Dutch Oven Cashew Sesame Chicken

Lately, I’ve been doing these chicken dishes where you dredge some chicken breast strips in flour and spices, and then fry them.  Then you make some kind of sauce, and bake the sauce on like a glaze.

I think I’ll make it a series, here.  I didn’t really intend to do it, but it kinda worked out that way.   This one is a sort of asian-inspired one, with cashews, ginger, soy sauce, and sesame, and the next weekend was the chocolate barbecue sauce.  I think the next one I’m going to do will be a buffalo sauce.

Ah luvs me mah hotwings!

Dutch Oven Cashew Sesame Chicken

12” Dutch oven

20+ coals below for frying

10 coals below for baking
22 coals above


8” Dutch oven

12+ coals below


2 lbs boneless & skinless chicken breast tenders
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp kosher salt

3 garlic cloves, minced
4 tbsps rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
4 tbsps ketchup

1/2 cup cashews
2-3 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds

1 1/2 cups rice
3 cups water

First, you’ll want to make sure that the chicken is all completely thawed.  Then, light up a bunch of coals.  When they start to get white, put a lot (about 20+) coals under a 12” Dutch oven.  Drizzle some olive oil (maybe a couple of tablespoons), and let that heat up.

Meanwhile, mix the flour, salt and pepper in a small bowl.  If you’re using chicken tenders, they’re already the right size and shape, pretty much.  If you’re using breasts, cut them into strips about an inch wide.  I Dredged the chicken pieces in the flour mixture and put them into the heated, oiled dutch oven.  I kind of snuggled the pieces in pretty close together.  I Let them fry for ten minutes or so on each side, until the chicken was cooked in the middle, and had a nice, crusty brown on each surface.

I had to do all the chicken in two batches, because I couldn't get them all in one Dutch oven.

While the second batch was frying, I came inside and mixed all of the other ingredients into a bowl.  You can adjust the amounts of everything by taste.
When the second batch of chicken was done, I added the first batch back in, and stirred in the sauce, making sure to coat all of the pieces well.  I put it on, and under, the coals to bake a little longer.  I added the cashews and the sesame seeds and stirred those in.  At this point, everything is cooked, but you just want it to be heated, and to have the flavors baked together.

While this was baking, I put the rice and water into the 8” and put that on some coals, with the lid on.  When I noticed steam venting, I let it cook for a bit longer, then pulled it off the coals, and let it sit for another 10 to 15 minutes to finish steaming.

When it was all done, we served the chicken on the rice, and it was delicious!



Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

Dutch Oven Sushi, Part II

OK, I know that, technically, rolling up sushi has nothing to do with a cast iron dutch oven.  I get that.  However, in the last post, I did make the rice and the rice vinegar sauce in my dutch ovens, so that counts, right?

With the rice all ready from the previous part, it’s time to prepare the filling ingredients.  Here is a list of all the ingredients we usually gather to make our various sushi rolls.


The sushi ingredients and fillings:

• 6-8 sheets of Nori (roasted seaweed)
• The sushi rice
• a thick, but small fillet of salmon, uncooked
• a thick, but small tuna steak, uncooked
• Crab leg meat
• cucumber
• carrots
• cream cheese
• Sliced avocado
• white and black sesame seeds

The tools

• A sushi rolling mat
• A large cutting board
• a very sharp knife
• a Bowl of water
• a damp towel

For serving

• Soy Sauce
• Wasabi paste
• pickled ginger slices

The meats needs a little bit of preparation.  If the fish was frozen, it should be completely thawed, and patted dry with paper towels.  I cut the skin away from the salmon.  We usually use imitation crab.  I know I should hang my head in shame, but at least we can afford it.

I peeled the cucumber and quartered it lengthwise.  I scooped out the seeds with a spoon, and sliced it lengthwise into very thin strips.  I cut the carrots into long, thin strips as well.

I arranged everything in the list of ingredients and tools around my cutting board, so that I could reach whatever I wanted to put into any particular roll.  Finally, it was time to make sushi!

I placed the rolling mat on the cutting board in front of me, so that I would be rolling away from myself.  I put a sheet of nori, shiny side down, onto the rolling mat.  Then I got my hands good and wet in the bowl and grabbed a palmfull of rice.  I spread that out over the nori.  There’s an art to even the spreading of the rice, which I have not yet learned.  The trick is to spread it thinly and gently, without smashing the grains of rice.  I’ve read that you should be able to see spots of nori through the clumps of rice.

I’ve read about and watched lots of techniques.  I use a whole sheet of nori and I spread enough rice to cover all but about ¾ of an inch at the far edge.  Some use half sheets.  You can play with it and see.

Once the rice is spread, I lay my ingredients in a horizontal line, about an inch from the near edge of the nori.  I start by slicing off a thin bit or two of tuna or salmon and laying that down.  I put on any other ingredients I want, such as the cucumber or the carrots.  You can sprinkle the sesame in at this point, but I like to sprinkle it over the sliced pieces when I’m done.  Cream cheese is sliced off with a regular butter knife and laid onto the roll in strips.

