Dutch Oven Pork Chops and Rice

This one was really, really easy. A half hour of prep time, not including thawing, and an hour or so of cook time, tops. It’s one of those one-pot meals, and it’s also a one-step meal.

12” shallow Dutch oven

10-12 coals below
16-18 coals above

4-6 large pork chops
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Garlic powder
Worcestershire Sauce

3 cups rice
4 cups stock
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
2 onions
1 green pepper
Salt
Pepper
Oregano
Basil
Parsley

The first thing I did was to thaw the pork chops. Once that was done, I set them out on the countertop, patted them dry, and seasoned them with all of the flavorings in the ingredient set. I let those seasonings sit for a few minutes while I went out and lit up the coals.

While the coals were heating, I prepared the Dutch oven. I put the rice in, with the stock, the soup, and the sour cream. I stirred that up to break up the gelatinous soup concentrate.

Then, I sliced the onions and the green peppers. I didn’t dice them, but it really doesn’t make any difference. You could also include any other veggies you like. Celery and/or carrot chips would have been a tasty addition. I scattered these over the top of the rice and liquid. Onto that, I sprinkled the seasonings and herbs. I’m pretty generous with the herbs, too.

Finally, I layered the pork chops on top of the rice mix. I had six chops, and they were pretty thick and large, so I made two layers.

I put the lid on and took it out to my cookspot. I put it on and under the coals listed above, and cooked it for about an hour to an hour and ten minutes. I had to keep adding coals (maybe a half dozen at a time) to the chimney so that I could add fresh coals to the top and bottom every 15-20 minutes. I put more on the top than the bottom. You really can’t go wrong with this dish because of all the liquid, but I didn’t want to risk burning the bottom of the rice.

Then, I brought it in and served it up. A pork chop with rice on the side for each plate!

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 Roasted Cornish Hens on Broccoli Rice

I was listening to the radio a while back, and I heard a yummy idea.  I don’t think the people on the radio intended it to be so, however.  It was a political show, and they were interviewing a restaurant owner in some middle eastern country.  The interview was all about how the economy was struggling in the wake of the uprisings in that country, bla, bla, bla, yadda, yadda...


But they had the interview after a meal of roasted dove, which they were eating, as was tradition, with their fingers.

I just latched onto that idea, and it sounded delicious, and like so much fun.  I wanted to do something like it. I pondered it for days.  I came up with lots of idea of different ways to approach it, and to make it a full meal, not just a meat dish.

One problem to overcome was the meat.  What kind of bird to use?  I didn’t know where I could get dove.  Quail?  That was a possibility.  One of the guys in the World Championship did a great job cooking quail.  Then, one day shopping, I found some cornish hens, frozen.  Perfect!  Easy to work with, inexpensive, tasty...  And, I think, visually impressive!

This ended up being a very simple dish to prepare. Also, for the record, I was not trying to duplicate any particular middle-eastern cuisine, or any actual traditional dish.  So, there is no effort whatsoever to make this “authentic”.  I just made it all up.  So there.


Dutch Oven Roasted Cornish Hens

12” Deep Dutch oven

10 coals below
12-14 coals above

1 cornish hen for each serving (I did 6, and had one extra)
1 1/2-2 cups salt
1/2 cup molasses
about a gallon of water

3 medium onions
salt
pepper
paprika
chili powder


Two days before the meal, I set the little birds (encased in plastic) into the fridge to thaw.  Since they’re so small, this could probably work in one day, maybe even in the brining process.  But I did it over a couple of days.

The morning of the meal, I got down one of my medium stock pots and put in about a quart or so of hot tap water.  I put in the salt and the molasses.  The hot water helped those to dissolve.  Then, I added about another quart or so of cold water.  I opened up the hen packages and drained them briefly, then poked holes in the skin with a knife.  A fork works, too.  I put them in the brined water.  I topped off the water just enough to cover the hens, then added some ice on top.  The ice and the salt should keep the germs at bay while the meat gets all savory and tender.  I set that aside until cooking time, later that afternoon.

When that time came, I dumped the brine and set the chickens on cooling racks in the sink to drain pretty well.  The meat itself will retain a lot of moisture anyway, and I want to minimize the broth at the bottom of the pot.

While the hens were draining, I cut the onions into chunks.  I cut them in half first, then quartered the halves.  I scattered these into the bottom of the 12” deep Dutch oven, to hold the hens up above the level of the broth that would cook out.

Then I patted the hens dry with paper towels and coated them on both sides with liberal shakes of salt, pepper, paprika, and gentle shakes of chili powder.  I tucked them into to Dutch oven all cozy and got them on the coals.

It’s a longer, lower-temperature roast.  I’m guessing the interior oven temperature is probably around 275 or 300 with those coals numbered above.  The cook time was about an hour and a half to two hours.  I went for an internal meat temperature of 180° as a target.


Broccoli Rice

8” Dutch oven

10-12 coals below

1 1/2 cups rice
3 cups water
Juice of 1 lemon
salt
pepper
1 large broccoli head
Broth and onions from the cornish hens


When the roasting was almost done, I made the rice.  It’s pretty simple, too.  I just put the rice, water, and lemon juice in the 8” Dutch oven, and put it on the coals, with the lid on.  While that was coming up to a boil, I cut the broccoli head into tiny florets.  I noted when the steam started venting out from under the lid.  After ten minutes or so, tossed in the broccoli to steam.  I was really quick with the lid, because I didn’t want to lose much heat or steam.  Maybe five minutes later, I pulled the oven off the coals, with the lid still on, to finish cooking.


