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Photos courtesy Old Scout Outdoor Products
Cooking Over an Open Campfire
How to Level Up Your Meals in the Outdoors
If your campfire cooking has been limited to hot dogs roasted on forks, you’re missing much of the fun of camping. Granted, it takes a little more time and planning than turning on the stove in your kitchen, but there’s a great sense of accomplishment in serving up a dinner cooked on an open fire. And nothing tastes better than a campfire meal.
The biggest secret is the fire itself. The best cooking fires are built with split dry hardwood. Pine gives a quick blaze but burns out quickly, so you need plenty of it to cook a meal. Many beginners start with a simple teepee fire, with wood stacked in a pyramid around smaller pieces and kindling. A teepee fire works for cooking with one pot, but you will have more cooking surface and consistent heat with a fire built like a log cabin, with smaller kindling in the center to get it started.
Most people make the mistake of building too big a fire or thinking that the pan must be placed in the flames. Heat travels upwards, so a fire below the pan cooks better than one around it. And a low flame is safer, too.
Once you have a slow, steady fire, cooking is much the same as at home, but with a lower stove. You can use almost any all-metal pan with metal handles, although heavier ones, such as a cast iron skillet, keep the heat even. Long-handled metal spoons, forks, and spatulas are handy, as are potholder mitts to protect your hands while stirring and turning food.
For campfire cooking, simpler is better. Once you have the hang of it, you can make more complicated dishes, but it’s best to begin with a few one- or two-pot favorites such as stews, spaghetti and meatballs, or chicken fricassee.
One of the easiest dinners to cook on a campfire is steamed Maine clams served clambake-style with potatoes and fresh-picked corn. Before you begin, soak cleaned clams for about an hour in cold water with a big spoonful of cornmeal to expel the sand. Rinse them well, and when the rest of the meal is ready to eat, bring a cup of white wine (or water) to a boil in a deep pot with a finely minced onion and a few cloves of chopped garlic. Add the clams and cook for about seven minutes, shaking the pot a few times as they steam.
Not everything needs to be cooked on top of the grate; potatoes and corn can be roasted in the coals, a process kids enjoy taking charge of. Wrap potatoes in two or three layers of aluminum foil and bury them in the hot coals. Pull them out every 20 minutes or so to be sure they are still securely wrapped, and test them occasionally with the point of a sharp knife. To serve with corn and clams, you’ll need to start the potatoes first. Once cooked, they will stay hot in the foll.
To roast corn, peel back the husks of fresh-picked corn just enough to remove the silk, then soak corn in water for about 15 minutes. Pull the husks back in place, then wrap them in two layers of foil. Put them in the coals to steam or on the grate above the fire, just out of reach of strong direct flame. Turn these often, as they won’t cook as evenly (or fast) as they would in the coals.
A reflector oven adds a whole new dimension to camp cuisine. A simple folding oven sits in front of the fire and reflects heat onto a center rack. You can adjust the heat by moving the oven back or adding wood to the fire – but you get most of the heat from the coals, not the flames. Old Scout ovens (www.bdbcanoe.com) are efficient and reasonably priced.
Simple foods such as biscuits, cornbread (boxed mixes save bringing multiple ingredients), or fruit cobblers work well, and baking them in the oven is a good way to enjoy those blackberries you found alongside the trail.
With a little practice, you’ll begin to try different dishes in your camp “kitchen,” and the whole family will enjoy discovering ways to prepare their favorites. You may not perfect the technique of baking a soufflé in a reflector oven, but you’ll be surprised at the culinary magic you can perform over a campfire.
Blackberry Crisp![]() Photo: Bobbie Randolph Try this simple recipe the next time you camp:
Mix berries with flour and 3/4 cup sugar in a baking pan. Mix remaining ingredients and spread over top of berries. Cover with foil and bake in reflector oven for about 20 minutes, turning the pan occasionally. Uncover and bake 15 minutes longer, or until the top is slightly browned and berries have bubbled up around the edges. Cool slightly before serving. If served hot it will not cut into neat pieces, but who wants to wait? |
Story by Bobbie Randolph, a New England travel and food writer who has been cooking on a campfire since she was six and camped with her parents. Bean-hole beans, blueberry pies in a Dutch oven buried under the coals, clambakes on the beach – she’s done it all and loved every bite. Her favorite campgrounds are at Camden Hills and Cobscook Bay State Parks.