I have to resist the urge to put too much in a roll.  I love to just keep putting stuff in, but I know that it muddies up the tastes, and it makes it harder to roll.

If you or any of your guests don’t like the idea of eating raw fish, use the crab.  I’ve even cooked the fish and put it in the sushi before, but I don’t like it as much myself.

Once I’ve laid in my fillings, I curl up the near end of the rolling mat, with the nori, and curl it up and over the ingredients.  I’ll often use my fingers to hold the ingredients in place as I’m doing the curl.  I roll it over, and pull the leading edge of the mat away as it rolls the nori underneath.  I squeeze as I’m rolling, but I have to be cautious not to squeeze  too much, so as to keep the rice from smooshing.

The last bit of nori, where there’s no rice, gets a little bit of water from my fingers, to help it seal.  Then, with a couple of squeezes, the last bit of rolling was complete.  I pulled the mat away, and picked up the knife.  I wiped it with the damp cloth and in a couple of quick motions, cut the roll in half.  I turn the two halves I’ve cut to be side-by-side.  I wiped the blade again, and cut the slices of the roll together, two more times, to make a total of six pieces.  I wiped the blade between each cut.

Finally, each piece was set on the plate, with a dollop of wasabi paste and a few bits of the pickled ginger.

Now, while it might not be as good as you’ll get in a fine sushi bar in tokyo, or even the more metropolitan areas of the states, it still tasted great, and I had a lot of fun making it, too!








Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.
Mark's Other Blog Posts: name post, name post,

Sushi? In a Dutch Oven?

Well, Mark, you have finally lost it.  You’ve gone too far.  Now we’re going to have to call the Dutch oven police on you.  Sushi?  Really?  That can’t be legal...

OK, OK, technically, I only made the rice in my dutch oven.  That’s really all you cook, anyway, right?  But still, can you imagine making such an exotic meal out in the woods somewhere?  It’s a cool thought!

Brendon and I have made sushi about 7 or 8 times, now, indoors.  I admit that, with that little bit of experience, we’re hardly expert chefs.  But we’ve been able to make it work pretty well, and have created some good and simple rolls.  Let me share with you what I’ve learned.

Dutch Oven Sushi Rice

10” Dutch oven
~18 coals underneath

8” Dutch oven
~10 coals underneath

• 3 cups Japanese short-grain rice
• 3 1/4 cups water
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt

Tools

• a wide wooden spoon or spatula
• A fan

• a non-metallic bowl, preferably wooden, preferably wide and shallow

I’ve learned that the process is as important as the ingredients.  That begins all the way back even before I started cooking.  I took three cups of Japanese short-grain rice and put it in a bowl.  I filled it with water until the rice was well submerged, and stirred it and turned it with my hands.  Instantly, the water became a murky white.  After a few turns, it seemed it wasn’t getting any cloudier, so I carefully drained as much as I could without spilling the rice into the sink.  Then I filled it back up with fresh water and swished and rinsed it again.  And again.  And again.

I’ve never gotten it to the point where the water flowed completely clear, but I have been able to rinse it so that it was almost clear, or at least significantly clearer.  I usually do it at least six or seven times.

Finally, I put the rice in a strainer and let it sit over my sink for about a half hour.  That’s when it’s ready to cook.  While the rice is straining, I lit up my coals and let them get hot.

I put the rice and the water into my 10” dutch oven, and set that on the coals with the lid on.  I let it sit there for about 20 to 25 minutes.  Normally, when I cook rice, I watch for venting steam, but this time I didn’t see any, so I had to carefully watch the clock.  Keep in mind that the dutch oven has to heat up, too.  I didn’t lift the lid at all.

Once the rice time was done, I pulled it off the coals and set it aside.  I didn’t lift the lid.  It sat for quite some time, easily another 20 minutes.

While that was finishing the final stages of cooking, I mixed the sweet vinagar ingredients in the 8”, and put that over some coals, uncovered.  I stirred that, and let it dissolve to a low, rolling boil.  Then I pulled it off and let it cool some.

Combining the rice and the vinegar is an odd process.  I dumped the rice into the non-metallic bowl.  While slowly stirring the rice with the spoon/spatula, I would alternately use my other hand to pour in some of the vinegar mix, and fan away the moisture and steam.  Stir, pour, fan, stir, pour, fan.  Sometimes, when Brendon and I do this together, one of us fans while the other pours and stirs.  If you’re using one of the traditional shallow wooden bowls, the wood will also help wick away some of the moisture in the rice.

When it was all done, I was left with well-cooked rice, clinging to itself in clumps, with individual grains still visible.  It had a delicious sweet and sour taste.  This got set aside to get closer to room temperature.

...To be continued.  (Dun, dun, dunnnnnnnn)

Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

Dutch Oven Masaman Curry, Again!