Tortillas

12” Dutch oven lid
18-20 coals below

Flour tortillas (prepackaged or make your own)

My original idea was to make some tortillas from scratch, and then when we eat, we would pull the meat off with our fingers, put it in a torn tortilla piece along with the rice and eat it all with our fingers.  In the end, I was kinda tired and so I got lazy and just used some store-bought tortillas.  But even those have to be prepared.

So, I turned a 12” Dutch oven lid over onto a lid stand over a whole lotta coals (see above), and let it get really hot.  Then I just tossed the tortilla on it and let it heat up and singe a bit.  As each one was done, I put it on a plate covered with a tea towel. Hot tortillas are more flexible and tastier.

When it was all done, it was time for serving.   I pulled the hens out of the dutch oven, and spooned onions and broth into the rice, stirring it all up.  I put a big spoonful of rice mix on the plate, topped it with the hen, and set out the now-warm tortillas.   We ate them just as I had planned, by tearing apart the meat and eating it with the rice in the tortillas.  I also set out sour cream, and salsa, but we didn’t really add them.  It didn’t need it much.

It was a lot of fun, both to cook and to eat!

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 Stuffed Artichoke on Rice

About a month ago, I was surfing the ‘net, looking for cool Dutch oven sites and I revisited cooking-outdoors.com.  I found this recipe: http://www.cooking-outdoors.com/dutch-oven-stuffed-artichokes-recipe.html for stuffed artichokes.

Instantly, my thoughts and memories went back to my childhood, when my mother steamed some artichoke heads and served them for dinner.  We were quite used to strange and new things appearing on our plates, and most of it was good so we tried it.  Dad showed us how to pull out the leaves, dip them in the butter sauce, and scrape the tasty, pasty meat off the leaf with our teeth.

I can still remember that as one of our many fun dinners.  It was so different, it became not just a good meal, that was good for us, it became an event the family would remember for many years to come.  At least, I would!

And as soon as I saw this and watched his video, I knew I had to try it.

...And, of course, I can’t just follow the recipe.  I have to try things a little differently!  Some of the things I did today were improvised on the moment.  I’ll try to recreate them as a recipe, but remember that the amounts are only guesses at best.  When you cook them, I encourage you to improvise as well.  After all, cooking is like a good jazz tune, right?


Dutch Oven Stuffed Artichoke on Rice

12” Dutch oven

Many, many (24+) coals below

8” Dutch oven

Many, many (12+) coals below


olive oil
1 medium onion, diced fine
3 celery stalks, diced fine
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2-1 lb mild italian sausage
salt
pepper
liberal shakes of dried parsley
dried oregano
dried basil
1-1 1/2 cups fine, dried bread crumbs

About 4 cups water
4 fresh artichoke heads

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup commercially prepared salsa
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Garlic Powder
Chili Powder (add gradually, go light at first)
Lemon juice

2 cups chicken broth
1 cup water
3 cups rice
Remainder of the Stuffing


The first thing I did was to get my 12” regular Dutch oven heating on a lot of coals, with about a tablespoon or two of olive oil in it.  It was a very breezy March day, so I knew I was going to go through a lot of coals, and I would have to watch it close and manage the heat very carefully.

Once the oil was shimmery, I dropped in the aromatic veggies.  They simmered right away, and I cooked them until they started coloring brown a bit.  Then I put in the sausage.  When browning the sausage, I took great pains to work the meat so that it ended up cooking in very fine, small chunks.  Big globs would be difficult to stuff into the leaves. At this point, I also added in the herbs and seasonings.

It will look like you’re making too much filling to put in the artichokes.  That’s OK.  Not only do they hold more that you think, but you’ll use the remainder later.

When the sausage was done, I pulled it out with a big serving spoon, working to get out as much as I could.  Then I poured in the water.  I refreshed the coals, and put the lid on, setting it to boil while I worked on the artichokes.

The first task was to finish the stuffing.  I stirred in the bread crumbs.  If you use, by the way, pre-seasoned italian bread crumbs, I wouldn’t worry about adding in all the herbs.  I stirred it all up, and it mixed pretty nicely.  The crumbs absorbed the sausage grease very well.  If it still looks too dry and unmanageable to you, you can add a bit of olive oil.  I didn’t.  It clumped, but was also a bit loose.

I pretty much followed Gary’s instructions in preparing the artichokes, except that I cut my stems shorter.  I was using a shallower Dutch oven than he did, so I cut mine off at only about a half inch to 3/4 inch long.  Here’s the process:

• Using my kitchen shears, I snipped off a row of the bottom-most leaves, and any leaf that was out on the stem.
• Then, I trimmed off about 1/4 inch off of every leaf in the head, just going around the perimeter.  This looked nice, as Gary said, but it also made a big difference in the stuffing.
• Once I got to the central part, I used my chef’s knife to lop off the top half to 3/4 inch of the center. Then I used my thumb to pry the whole thing open, and to loosen and stretch the leaves.
• Finally, I cut off the stems.

Then, I stuffed the artichokes.  I held them over a plate to catch all the leftover stuffing.  I held it upright in front of me with one hand, and used that thumb to pry apart the leaves.  I poured stuffing into the spaces with a spoon.  I was surprised how much I could get into one head.  Even still, there was about a third left over.

