade sauce, see the recipe above and the instructions below.)

Then, I put the lid on and set it on the 10–12 coals, which should be in a circle around the bottom of the dutch oven. Add a ring of 18–22 coals on the outer edge of the lid. I cook it until the internal temperature of the chicken is about 170, which is probably about 45 minutes to an hour. The barbecue sauce will bake onto the chicken and drizzle down into the beans, making a delicious, full meal.

If you want to make a delicious barbecue sauce, here’s my process. All BBQ sauces are made of four basic ingredients: tomatoes, a sweetener, an acid, and seasonings. Armed with this understanding, you can be inventive with your own sauce. A common sweetener is brown sugar, but I’ve seen people use fruit marmalades. Vinegar works for the acid. Some will use a cola for both the sweetener and the acid.

In my house recipe, I use mustard and molasses. I also use my own taste rather than measuring. I start by emptying the tomato paste and tomato sauce into a bowl, mixing it up thoroughly, and tasting it to get a baseline flavor on my palate. Then, I stir in mustard, one or two tablespoons at a time, until the tang is equal to the tomato, and neither overpowers the other. After that, I’ll do the same with the molasses. Once these three are harmoniously balanced, then I know I’ve got a good basic sauce, and it’s just a matter of adding in flavorings to enhance it. I add salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc., based on my whimsy and what I have available, stirring and tasting all along the way. When it’s set to your liking, cover and chill it for a while so the flavors will blend. Then use it as you would the commercial sauce.

A homemade sauce on basic chicken is a great way to personalize a tasty and easy dinner.

Chili

Throw it all in the Dutch Oven Chili

A few years ago, our church congregation had a chili cook-off. It brought out the chef in everyone, it seemed, and I got a lot of ideas as I tasted everyone’s chili. One thing I learned is that you really can’t go wrong. There are so many different chilies, with so many different flavorings and ingredients, that there really isn’t a wrong way to do it. Here are a few tricks, along with my own take on this classic, one-pot meal.

One trick is to add cinnamon. This yummy spice adds a different kick that you don’t expect but are sure to enjoy. Other flavorings I like include lemon juice and cilantro, as well as molasses.

Another cool trick is, toward the end of the cooking, to add about a half cup of corn masa or crushed corn chips. It thickens up the broth with a rich flavor and aroma.

Other than that, it’s pretty much the same as any other chili. There are a few key ingredients, and the rest of it is simply whatever you have on hand. Chili is one of those things that you can make with a pretty wide variety of ingredients. And the experimenting never stops.

Tools

12-inch dutch oven

20+ coals underneath

Essential Ingredients

1 lb. ground beef or other meat

2–3 medium onions

3 (15 oz.) cans beans with liquid (different kinds of beans)

2 (14.5 oz.) cans tomatoes with liquid

1/2 cup corn masa harina or crushed tortilla chips

Other things I sometimes like to add (but you can add whatever you’d like)

2 Tbsp. garlic

1–2 jalapeno peppers, cored and seeded, chopped

2–3 bell peppers

liberal amounts of

parsley

cilantro

salt

pepper

cumin

cinnamon

More things you can add

celery

crushed red peppers

lemon juice

brown sugar

barbecue sauce

molasses

To prepare chili, I only use bottom heat. I’ll light up the coals, and once they get a bit white, I’ll arrange them with a bit of space between under the dutch oven. I start by browning the meat. I might also sauté the onions and peppers, but that’s not absolutely necessary.

Then, when the meat is done, I’ll add in the onions, the beans, and the tomatoes. Sometimes, I’ll drain one or two cans of the beans. Occasionally I’ll put the lid on, because that will bring the chili to a simmer more quickly. Once it’s simmering, you can start adding in other ingredients, stirring and tasting as you go.

It will be ready in as little as 30–45 minutes, but the longer it simmers, the more the flavors will blend.

Dutch Oven Dump Cake Cobbler

For a picture of this recipe, scan this QR code:

Dump cake cobblers, for the uninitiated, is a dutch oven tradition. You put some canned peaches with their juice in the bottom of the dutch oven, and then you shake a cake mix on top. Sometimes, you put butter on top of the floating mix. As it cooks, the juices boil up and mix with the cake mix, and the butter (if you added any) melts down into the bubbling mire. Cool (just a little) and serve with ice cream.

Let me make a confession. I’ve never really liked to cook dump cake cobblers.

I’m of this opinion for two reasons: 1) Everybody does them. And everyone I talk to about dutch oven cooking remembers having one once and it tasted so good. No matter how much I talk about fancy meats and elaborate desserts, someone always says, Yeah, but can you do a cobbler like that?

And that leads me to number 2) For a while, I couldn’t do them! For some reason, they never turned out the way I wanted them to. They were either too runny and sloppy, or the cake mix never mixed, and I ended up with dried out powder on top.

I figured that there were two issues that were preventing me from getting the perfect dump cake cobbler each time. One was the balance of peach syrup to how much cake mix was on top, and the other was the placement of the heat to make it boil up properly.

Part of the problem in the past was that since everybody does these desserts, everybody does them just a little differently. So, resolving the issue by research didn’t get me anywhere. I had to experiment. Finally, I found the balance of all the factors. The crust on top was an actual crusty cake, not a dry powder. The peaches on the bottom were nicely blended in with the cake. It tasted great!

So, here’s the result.

Tools

12-inch shallow dutch oven

12 coals below

12 coals above

Ingredients

2 (15 oz.) cans peaches in light syrup

2 boxes yellow cake mix

1/4 cup brown sugar

liberal shakes of cinnamon and nutmeg

1 stick butter

I start (after lighting up some coals) by opening the cans of peaches and pouring them, with the syrup, directly into the dutch oven. Then, I open up the boxes and bags of cake mix and sprinkle them over the peaches and syrup.

After many tries, I’ve decided that there should be a 1:1 ratio between cans of syrup and boxes of cake mix. I also discovered that one box of cake mix is not enough in a 12-inch dutch oven. If I were doing this in a 10-inch dutch oven, I would half everything.

Next I crumble the brown sugar over the top of the cake mix and sprinkle on the spices. The final ingredient is to cut the stick of butter into small pieces and scatter these over the crust as well. Then, the lid goes on, and the whole dutch oven goes on the coals.

Now, if I were baking a normal dessert, I would put more coals on top, and fewer coals on the bottom. In this case, however, I want more heat on the bottom to get the peach juice boiling up to blend with the cake mix.

I bake it for about 35 minutes before checking it, rotating it once along the way. When you rotate a dutch oven, lift it by the bail and turn it a quarter turn in either direction. Then set it back down, doing the same for the lid. This repositions the food in relation to the coals and prevents burning. Determining the doneness is tricky. It should be brown on top, and the liquid should have boiled up through the crust. I figure it would be hard to burn it, so I sometimes let it go as much as 10 minutes longer.

Then, I bring it in and let it cool. This not only keeps it from burning my guests’ mouths, but it also gives the boiling syrup and the cake mix more time to settle together. Finally, we top it with ice cream and eat it. Following this pattern, it comes out exactly as I had always wanted it to be. A nice crust on top, a little bit runny blend underneath, and delicious peaches as a base. The sugar and the butter add a little crispiness and flavor, and the spices take it to a new level.

The added taste of victory is especially sweet!

Dutch Oven Drop Biscuits

I actually like drop biscuits a lot, because you don’t have to handle them much.