It’s been a few years since I did this one.  In fact, the last time I cooked Masaman curry was at the IDOS Spring Convention back in April of ‘08.  THAT was a seriously long time ago.

I was overdue.  Last time I’d done it, the curry wasn’t as hot as I might have liked,  so this time, I went with powdered spices instead of a paste.  I also did it all with bottom heat, simmering the food in the coconut milk. Anyway, here it is!

Dutch Oven Masaman Curry

12” Dutch Oven, about 20 coals below

    * 1-2 Tbsp olive oil
    * 2 tablespoons Curry Seasoning. ( I bought it out of a box, not the little bottles of “curry powder”)
    * 3 medium onions
    * 4 cloves garlic, minced


    * 2 14 oz cans of Coconut Milk
    * ½ cup peanut butter


    * 6-7 medium potatoes
    * 1-2 lbs meat (This time I used about equal portions of cubed chicken an uncooked peeled shrimp)


    * up to 1-1 ½ cups water
    * ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
    * 4 bay leaves
    * 3 Tbsp sugar
    * 3 Tbsp tamarind pulp, or some splashes of tamarind juice/nectar
    * ½ cup unsalted, chopped peanuts
    * ⅛ - ¼ cup coconut (I chopped up some fresh)
    * 3 tsp salt
    * Liberal shaking of cinnamon



First, I got the dutch oven onto the coals (the entire dish was done with bottom heat), and put the oil in the bottom.  After it had heated, I added the curry spices.  I mixed that in the oil, and let it activate in the heat a little, then added the garlic and the onions to saute.  If you wanted, you could add some chopped green pepper and/or celery here.  Maybe some green onions.

Once all that was nicely sauteed and translucent, I added the coconut milk, and the peanut butter.  You could add the peanut butter by the spoonful, and then it would be in smaller chunks and dissolve a little better.

I chopped up the potatoes and cubed the chicken and added those to the heating coconut milk.  I also added in the shrimp. Once I put the meat in, I covered it with the dutch oven lid to help it trap the heat.  Still, I didn’t add any coals to the lid.

I let the liquid get warm again, and added in the remaining flavoring ingredients.  I let these simmer, covered, for about an hour or so, while I made the rice.  The water is in the list, primarily to help adjust the overall liquid level.  You could also dust in a little cornstarch or flour to thicken it up, if need be, right at the end of the cooking.  Also, taste it while it’s simmering to see if the spices are hot enough for your taste.  If not, add a little chili powder, or more curry dust, let it simmer, and then check it again.

Serve it over rice, and it’s delicious!





Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

Dutch Oven Apple and Orange Chicken

Last week, I made the Dutch Oven Seafood Chowder, and I also blogged about it in my other blog, Mo' boy, when I talked about Church Food. It was kind of an overview of the LDS Church Welfare system from my perspective.

Well, yesterday, I did another dish of the same sort of thing. A frugal dish, made from staples, that tasted delicious.

One of the things that they do as you start to get food assistance, is they give you this recipe book. It's full of really good basic recipes of dishes you can make with a few simple ingredients. It's got a lot of good advice on just simple cooking skills. Like, if you're used to just pulling out the bisquick to make biscuits, then you can use this recipe book to mix up your own bisquick. Really good solid stuff. In other words, they don't just give you food, they also hope that you'll learn a bit more about how to cook it, so you're better prepared to take care of your family.

Anyway, I was flipping through this recipe book, and there's some really cool stuff in it. I came across this recipe for "Apple and Orange Pork Chops".

Well, it turns out that we didn't have any pork chops, but we did have chicken, so I redid it. I can never leave a recipe alone, of course, so there are some extra herbs and spices in it, too.

It was also a lot of fun because Brendon and his friend helped me prep the food and cook it.

Dutch Oven Apple and Orange Chicken

18-20 coals below, to start, then
8-9 coals below
16-18 coals above, to bake

~1 lb chicken, without bones, cubed
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced (about 1-2 Tbsp)
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil

1 Cup uncooked rice
2 cups water
1 large apple, peeled and diced
2 Oranges, peeled separated and diced
Zest of one orange

Your choice of herbs and spices. We used:
Salt
Pepper
Cinnamon
Rosemary
Oregano
Thyme


This is actually a very easy dish to make. You do it in two steps.

First, I partially thawed the chicken and lit up the coals. I think it's a little easier to slice and dice chicken when it's still partly frozen. That's just me... I had Brendon and his friend start on the chicken, while I sliced up the onions. One of these days I'll blog about the many ways I've seen to slice up onions.

They actually handled the knives pretty well. That would be another good topic for a blog posting. How to use a knife. There are a lot of good YouTube videos on that. That's how I learned.

I also showed them how to split open the garlic with the flat of the knife and they thought that was really cool. Mincing it by rocking the knife was fun, too.

Then we put the onions, the garlic, and the chicken in the open pot on the coals, and let that start to brown. It took a little while. I recommend using more coals rather than less. While it was browning, the young chefs took a break on the trampoline.