Back out to the Dutch Oven, where the water was boiling by now.  I put each artichoke head into the Dutch oven, stem down, side by side.  All four fit pretty snugly.  I put on the lid and marked the time.  From that time on, it was only a matter of maintaining the coals on the bottom and checking at 20-30 minute intervals if the water was still there.  I let these cook for about an hour and 15 minutes.

While they were cooking, I first made the sauce, and then made the rice.

Like I said, the quantities of the ingredients of the sauce were pretty much improvised.  I put in the mayo, then the salsa.  I whisked those together and tasted to make sure there was a balance.  Then, I added the other ingredients and seasonings by shake.  At each point, I tasted, until I felt there was a good balance.  I did add the chili powder, but I didn’t want this to be a hot dish.  I just wanted some ZING.

When there was only 20 minutes or so left in the cooking, I put on the rice, water, and stock.  I noted when it started boiling by when it vented out from under the lid. From there I let it cook on the coals for about another ten minutes.  Then I took it off the coals and let it sit, covered, for another ten minutes.  Finally, I fluffed it with my fork, and mixed in the remnant of the filling.  That was another thing that was improvised.

I served it up with a bed of rice, and the flowery head of the artichoke on top.  Off to the side was a small ramekin with the dipping sauce.  I also had made some small loaves of sourdough today, so I included that in the picture.

If you’ve never eaten whole artichoke before, it really is a lot of fun.  It’s finger food.  You grab one of the leaves by the tip, and pull it off the head.  It kinda acts as a spoon and catches the stuffing that was in that pocket.  You dip the foot end into your sauce, then put it in your mouth.  You scrape the leaf against your upper teeth, scraping all of that soft stuffing and artichokey goodness off the leaf husk.  Then you set the leaf on your plate, and grab another.

It was a really delicious meal.  One of my sons fought us on the leaves, but he loved the rice.  The other loved the whole thing.  It was a family evening together that I’ll treasure for a long time!


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

The Seafood Feast Part II- Dutch Oven Mussels

For a long time, now, my family have frequented a certain Chinese/Asian buffet house.  They have great food, and the people who run it are wonderful.  We love their more traditional Chinese dishes, and we also love their sushi. Brendon particularly likes their unagi.

They have one dish that I love, that I had vowed to attempt. I don’t know just how authentically Chinese it is, but I love the taste!  I also vowed that when I attempted it, I would not duplicate it, but would rather explore it on my own!

It is a mussel, cooked in its own half-shell, with a layering of cream cheese and a sprinkling of cheddar on top.  I did some research, and found out a lot about cooking and working with mussels.  I cooked this the same day as the smoked salmon of the previous blog entry. It was a bit tricky working both dishes at the same time, but in the end they really complemented each other. Here is my experience:

Dutch Oven Three-Cheese Baked Mussels

12” Dutch oven

Steaming: 22+ coals below
Baking: 8-10 coals below, 18-20 coals above

• 2x 8 oz bricks cream cheese 
• 2-3 Tablespoons sun dried tomato 
• Parmesan cheese 
• herbs (I used thyme and rosemary)
• chives
• salt 
• lemon zest 
• chili powder 
• grated cheddar cheese

• 3-4 lb live mussels
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup apple cider vinegar

The Rice

8” Dutch oven

10-12 coals below

• 1 cup long-grain rice
• 2 cups liquid (from the mussels - add water as needed)
• Juice of 1 lemon

Because there would be relatively little time once the cooking got started, the first step was to prepare the cheese topping. I just added all the items on the list together and mixed it upwith a fork.  Because of the ingredients I chose, it really ended up being much more Mediterranean in flavor, rather than Chinese.  Still, I think it tasted great!

I don’t really remember the exact amounts of each flavoring item.  I added things at the top of the list in slightly greater quantities than the things at the bottom (chili powder being the least of all), but really, I just mixed it all and tasted it as I went.  While I did add some Cheddar to the overall mix, I didn’t add much, as I knew that more would be sprinkled on top later.

The coals were already started for the salmon, so I didn’t have to get anything set aside special for this dish.  I just had to make sure that there were enough getting white to accommodate.  While that was happening, I started to clean the mussels. I got them into my sink, and scrubbed each one down, on both sides of the shell, with a plastic brush.  Many of them had a little stringy substance dangling out between the two shell halves.  This is called the “beard”, and I scraped that off with a knife.

I’d read to remove those that were opened. The instructions said that those were dead already.  That’s a little tricky to say, because there were quite a few that were slightly opened, that would close up again after we had separated them out.  I guess those ones weren’t so dead.  There were many, however, that were quite clearly open, and quite clearly dead.  I removed those.

There were a lot of them to clean.  About half-way through the process, I got the water and the cider in the bottom of the 12” Dutch oven, and I got that started on the coals, covered.  I wanted to get it boiling.

By the time I was completely finished cleaning all the mussels, it was boiling.  I just unceremoniously dumped them all in, stirred them up a bit, and closed the lid.  It didn’t take long, maybe ten minutes, to steam them open.  I’d read that you shouldn’t overcook them, especially at this stage.

I brought them in, off the coals, and drained them in a colander, retaining all the liquid for the rice.

I began the process of assembling the final half shells.  Here’s how it went:

• First, I pulled the shells open.  Usually, one of the shells (the “top”) was free of meat, and the other (the “bottom”) held the mussel.  I broke them apart, and discarded the top.
• Then, I took an knife and ran it under the meat, cutting the attachment between it and the shell.  There’s one spot where it clings pretty tight, and it makes it much easier to eat if that’s severed. Still, I kept the meat in the shell bottom.
• Next, I spread a bit of the cheese mix onto the shell and over the meat.  Not too much, it’s not there to smother, but to complement the meat.
• Finally, I placed the shell into the bottom of the 12” Dutch oven. I kept repeating this whole process until they were all done. There were a lot of shells, so I had to pack them in pretty tight.
• Finally, finally, I sprinkled on a layer of grated cheddar.