Then, as it was browning, it was time to work on the other ingredients. We zested, then peeled the oranges. We separated them and diced them. We peeled the apples, then sliced and diced them up.
Soon, the chicken and onions were ready. The onions were translucent, and getting a brown edge, and the chicken was cooked and brown. We put in the rice, the water, and the fruits, and stirred it all up. We pulled some coals from the bottom to put on top, and added more coals on top. I also had a side fire going to keep fresh coals for replenishing. Also, from this point on, we were cautious about opening up the lid. If you let too much moisture escape, then the rice doesn't cook as well.

Then we went inside and chose up some herbs and spices. I think we did a pretty good job, but I think in retrospect I would have gone with a different set. I might have gone for the more "sweet spices", like nutmeg with the cinnamon. And maybe just a touch of cayenne for some edge.
About 45 minutes later, it was done.

Brendon's friend said it had a really cool chinese taste. I think that was because of the oranges. It was both sweet and savory.

And the really sweet part was cooking with my son!

Garlic Naan and Pseudo Indian Chicken

My wife's cousin was cleaning out her shelves in her house and had a whole bunch of books she was going to give to a thrift store. She offered to me the chance to look through the box and pull any books I wanted before she took them away. I dug through and picked out an Asian Cookbook.

So, we had her over for dinner and I cooked some things from it.

My first thought was to do Indian, because I found some things in there I'd been wanting to try. One of them was Naan bread, and the other was Tandoori Chicken. But it turned out that we didn't have the right spices for the tandoori chicken, so I just followed the same procedure and recipe and used Garam masala spices instead of Tandoori masala. It definitely wasn't tandoori chicken, but it was good! I also got a bit closer to working out that "open oven" technique that I'd first tried with the jerk chicken.

When I was making the Naan, I saw that the measurement for the flour was in grams and converted to pounds. I, unfortunately, don't have a scale, so I just mixed it in until it felt nice and smooth and right.

So, the recipes today will reflect the way I actually did it, not so much what the book said.

Dutch Oven Garlic Naan

12" Dutch Oven

10-12 coals below
20-24 (or more) coals above (depending on the outside temperature)

2 tsp dry active yeast
4 tbsp warm milk
2 tsp sugar

2-3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cups milk
2/3 cups yogurt
1 egg
2 tbsp butter

1/2 stick soft butter
2 tablespoons minced garlic
Liberal shakes of parsley and thyme
salt, pepper


Pseudo-Indian Chicken in the Dutch Oven

12" Dutch Oven

10-12 coals below
20-24 (or more) coals above (depending on the outside temperature)

2-3 lbs chicken (I used frozen chicken breast)
1 cup yogurt
4 tbsp garam masala powder
salt
oil


Since I cooked these things at the same time, I'll go over the instructions as I did them. There's a few suggestions I'll throw in that I hope to remember to do next time.

My sister had told me a long time ago that indian spices need to be "activated" first, to really bring out their flavor. I forgot to that this time, so I'd get some coals under my little 8" and add the masala powder and a little olive oil. I'd cook that for a few minutes, then pull it off and add that to the yogurt.

I took the chicken, thawed, and patted it dry. I cut a few slices into the chicken, so that the spices could more easily penetrate. I put it in a bowl with the yogurt and the spices and stirred it up. I set this aside for a couple of hours.

Then, I mixed the first set of ingredients in the Naan to activate the yeast. I let it sit until it got frothy, and then added the next set of ingredients. I mixed it all together (a little shy on the flour), then turned it out onto the floured tabletop to knead. As I kneaded it, I added more flour bit by bit until it felt right, smooth and satiny. Then I set aside the dough to rise.

Then I went home teaching (that's a Mo' Church thing)!

When I came back, the chicken and the bread were both almost ready.

I lit up a lot of coals. Hey, it's cold out! The tandoori Chicken is normally cooked in a special oven that cooks with a very dry heat. So, the marinade gets baked onto the chicken dry. Dutch ovens, of course, trap the steam and hot moisture under a heavy cast iron lid. Also, if you just put the chicken in the bottom of the oven, the juices will gather around the chicken. So, I put the chicken in one of those folding steamers so the juices would drip down below, and put that into the dutch oven. The lid, I dealt with another way. I put that oven on the coals to begin cooking.

I also oiled the other 12" dutch oven up and put it on and under the coals to pre-heat.

Then, I cut the dough into quarters, and rolled and spread each quarter into a flat on the floured tabletop. I had mixed the butter and the spices, so I spread that over each flat. I put the flats into the dutch oven, one at a time. After about 3-5 minutes, I opened up the lid and turned the bread over for another 3-5 minutes. Then I pulled it out and put in the next one.

In the meantime, the chicken is cooking. I put some more of the sauce/marinade on after a bit. After about 20 minutes on the heat, I figured the chicken was about half done. I had this set of tongs that I balanced across the rim of the dutch oven, and put the lid back on it. That lifted the lid enough to let the steam vent, but not so much that too much heat lost as well. I put some extra coals on the lid so that there was extra heat radiating from the top as well.

After about another 20 minutes, the chicken was done and ready. In the meantime, I'd also made some rice with lemon juice.

And it might not have been authentic Tandoori Chicken, but man, it was gooooood!

Dutch Oven Mongolian Stir Fry

There are some local Chinese restaurants here in Salt Lake City that do something called “Mongolian Stir Fry" (sometimes: "Barbecue”). You get a bowl and you go through this line like a buffet. First you pass the meats. There’s all these meats that are sliced really thin, almost like potato chips. Beef, pork, chicken, and others are all there. Then you go past noodles and vegetables. You get to choose what you want, and you put it all in your bowl. Then you get to pour in all kinds of sauces, and add garlic and hot sauce if you like.

Then you hand it off to a chef (who, in Salt Lake City, is usually Mexican, it seems. Go figure…), and they put it on this big round metal disc like a table, heated with gas from below. They flip it and toss it. If you’re lucky, you get a chef who’s a bit showy about it. Finally, in a whoosh, they scrap the cooked food off the cooking table and onto your plate and hand it to you, ready to eat.

I love it. It’s great food, and fun to watch. One thing I love about it is, like wokked stir fry, the veggies are cooked, but still crisp.

So, I got to thinking that I could do that, too, in my dutch oven. And today, I tried it.

Dutch Oven Mongolian Stir Fry

8” Dutch Oven
12” Dutch Oven

8-10 coals each above and below 8” dutch oven
20+ coals below 12” dutch oven

In the 8”

• 2 cups chicken Broth
• 1 cup rice
• salt

The Mongolian Stir Fry line

• Chicken, sliced thin
• Beef, sliced thin
• Pork, sliced thin
• Shrimp
• Mushrooms, sliced
• Celery, sliced
• Onions, sliced
• Bean sprouts
• Snow peas
• And any other veggie you care to add

The Sauces

• Minced garlic
• Soy sauce
• Vineagar
• Teriyaki
• Hot Sauce
• Salt
• Pepper
• Other herbs and spices
• Any other oriental market sauces you care to add

I started out by lighting and heating up the coals for the 8” dutch oven. Light extras, because you’ll be using more for the 12” and you’ll need them to keep the fires going. While those were getting hot and white, I sliced up the meat and the veggies.

I put the rice and the stock into the small dutch oven and put it on the coals. The way I cook rice is to simply watch it for steam venting. That tells me that it’s been boiling for a bit at that point, and I just keep it on for about another 10 minutes. Then I pull the coals off, and just let it sit for a while longer with the lid on. The less you remove the lid, the better. If you can cook it completely without ever lifting the lid, you’ve perfected the art of cooking rice in a dutch oven!

Once the rice is on the coals, I set up the side fire with more coals. By the time the rice is almost done, those coals are ready. I put those coals on the little dutch oven table and put the 12” dutch oven on them, no lid, with a couple of shakes of olive oil on the bottom. Then I called the family dinner!

They picked up bowls in the kitchen, and filled them with the ingredients they wanted in their stir fries, and poured on the sauces they wanted, as well as the spices they wanted. They brought these to me, the chef!

By this time, the dutch oven and the oil was heated, and I just took the first bowl and poured it in. I had a couple of wooden spoons and I used them to stir the food as it was cooking. At first, I just did a quick stir to make sure it all got coated with the oil, then kept it cooking, stirring and tossing it every few minutes.

While it was cooking, I put rice in the bottom of their bowl, and when it was all done (I might have added a little salt, pepper, and garlic occasionally), I scooped it out with the spoons and put it onto the rice. Maybe 3-5 minutes tops, dinner DONE!

This would be a great way to host a party. You'd just have to make sure that you had enough ingredients and rice for everyone. You could even have 2-3 dutch ovens going, each cooking the stir fry.

Bonus note!

This morning, before church, Brendon was going to make his famous Pizza for his visiting grandpa. He asked me if he could do it in the dutch ovens. Duh! Of course!

So, this turned into a full dutch oven weekend. Three whole meals cooked in the black pots!

Another Big Dutch Oven Day

Yesterday, thanks to Ranes Carter, the Storm Mountain IDOS chapter head, I got to participate in the Spring Convention of the International Dutch Oven Society (IDOS). Held at the Utah Davis County Fairgrounds, there were three buildings in use. One held classes, one had vendor booths, and the third one had cooks. There were two parts for the cooks, one was called “A Taste of Dutch” which is where I got to be, and another was for a Youth Cookoff.

Mark Goes Public

I’ve not had many opportunities to cook for the public. This really was only my second time. The first was last year’s Eagle Mountain Pony Express Days cookoff. This wasn’t a cookoff (at lest not where I was) so we weren’t competing, it wasn’t a Dutch Oven Gathering (called a DOG by those that do them), it was really more of a demo, but on a bigger scale, with lots of cooks and booths.