I put on the lid, and set it on some coals to bake.

Now, keep in mind that while I’m doing all of this, I’m constantly checking on the coals and the chips for the smoking salmon, and making sure that there are plenty of coals in the replenishing fire for the mussels.

I also took some time during the prep time to set the rice.  I measured the liquid I had drained off the mussels after the steaming.  I had read that the mussels would release a lot of their own liquid as they cooked, and that would be a good flavoring broth.  That, combined with the water, and the cider, and I had just under 2 cups. A little more water topped it right off.  This, along with 1 cup of rice, went onto the coals to cook.

A little bit after I had set the mussels on to bake, I could see the steam venting from under the lid of the 8” Dutch oven.  I let it go for about 5 more minutes, and then pulled it off the coals to finish steaming in its own residual heat.  Don’t take off the lid to check it!

The mussels in the 12” Dutch oven didn’t bake long.  You don’t want to overcook the meat.  You just want to heat up the cheese mixture, and melt the cheddar on top. I let it go about 10-20 minutes from the time I put it on.

I served it up with a few mussels on the plate, next to a bed of the rice, with a big cut of smoked salmon atop the bed.  It looked and tasted delicious, and I felt like I had really accomplished something.  I had done two dishes, one with a new technique, and another with a new main ingredient, neither of which I had ever tried before, and they were both successes.  That’s a good, good feeling!





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 Paella

It all began one day with me being a couch potato, a dud spud surfing the channels.  Bored of home shopping TV and infomercials, I turned to my Tivo, and noticed that I had managed to acquire a few more episodes of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats”.

So, I started watching and one of the episodes was about a Spanish dish called “Paella” (which is pronounced “pie-AY-yah”). I’d seen recipes for this many times, but had never thought to try it.  It required a special pan, also called a paella, and it was cooked outdoors over coals.  That got my head thinking...

I watched the episode a couple of times, and I was intrigued.  It had several techniques and ingredients I had never tried before.  Were those ingredients absolutely necessary?  Could it be adapted to a Dutch oven?

I called my expert sister and asked for a second opinion.  She confirmed that, yes, in order to make a really good paella, you really did need special rice, and good Spanish saffron (the expensive stuff).  She was skeptical about doing it in a pan that was not a paella, however.  I decided to give it a try, anyway.

I spent two weeks acquiring all of the various ingredients, rewatching the show, and planning my processes.  In the end, it was well worth the effort!

Dutch Oven Paella

8” Dutch Oven
12-15 coals underneath

12” Dutch Oven
20+ coals underneath

• 6 cups chicken broth

• 1 package of 5-6 chicken thighs
• Kosher salt, pepper
• Olive oil

• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 2-4 cloves of minced garlic
• 1/2 lb green beans
• Pulp and juice of 1 large tomato
• Salt, pepper

• 2 cups rice (short grain Spanish or Italian)
• 20 threads Spanish saffron
• tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• rosemary, basil, oregano

• ¼ Cup fresh chopped parsley
• Juice of ½ Lemon

As I shopped around for the ingredients, I watched closely.   Alton and my sister both recommended Valencia rice.  I ended up finding a short grain Italian rice called Arborigo.  Getting the saffron was trickier.  I shopped around and called stores, and found something in a store near me labeled “Spanish Saffron”.  It seemed to meet all of the criteria that I’d been told, and cost about the same as what I’d been seeing in spice specialty shops, so I bought it.  It was about $18 for a gram or two.  Pricey stuff.

On cooking day, the first step was to get some coals ready.  One bunch of them went under my 12” Dutch oven, and another set went under my 8”.  In the 8”, I put three frozen blocks of my own homemade chicken stock. Six cups.  In the end I didn’t need it all, but It was good to have it all there and ready.  I put it on the coals so it would melt and heat up.  It won’t need to be used for quite a while, so if you’re working with boxed or bottled stock, you can probably start heating it up much later in the process.

The 12” got a little bit of olive oil.  Once it was heated I put in the chicken thighs, skin side down, to fry and brown.  A lot of fat renders out of the the skin.  That’s used as part of the the dish along the way.

While the chicken was cooking, I diced up the peppers, minced the garlic, and snapped the beans.  I thought about dicing an onion, too, but in the end decided not to.  I’m not sure why. It wasn’t in the original recipe.  I also mixed the rice and the other dry seasonings in a bowl.

The tomato was done with interesting process, taught by Alton.  You want the tomato flavor, but without the seeds or the skin. I sliced the tomato “across the equator” and squeezed out the seeds.  I got kind of lucky, as the tomatoes that I had bought were pretty large and pulp-y.  Then, I put the open face of the tomato against my cheese grater and grated the pulp and the juice into a bowl.  The more I grated, the flatter the skin became, and so I got more and more pulp.  Clever.  If you don’t want to do this, you could probably just use a smaller can of crushed or diced tomatoes.

When the chicken was brown on both sides, I pulled it out of the dutch oven.  I tossed in the veggies, and sprinkled in some salt.  Once the veggies were going soft, I added the tomato pulp, and let that cook for a bit.  Finally, the rice mix was stirred into the pot.  I also used this opportunity to replenish my coals.

At that point, it was time to put it all together and do the final cooking.  I put the chicken back in, nestling it down into the rice and veggie mixture. I ladled the simmering stock from the 8” oven into the 12” oven, until the rice was well covered. I let that cook, with the lid off, watching occasionally as it went. About every ten to fifteen minutes or so, I would see that much of the liquid had been absorbed into the cooking rice, and I would ladle in a bit more stock.  I was watching to see the rice become translucent.  Occasionally, I used a spoon to check the deeper rice, and to taste.  I was careful as I added more stock, because I wanted enough for the rice to absorb, but not so much for it to end up like a soup, or even a thick stew. I could see why it was important to have the stock pre-heated on the side, so I wasn’t shocking it with cool an having to heat it all back up to continue with the cooking.

As the end of the cooking time approached, I squeezed the lemon juice over the whole dish, and sprinkled on fresh chopped parsley.

Finally, when the rice was translucent and soft, it came off the coals.  I don’t know how long it took to get there, as I was paying more attention to the rice than the time.  The last step was to let it rest with a kitchen towel on top.  I’m not sure why it couldn’t be covered with the dutch oven lid.  Perhaps the final resting time needs to be done with something porous on top, so some moisture can escape.  The final texture is moist and soft, but not dripping with juice.

After about 15 to 20 minutes in the rest phase (it could be even longer, if you want), it was time to serve it up.  Since this was my first time making it, I didn’t know how great paella was supposed to taste.  I think I did, but I’m not certain if I got the right rice or the right saffron.  Still, what I was eating was one of the most delicious meals I’d had in a long time.  I guess that qualifies it as a success.







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.

The Dutch Oven Challenge!

It has been Brought!

Like I mentioned in my last post, Andy J at the Back Porch Gourmet issued me a challenge in the dutch ovens.  We would give each other a list of three ingredients that would need to be used in a completely original recipe.  He gave me Pork, Oranges, and Curry.  I gave him Fish, Dill, and Potatoes.

The whole idea, as I understand, isn't really to see who's the best.  We really can't taste each other's dishes.  The idea is just to push us out of our comfort zones a bit and see what we can each do.  And to have a little fun in the process.  I tried a little trash talk, but really, I'm not too good at that...

I was really feeling out of the zone.  It was strange.  Since the original challenge stated the the recipe needed to be "wholly original", I didn't even go online for ideas.  I just mulled over ideas in my head, and got some great suggestions from Jodi.

Here's my result:

Dutch Oven Orange Curried Pork Chops

12" dutch oven
15 coals below
20 coals above

• 4 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 2 med onions, chopped
  
• 5-6 green onions, chopped
• 4-5 stalks celery, chopped
• 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 canful water
• 1 canful rice
• salt
  
• pepper
  

• Pork chops
• kosher salt
• curry powder

• 1 jar orange marmalade
• zest of 1 orange
• juice of 1 orange
• cinnamon

I started out by chopping up and mincing all of the veggie ingredients in the first set.  I mixed all of the first set in the dutch oven.  Pretty easy, so far.

In the next set of ingredients, I had to make some choices.  I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to put the curry directly on the meat, or include it in the glaze.  In the end, I decided to put it on the meat.  I rubbed the meat, both sides, with kosher salt and curry powder.  Then I layered the pork chops over the veggies, rice, and liquid.  I had about 8-9 actual chops, so I had to overlap them in a circle.

Finally, I mixed the marmalade, the zest, the juice, and the cinnamon into a glop and spooned it onto the meat.

I put that out on the coals.  It cooked for about an hour.  Some of the rice in the middle ended up not fully cooked, so I probably should have gone longer.  There was still some liquid that could have been absorbed.

I served it up with a twist of orange, and sprinkled with minced mint leaves.

In the end, it was a really interesting flavor.  The rice, and even the meat, had a rich creaminess that I'm sure came from the coconut milk.  The spices gave it a very interesting flavor, one that I'd not tasted before, so it was neat to have something almost completely new.

So, thanks Andy!  Here's his response!





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

Dinner in a Pumpkin in a Dutch Oven

This dish is traditional for us this time of year. Typically, when there's a Halloween party for our group of parents of special needs kids, or a church party, my wife will make this meal. It's really cool, because the presentation is so seasonal.

The basic idea is that you hollow out the pumpkin, and fill it with a hamburger, rice, veggie, and sauce mix, then bake the whole thing. When you serve it up, the pumpkin itself becomes the serving bowl. You spoon out the meal mix, and as you do, you scrape in some of the baked pumpkin. The flavors all blend. It's delicious!

And I'm NOT a big fan of gourds and squash!

Dinner in a Pumpkin in a Dutch Oven

12" Dutch oven (browning and sauteeing)
8" Dutch oven (rice)
14" Deep dutch oven (baking the meal)

22 coals above, 12 coals below (maybe a few more because it was a bit cold and windy)

• 1 Cup rice
• 2 Cups water

• 1-2 Tbsp olive oil
  
• 2 Medium onions, chopped or sliced
• 3-4 Stalks celery, chopped
• 2-3 Cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup mushrooms, sliced
  
• 1 lb Ground beef
• 1 Can cream of something soup
• salt
• Pepper
• Parsley
  

• 1 pumpkin, smaller and kinda flat
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
  

I started out by heating up some coals. I got the rice and water cooking in the small 8", and started sauteeing the onions, celery, mushrooms and garlic in the 12". When I cook rice, I just watch it until steam starts venting, then take it off about ten minutes after that. It usually works. When you're sauteeing veggies, you want the oven to be pretty hot, enough that the oil in the bottom looks "shimmery" and the veggies simmer the moment they hit the pan.