When I arrived, I really had no idea what to expect. Fortunately, I was sharing a booth with Ranes, who was the organizer of the TOD part of the event. So, he knew what was going on. I was scheduled to cook a breakfast dish and a lunch dish, so I got there pretty early, and got set up and cooking right away.

Mark Becomes Official

Pretty soon, someone came by and let me know that in order to comply with health codes, I needed to wear either a hat or a hair net. I had seen some hats for sale at the IDOS main booth, so I jumped and ran over there. I’ve been intending to join IDOS for a long time, but their website doesn’t take credit cards or paypal, and I never had the cash in hand at any of the moments that I had the opportunity to sign up.

So, I signed up and bought a hat. I also got this years membership pin, which I proudly displayed on the hat. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized that in my hurry to pin it on and get back to cooking, I had pinned it in upside down. Oh well.

The doors opened to the public at about 9:00 am, and people started coming through. I had been cooking my dutch oven biscuits and gravy, and just about the time that real visitor traffic hit, at about 9:30 or so, it was all ready. The biscuits didn’t turn out as well as last week’s. I’d pulled a different recipe, and it just didn’t turn out as well. I could tell it wasn’t going to be the same, because the dough was heavier to begin with. But the gravy turned out great. I chopped the biscuits into sixths and put them into little tiny sample cups and poured some gravy on each one.

A lot of people liked them. I hope so, because I never got to taste it! All of a sudden I realized that it was all gone! I did hear lots of compliments, so that was a good sign.

Mark Sells Out

The folks at Rhodes Bread were part sponsors of the event, and in addition to doing a class over in the lesson/demo building, they also donated a ton of cinnamon rolls and other doughs for us to cook up and serve. So, since that was a part of the booth where Ranes and I were, I chipped in on that, especially after the biscuits and gravy were done.

Now, I’m a “make it from scratch” kinda guy, generally speaking. Last Halloween, for example, I decided I was going to make pumpkin pie, so I made it from pumpkins. Still, I gotta say, these frozen rolls turned out really nice. They take a while to thaw, and then to rise, but they cook up well. In this setting, especially, where you gotta make a lot for the people coming through, it worked out great.

Once we’d started cooking, one of the vendors came over and asked us to demonstrate his product. It’s an aluminum foil dutch oven liner. It looks basically like those disposable roasting pans that you can get in your grocery, but it’s shaped to fit into a standard 12” dutch oven.

At first I was skeptical. And, in some ways, still am. But Ranes and I agreed to help him out. So, we started cooking in them. In some ways, they were very convenient. The biggest benefit I noticed came the next time some of the Rhodes Rolls were done. Normally, when you’re done cooking bread, you have to grab a couple of gloves or hot pads, heft up this huge, heavy, and hot dutch oven, and flip it over onto a table to shake out the rolls. With the liner, you just lift it up, and turn it over. It was much easier.

Cleanup, of course, is much easier. I don’t have much problem with that, though. My ovens have a pretty good patina on them, so I really don’t have a tough time cleaning them up. A few scrapes, a few rinses, coat them again, and I’m good to go.

When you’re doing breads, and you’re basically heating the air around the bread, the liners work really well. In the afternoon, I did Masaman Curry, and I tried the liner for that as well. It took a little longer to sautee the onions, and to heat up the curry pasted to activate the flavors. I think that’s because there was no direct contact between the pot and the food, but there was a layer of air and another layer of aluminum.

Also, I’d gotten an email a couple of weeks ago from a company making bacon flavored salts, and they offered to send me some if I’d review them here in the Black Pot. They arrived the night before, so I took them with. I can’t say that I gave them a fair trial, though, because I only used them in the Biscuits and Gravy for the morning. The gravy had lots of sausage in it, so that would have affected the flavor, too. Plus, like I said, I never got to try anything I cooked, so I couldn’t tell you how it tasted! But I will try them in something I cook up and let you know. I did use it when I made some eggs for dinner at home, but that wasn’t in a dutch oven. Still, it tasted good!

So, for lunch, I did the Dutch Oven Masaman Curry. That had a lot of people wondering. Many who walked by had never heard of it, nor had ever tried anything like it. Still, they seemed intrigued and said they’d stop by again when it was ready.

Well, when the time came, and I was ready to declare it done, I looked up and saw a line of visitors waiting for their sample. I swear the line was three booths long. I was floored! And the other booths at the time were in between dishes, and all the people in the line were looking ahead at me.

Wow! I suddenly panicked! I started filling up the little cups as fast as I could. First the rice, then the curry. First the rice, then the curry… Finally, just about the time that the crowd started to fizzle, it was all gone. I mean gone. A completely full 12” shallow dutch oven was empty.

At that point, I was exhausted. I started cleaning up my station, because I knew that Ranes had promised that space to someone who was going to come in and cook an afternoon dish. I did help Ranes with a couple more batches of Rhodes breads, and helped him serve the line waiting for his Jambalaya (which was REALLY good). Then I came home and crashed and burned.

I know this post is a long way to scroll down, but thanks for following!

Here are some pictures of the event:

I didn't get the names of these two guys, but they were participating in the youth cookoff. Initially, Brendon was going to attend with me, and maybe even participate, but then we found out that you have to be at least 12 to do the cookoff. And then, he wanted to go to a friend's house for a sleepover the night before.

Anyway, I think these guys did a barbecue sparerib dish in their dutch ovens. It looked really good, but I don't know how the judging turned out. If anyone that went to the event visits the Black Pot here, and knows who won, please post a comment!

There were probably about 15 or more cooks in the taste of dutch. It was a lot of fun gathering and seeing people that I've met at other meetings and events.

This lady was serving up some barbecue sausages, and her friend had made stuffed mushrooms. I've been thinking about doing that as the appetizer for my mother's day dinner, so I watch her with interest. This picture also gives a bit of an idea of the crowds that were attending.

There aren't too many pictures of me here at the Black Pot. There's a couple of reasons for that. One, as a dumpy 45 year old who's losing his hair and his mind, I don't really consider my dashing good looks as a major selling point for the blog, here. On a more practical level, since I'm the one with the camera, and I'm the one cooking, it's not always easy to get a picture of the chef.

The guy in black, behind me, by the way, is Ranes. A really nice guy, even if he is stressed!

Finally, this guy's shirt caught my eye! You can't really see it unless you click to enlarge the picture. Still, that image summed up my Dutch Oven experience!

Dutch Oven Masaman Curry

Just like Indian food, there’s a lot of little mom ‘n pop Thai restaurants in northern Utah. I’ve been to a lot of them, and most of those are really good. In fact, while there’s been one or two that I’ve liked more than others, there really hasn’t been one that I’d consider to be “bad” at all. I really like Thai food, and one of our favorite dishes to order is Masaman Curry.

It turns out, that if you have certain ingredients, it’s actually pretty simple to make. The toughest to get are the Tamarind pulp and the curry paste. And those really aren’t that hard. I found some dried Tamarind pods at a Mexican market, and had to make the “paste”. The pulp is the sticky, pasty stuff that’s around the seeds in the pods after you shell them. It’s really nasty to work with. I just separated the seeds, put in a little water, and microwaved it until it boiled. Wait—Did I use a microwave? Yes, I did… Then I stirred it all pretty vigorously to help it dissolve away from the seeds, and pulled the seeds out leaving the pulp.

The Mexicans make a juice out of it that’s really, really good. I guess in Thai and Indian food, it’s used more as a flavoring.

It doesn’t take very long, either. It’s a relatively quick dish to prep and to cook.

This curry didn’t end up being very hot. Not hot at all, in fact. I think it was a really really mild curry paste that I used. But I’ve had Masaman that’s scorching. I like it best as a medium zing. This one was nice, because it’s very flavorful, even if it wasn’t overly hot ‘n spicy.

Dutch Oven Masaman Curry

12” Dutch Oven, 12-14 coals above and below

• 2 14 oz cans of Coconut Milk
• 3 tablespoons Curry Paste (I used a mild paste, in the future, I’d probably go with medium hot)
• 3 medium onions
• 6-7 medium potatoes
• 1-2 lbs meat (I used Chicken, but I’ve tasted it with beef, shrimp, and I’ve heard of it with lamb. Most Thai restaurants let you pick the meat.)
• 1 ½ cups water
• ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
• 4 bay leaves
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 3 Tbsp tamarind pulp
• ¾ cup peanuts (I used crunchy peanut butter)
• 3 tsp salt
• Liberal shaking of cinnamon

I started the whole experience by making the tamarind pulp. I figured that I’d get that out of the way, and if it didn’t work, I’d know pretty early and I could adapt, rather than try and fix something mid-way through the cooking. It took a little trial and error to arrive at the method I described above.

Then, I put the Coconut milk and the Curry paste in the dutch oven and put it on some bottom coals to heat it up. A lot of Indian and Thai recipes, I’ve learned, require that the spices be heated up before adding the rest of the food. It sort of “activates” them.

While that was heating, I sliced up the potatoes, the onions, the meat and put all the other ingredients into a bowl.

Once the milk and curry was bubbling a little bit, I added everything from the bowl into the dutch oven and stirred it up. The peanut butter was a bit tricky, and I had to break it up. I put the additional coals on the top. At that point, all I had to do was keep it hot and stirred until the chicken and the potatoes cooked. It’s that easy.

I got out my 8” dutch oven, and made some rice. I’ve got some nice sticky eastern rice that I like to use when I try (emphasis on the word “try”) to make sushi. So, I put about two cups of rice and two cups of water in the small dutch oven and set it out on the coals that were on top of the curry pot. That I let cook for about 25 minutes or so, and then pulled it off and let it sit, covered, pretty much until the curry was ready.