Once the veggies were looking a bit carmelized, I added the ground beef and browned it.

While that was cooking, I prepared the pumpkin. I have to say it was a challenge to pick the right pumpkin. I had to get out my tape measure and measure the inside of the 14" dutch oven, and then measure all of the pumpkins at the store. I must've looked pretty funny walking around measuring each pumpkin. I felt a little like Linus from Peanuts, making sure that his pumpkin patch was sincere enough for the Great Pumpkin.

I found one that was kinda flat when laid on its side, and yet I realized that there was still no way it would fit into the oven. It was still to high. So, I just decided to cut it into a bowl shape and move on.

What I did was to place the pumpkin in the dutch oven, and, using a knife, mark the "lid level" all the way around the pumpkin. Then I too it out and cut the top off using that knife mark as a guide. Finally, I hollowed out the seeds, and scraped off the fibrous parts.

Then, I got out the chili powder, and the cinnamon and sprinkled those around the inside. I tried to get all up the sides as well. I spread the the brown sugar around as well, and rubbed it all in.

Then, I brought all the other dutch ovens in and mixed their contents together with the can of soup and the seasonings. This glop I poured into the pumpkin and placed it into the 14" deep dutch oven. The lid fit nicely!

I put that oven out on the coals for almost two hours. I kept sticking the pumpkin rind with thin bamboo skewers, and when I felt little resistance, I knew it was soft and ready to serve.

My kids kept saying that they wouldn't eat the pumpkin, but they both did. A good way to get kids to eat squash, right? It was a real treat, and it's fun to see the food coming right out of the dutch oven.

The next time I do this, I'm going to try it with the dutch oven upside down. That is, I'll put the lid on the bottom, on a lid stand over the coals, and put the body of the dutch oven on top, with coals around the legs. That way, when I serve, the lid will look like a tray, and it won't be hidden down in the oven...

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: Revelations, Mixing Martyrs,

Dutch Oven Chile Verde

OK, so I'm trying to figure out how to use chiles in my outdoor cooking. It seems to me that you can never fully tell just how hot something's going to be just by how many jalapeňos you add, right? I mean, the actual hotness varies, it seems. I put in one chile one day, and wow! It's way too hot, another day I put in three and it barely tickles. What's up with that?

OK, I'm exaggerating. A little. Still, I'm struggling, here. He'p me out!

I do know that cutting out the seeds and the veins that are inside of a chile pepper will make it much less hot. John over at Mormon Foodie, wrote a cool post about dried chilis. Good stuff.

The reason I bring all this up, is because I revisited an old favorite recipe the other day, one that I pulled from my outdoor cooking archive. Dutch Oven Chile Verde. I had eaten a smothered burrito at a small mom-n-pop Mexican place a few weeks back that was hotter than that one hot place that good Mormon boys aren't supposed to say. I swear this burrito bit me back. Man, it was good!

I kinda wanted to duplicate that sensation. But I failed miserably. I think it had a lot to do with the knowledge that my kids don't handle hot very well, and I knew that if it was a "3-alarmer", they wouldn't even touch it. So, I did back off a bit. But it also turned out that I backed off too much. It was pretty weak. Still, the family liked it, so I guess that's OK, right?

I also did some black beans in my 10", and some rice in my 8" dutch ovens.

Dutch Oven Chile Verde

12” dutch oven
Lots of coals below

Ingredients

• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 2 Tbsp minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 green onions, sliced (into the greens)
  

• 3 lbs lean pork, cubed

• 8 large tomatillo, husk peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1 cup chicken stock

• 2-3 mild anaheim chilis, sliced
  
• 1-3 jalapenos, sliced

• 2 teaspoons oregano
• 2 teaspoons ground sage
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• Juice of 1-2 lemons
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (to taste)
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper

• sprinkles of flour for thickening
  

The whole process started the night before, when I took out a half pound of black beans and set them in a bowl to soak.

The next day, when cookin' time came, I started up some coals and got the onions and garlic chopped while they were getting ready. I put the oil in the dutch oven, and got it good and hot. I've learned that's the secret to sauteeing. It's gotta be hot first.

While the onions were carmelizing, I cubed up the pork, from a roast we had in the freezer (thawed, of course), and added that to brown. Since the dutch oven was quite hot, it was easy to get a good brown singe on the pork. Yummmm....

I don't remember exactly how or when, but somewhere in all that, I changed the water on the beans, put them in my 10" dutch oven and put that on a lot of coals as well. I put the lid on and let that simmer and cook, adding coals all the while to keep it hot.

While that was going on, I got the tomatillos chopped and added them as well, with the chicken stock (which was stock that I made myself in my own dutch oven!). Once the tomatillos and the chicken stock was in, I put on the lid, and the rest of the time it cooked lid on, with only bottom heat.

Here's where what I actually did diverges from what I'm telling you I would do next time. Next time, I'd start by slicing up the anaheims and just adding them in, without de-seeding them. Then, I'd probably add one jalapeňo, also sliced, also without seeding, and I'd let that cook for about a half hour. While that was going on, I'd add all the herbs and spices in the next ingredient group. Much of the spices and herbs are being added, not so much by measure, but more by taste, by the way.

Then, after about a half hour, I'd taste it and see if it were hot enough. If so, great, just let it keep cookin'. If not, I'd add another jalapeňo, and let it cook for another half hour. I'd keep going like that until it was just as hot as I'd like it.

Then, once it's hot enough, I'd let it simmer for about another half hour or so. At that point, I'm back to where I was on Sunday. I set up my little 8" with a cup of rice and 2 cups of water, and put that on some coals to boil. This was also done with the lid on, and only bottom heat. I kept checking on the beans, and they were done right (with a bit of salt) and ready to go.

Dinner was served!

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

Mark's Other Blog Posts: Family and Priesthood, Writing Great Content, Singing a New Song

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!

Getting Sauced with the Chicken Cordon Bleus

This last weekend, I got schooled.

That's OK, though, it was a good thing!

My father was in town (from Indiana), and he was just visiting for a short time. Whenever he and/or mom are here in Utah, we always get together with my sister and Brother-in-law. Well, I've mentioned before that they are both great chefs and have worked in restaurants and are just plain incredible cooks. Amazing.

Well, when we get together on Saturday for lunch, I started talking to him about cheffery and asking him about how to shop for knives, and stuff. Somehow we get talking about sauces. I mentioned my disaster with the alfredo sauce I tried to make lo, these many months ago. Then he talks me through the whole process, beginning with making a roux to start with.

So, the next day, since they're coming over for dinner, I decide to do a chicken cordon bleu recipe, and make a cheddar cheese sauce using his instructions.

Well, they came out in time to see me put it all together, and he stepped me through the process. So, now I can do sauces and thick cream soups without fear!

But first, the chicken cordon bleu recipe

Dutch Oven Chicken Cordon Bleu

12" Dutch Oven

10 coals below
20 coals above (slightly less in warmer weather)

• 3-4 lbs boneless chicken breasts (thawed)
• a Brick of mozarella cheese, sliced
• A small block of cured meat (usually ham, but this time I used pastrami - turkey pastrami, since my brother-in-law's jewish and won't eat pork)

• A bowl full of well-crushed bread crumbs
• Liberal shakes of
  
• salt
• black pepper
• crushed cayenne pepper
• thyme
• sage
• And a little more salt and cayenne...

I started by mixing all of the spices in the second set of ingredients into the bread crumbs on a paper plate. Then, I pounded a chicken breast until it was spread out and flat. I put a slice of Mozarella in the center, and then a pretty thick slice of pastrami over that. If you get your pastrami pre-sliced, you'll probably want to fold over a couple of slices. Then I folded the edges of the pounded-out chicken over it. The cheese and the pastrami were small enough that I could fold the chicken around it and not have to secure it with a toothpick.

Then I picked it up, dredged it in the crumbs and spices, and put it into the bottom of an oiled dutch oven. Just as a side note, I used some of my chili and onion flavored oil!

I had a lot of chicken breasts, so I ended up packing them in there pretty tight.

Then, I just took them out and put them on the coals. I probably baked them for about 40 minutes or so.

I also took my 10" dutch oven and made some rice with some chicken stock, some lemon juice, and some chopped green onions (don't forget the salt and pepper)

The Sauce

8" Dutch Oven

A whole buncha coals below

• 1/2 - 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1 full stick of butter

• 1 cup cream
• 1 cup milk
• 2-3 tablespoons roux
• a sprinkle of nutmeg
• a few pinches of salt
• about 1/2 cup of grated cheddar cheese, maybe more.

We started by making the roux. Now, there are lots of different kinds of roux. Some are runny, some are cooked longer and are darker, but the one my bro-in-law taught me was pretty thick and very light.

First, he had me put a full stick of butter in the 8" dutch oven, on the coals. Once it had melted, we added a bit more than 1/2 cup of flour, and stirred it with a whisk. It almost had the consistency of sugar cookie dough. It would hold together as I was stirring it, but then would slowly flatten out when I stopped. I cooked it until it was a little darker than when it started, but still blonde.

We pulled that completely out of the dutch oven, and set it aside in a bowl. Since we didn't know just how thick we wanted the sauce to be, we were going to add it in later.

Then we put in the milk and the cream and set it to boil, with the nutmeg sprinkled in. Once it was boiling, we started adding roux, maybe a little under a tablespoon at a time, stirring it in with the whisk. In no time, we'd found the magic amount to get the right thickness. The rest of the roux, by the way, is sitting in my fridge, awaiting the next meal!

Then, as it boiled again, we added the cheese. This time, the cheese melted, and bonded with the flour, and it made a great sacue. It didn't "break" and end up in a coagulated clump in the bottom of the dutch oven. We added some salt to taste, and away we went! We also added some of the chicken stock from the bottom of the cordon bleu dutch oven, too! Yum!

So, the full meal was: The Chicken Cordon Bleu, on the rice, with the Cheese Sauce on top. The chicken and the rice would have been great by themselves, but that sauce really took it to a whole new level. It really made the meal! And it was very simple.

And then, he explained some other things, like, with that same base, but with more milk, and sauteed mushrooms, onions, and celery, you have cream of mushroom soup! With tomatoes, you have cream of tomato soup! With asiago and parmesan cheese, instead of cheddar, you have alfredo sauce. And so on, and so on... Sauces and soups from the same base. Amazing!

I also served it with some sourdough bread. It was the tastiest Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe I'd tasted, and certainly the best one I'd ever made.

It also goes to show that learning to cook in a dutch oven is really all about learning to cook. In a dutch oven.

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!

Dutch Oven Herbal Chicken and Potatoes

Yesterday, I was really needing to cook.