The curry, I cooked for about an hour. It was sure delicious!

Dutch Oven Chicken Feast a la India

There are a lot of really good Indian Restaurants here in the Salt Lake Metro.

Sometimes, when you live somewhere, you kinda assume that other, more “exotic” or more “cosmopolitan” cities have better restaurants. That might be true in some cases. But when I’ve been in other cities, like San Diego, and others, I’ve noticed that the Indian I’ve eaten there is about on par with the small, family owned Indian houses here in Utah.

So, that brings me back to there being logs of really good Indian restaurants here in the Salt Lake Metro.

And when I talk about “Indian”, I’m talking, like, from India, not “native American”. Just to clarify, because Salt Lake Metro has some great Native American food, too. We’re clear? Nobody’s gonna turn me in to the PC Police?

So, when I do Indian, I always order two things: Chicken Tikka Masala, and Chicken Saag. Those are my all-time favorites. Sometimes, if I get a third thing, I might get Tandoori Chicken, or I might try something completely new that I haven’t had before.

In my constant quest to find things I’m not supposed to be able to cook in a dutch oven, I’ve now added these dishes. And since I love to combine them onto one rice plate, I had to try it. I dove in and did my net research, and found a number of recipes, which I basically followed.

I gotta tell ya, this is not for the faint-hearted, nor for the beginner. I ran like a madman from pot to pot, from one recipe to the other. I had to chart out in quarter-hour increments so that the Saag, the Tikka Masala, and the rice would end up done at about the same time. This was NOT a relaxing meal to prepare.

Oh, but it was worth it!

Next time I do it, I’m going to streamline the recipe a bit. I’m going to combine some steps and make it so that I’m not running quite so much. Here’s the recipe and the instructions, not so much as I did it today, but moreso how I’ll do it next time. Here’s another warning, too: There are some unusual/exotic ingredients. You may have to go to an Asian/Indian market to find some of them, so you’ll want to do some shopping first.

Dutch Oven Chicken Feast a la India (a combination of Chicken Tikka Masala and Chicken Saag)

2x 12” Dutch ovens
1x 10” Dutch oven

Lots of coals, all underneath.

The common ingredients:

• 4 lbs frozen chicken breast, thawed
• 3 tbsp minced garlic
• 3 med onions
• 2 inches fresh ginger
• 1 ½ Cups rice
• 3 Cups water

For the Saag:

• 4 bundles of fresh spinach (16 oz each)
• 1 400g can diced tomatoes
• ½ tsp chili powder (cayenne, if you have it)
• 1 tsp coriander
• ½ tsp tumeric
• 1 tsp cardamom
• 2 whole cloves
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 4 Tbsp milk
• salt
• pepper

For the Tikka Masala

• 1 (400g) can tomato puree
• 4 Tbsp plain yogurt
• 2 Tbsp tikka masala curry past
• 1 Tbsp coriander
• salt
• pepper

First, get some coals on to burn. Lots. You’ll need probably two beds of 20 or so each. We’ll be cooking completely from the bottom, no coals on top, even though I cooked all pots covered. Make sure you have a side stack of burning coals, too, so you can replenish.

Then, cube the thawed chicken. Put a little oil in the bottom of one of the 12”, and set that on the coals to brown. Chop up the leaves of the spinach and put those in another 12” dutch oven, with about a half cup of water. Put that dutch oven on coals to boil.

The Spinach will probably boil down long before the chicken is browned. Pull the spinach out an drain it off, discarding the liquid. Mash up the spinach so that it’s almost a paste. I just kinda chopped at it with the point of a wooden spoon. When the chicken is browned, pull that oven off the coals as well, and remove the chicken. Discard any liquid in that dutch oven, too.

Next, chop up the onions, the garlic, and the ginger. Put those all in any one of the dutch ovens, put it back on the coals, and sautee these ingredients until the onions are clear and a bit brown.

Here’s where we split it up between the Saag and the Masala. Divide the onions and the chicken half and half between the two 12” dutch ovens, and put them both on the coals. Choose which oven is for the Tikka Masala, and which is for the Saag, and add all the remaining ingredients and spices for each one. Add the cooked-down spinach into the Saag oven. Cover them both and let them cook, stirring occasionally. After they get boiling, take some coals off so they simmer.

As the other two dishes are cooking, put the rice and the water into a 10” dutch oven, and put that, covered on some more coals.

I’m betting that the rice, the chicken saag, and the chicken tikka masala will all be done at about the same time. It’s not so critical if the chicken dishes cook a little longer, so just whenever the rice is done, bring it all in.

Put a bed of rice on the plate, and cover half of it with the saag, and half with the tikka masala. The two flavors compliment each other, but I like them also separate. When I eat it, I get a bite of one, with rice, and then the other.

Like I said, this isn’t exactly how I did it this time, but I think it’ll turn out pretty much the same, and with a lot less stress. Even my kids liked this one, though they did like the masala side more than the spinach on the saag. Kids. Go figure…