My life is seriously stressful right now, and I needed to unwind. One of the best ways for me to do that is to cut up some food and put it over coals. Then, I get to watch it while the coals burn down. That all adds up to some serious relaxing.

So, I didn’t want to dig up something new. I didn’t want anything that would particularly challenge me or make it very difficult. I just wanted to cook something. I also wanted it to be something that I knew I could do well, and something that I knew I could really do better than I’d ever done before. I also didn’t want to go shopping for exotic ingredients, so I knew it would have to be done with stuff on hand.

Thank heavens for frozen chicken, onions, and potatoes. You can do almost anything with those three basic ingredients and it’ll work.

Dutch Oven Herbal Chicken and Potatoes

12” Dutch Oven

12 coals each below and above

• ½ lb bacon, cut into 1” pieces
• 1 large onion
• 1 tbsp garlic
• 1 lb boneless chicken, cubed
• 2-3 medium to large potatoes, quartered and sliced
• 2 stalks of celery, sliced
• Liberal shakes of parsley, thyme
• Salt, Pepper
• ¼ cup lemon juice

I started by lighting up 25-30 coals in a pile, and letting them get white edges. While those were heating up, I started cutting up the bacon, the potatoes, the onions.

Once there were enough hot coals, I spread them all out underneath the dutch oven, and added the bacon pieces, separated into the pot. I kept a few coals aside, to light other coals later. It took a while to crisp up the bacon, and I also added the garlic in to roast up as well. After the bacon was crisp, I added in the onions, and cooked them until they were translucent. By this time, the coals were burning down, so I added a stack of fresh charcoal to my side fire.

Once the onions were done, I added everything else. At that point, I pulled half the coals from the bottom and put them on top. From then on, it was just a matter of stirring it every 15 minutes or so until it was all done. That took probably about 30 to 40 minutes. The chicken was cooked and the potatoes were soft.

As it was cooking, I got to thinking that it would be tasty to serve it on rice, and to have some desert, so I put a cup of rice with 2 cups of broth into my 8” dutch oven. Then I made a dump cake with peaches, yellow cake mix, sprinkled with brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.

It all cooked up great! It was nice to have it all turn out well.

Dutch Oven Basics: Salmon and Rice

When you’re cooking in your dutch oven, and especially when you’re just learning, you do a lot of really simple recipes, and cook a lot of easy stuff, like cobblers and biscuits from a can. These are great. They taste yummy.

But for me, I wanted to learn to cook some dishes that also carried a lot of “Wow!” factor, both in the look and in the taste. I wanted to also make some things that, when I set it down in front of people, they would really be dazzled.

I guess if you wanted to, you could look at something like that and say that I have a deep-seated need for approval and I need therapy. And you probably wouldn’t be too far off!

This dish is very simple. Like the stew from last week, it is a one-step, one-pot meal. It’s not really a “dump” meal, however, it’s more of a “layered” meal. Still, it’s very simple to prepare, and very easy to cook, too. And, when it’s all done, and you put it on people’s plates, it really wow’s them.

This, for me, is also a landmark dish. It’s one of the first ones I created myself. I took it to forth place at the Eagle Mountain Pony Express Days Cookoff one year. You’ll notice that I altered this recipe slightly from the one back then.

Baked Salmon and Rice

12” dutch oven
8-9 coals below
16-18 coals above

• 1 1/2 Cups Rice
• 3 Cups chicken broth
• 2 cans Cream of Something Soup1 can tiny shrimp
• 1 tsp minced garlic

• 2 medium onions, sliced
• 2 stalks celery, sliced
• 1 small can water chestnuts
• Chopped parsley
• Chopped thyme
• black pepper (preferably coarse ground, or, better, fresh ground)
• Salt

• 3-5 Good sized portions of salmon (1 for each person eating) It can be frozen or fresh
• Butter
• 2 lemons, sliced

I started by lighting up a bunch of coals. By the time all of the food was prepared and in the dutch oven, the coals were white and ready, too.

This dish is created in the dutch oven, but it’s not dumped in. It’s built up in layers. Once it’s cooking, you won’t want to stir it. The bottom layer is the rice, the broth (or water), the garlic, and the cans of soup and shrimp. I mixed those up fairly thoroughly.

Once that layer is done, I sliced up the onions and the celery. I added the water chestnuts, and stirred those together. Then, I gently laid those three veggies on top of the first layer. I sprinkled a generous amount of the parsley and the thyme over the top, as well as the salt and the pepper.

Then I covered the veggies with a layer of the salmon filets. I dusted each piece of salmon with more salt and pepper, then put a small pat of butter on top of each one. On top of that, I added two slices of lemon. The dish was ready for the fire!

While it was cooking, I turned it often. I would turn the lid about a quarter turn, then pick up the oven and turn it back the other way a quarter turn. That way, the coals were in different positions relative to the food, and it cooks more evenly. I cooked it for about an hour and only opened the lid a few times. You want to keep the steam in to cook the fish and the rice. While it’s cooking, the cells of the lemon burst and the lemon juice runs down with the melted butter onto the fish and into the rice. It’s an incredible flavor.

You have to keep heat on it. After about 30 to 40 minutes the coals will start to burn down, and so you’ll need to replenish them. About 15 to 20 minutes after I put the first batch of coals on the oven, I’ll add fresh coals to the “side fire”, where there are still a few leftover coals burning. These coals will catch the fresh ones, and once the coals on the dutch oven are dwindling, they’ll be ready to add.

Not only is it delicious, but it’s really easy to fix. And it really impresses people!