Guest Blogger: Brendon's Dutch Oven Meat Salad

Hi, my name is Brendon. I’m Mark’s son, and I do dutch oven, too.

Today, I got to cook in the dutch oven with my own recipe. This is my “meat salad.” I call it meat salad because there’s lots of meat, and there’s some vegetables, too. You can choose any three meats, but we did sausage, hamburger, and chicken. You can also choose your own vegetables. And here’s my recipe

Brendon’s Meat Salad

10” Dutch oven
8 coals below, 15 coals above

12” Dutch oven
9 coals below, 17 coals above

• ½ lb of pork sausage
• ½ lb of ground beef
• 1 chicken breast
• 3 medium red potatoes, sliced
• 2 medium onions, sliced
• 3 Tbsp butter
• Seasoning salt
• Steak seasoning
• Salad seasoning
• 2 Tbsp flour

First, slice the chicken into strips. Form the sausage and hamburger into meatballs (or whatever shape you like). Put the meat into the 12” dutch oven. Add a few shakes of seasoning salt and steak seasoning.

Then, put the sliced vegetables into the 10” dutch oven. Add the butter and a few shakes of salad seasoning.

Put each dutch oven on the coals and cook for 20 minutes, stirring the vegetables. Mix both dutch ovens into the 12”, stir and cook for 20 more minutes. Once mixed together, add the flour and stir it to thicken the juices.

It tasted really good! This is the third time I’ve cooked in the dutch ovens, and had only a little help from dad.

Tell me how you liked it when you try it!

Extra comments from Mark: Brendon is a young guy, about to turn 10, and he's taken to helping me cook, when he's not playing his Nintendo DS, or watching "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy." This time, he asked me to let him cook. So, we talked about his recipe ideas, and got all the ingredients together. He's quite inventive. And it actually turned out very delicious! I'm quite proud of my young black pot chef!

Mark's Dutch Oven Biscuits and Gravy

The first time I ever had biscuits and gravy was at a scout camp. Our patrol piled into the mess hall alongside everyone else’s patrols one morning, and we were served big bowls full of biscuits. That was cool enough. After the generic non-denominational “grace” was said, everyone but me started grabbing biscuits, tearing them open and laying them out on their plates. I had some biscuits, but I was wondering where the butter and jam was.

Then they started pouring this white gravy all over them. I’d never heard of this before! But it looked really good. So, I joined in, and it was amazing. The best breakfast food I’d ever had.

So, for some reason, I remembered that this week, and wanted to recapture that. I decided that this weekend, I would cook a Saturday morning breakfast (Sunday morning is too hectic).

It was a little tricky working on both dishes and timing them out to be done at about the same time. I also had a little trouble with the biscuits. I need to do more of those, to get some good practice.

Mark’s Dutch Oven Biscuits and Gravy

10” Dutch Oven
15-18 coals below

12” Dutch Oven
12 coals below, 24 coals above (for 500 deg. F)

The Gravy

1. ½ lb -1 lb ground breakfast sausage
2. 1 medium chopped onion
3. 2 ½ Tbsp flour
4. ½ Cup Buttermilk
5. 1 ½ Cups Milk
6. A shake or two of:
1. Salt
2. Black pepper
3. Celery salt
4. Parsley
5. Cinnamon
6. Worcestershire sauce

The Biscuits

1. 2 Cup + flour
2. ½ tsp baking soda
3. 2 tsp baking powder
4. 2 Tbsp Shortening
5. 1 Cup Buttermilk

I started out cooking the sausage in the 10” dutch oven. I also chopped up the onion and added that. While that was working, I started on the biscuits.

I mixed the dry ingredients, then added the shortening, cutting it all together with a pastry knife. Then I mixed in the Buttermilk, and continued cutting with the pastry knife. After it was well mixed, I kneaded it a bit, and then rolled it out on the floured countertop. I suspect that I worked it too much, because they didn’t “poof” up much in the oven. They tasted great, but they were more thin, and not as fluffy. I might have also rolled them too thin. The recipe said a half inch. I might have rolled it out too flat. Brendon was helping me with all this, too, which was fun.

The recipe also called for the dutch oven to be pre-heated to 500. I did light up enough coals, but I didn’t preheat the oven. I wonder if that also effected the fluffiness.

So, once the biscuits were in the oven and waiting to go on the coals, I mixed the flour into the now-browned sausage and onions in the 10” dutch oven, and then added the milk and spices. I left that on to heat up and thicken.

I put the biscuits on and under the coals, and that was, frankly, a lot of heat. I don’t think I’ve ever cooked anything at 500 before. I turned the biscuits several times, and I think I cooked them a total of about 25-30 minutes. The recipe called for 10-12 minutes, but then, I didn’t preheat the oven either.

The biscuits baked, the gravy thickened, and finally it was time to bring it all in and try it. It was delicious. I knew as I smelled all those spices in the gravy that it was going to be heavenly. I wasn’t disappointed.

The biscuits, like I said, tasted great, but were thin, and not so light. I really need to practice that.

Dutch Oven Chicken Rolls, Au Gratin Potatoes

I just can’t figure out the chimney.

A long time ago, I got one of those metal cylinders with the handle on it, and it’s supposed to make it so that you can light charcoal and heat it up more quickly. Supposedly, you should be able to put some newspaper underneath, coals on top, and light it. The flames, they say, from the paper ignite the charcoal, and the convection of air through the holes in the bottom carry the heat upwards, igniting the rest of the charcoal and getting it good and hot.

Even though that’s what is supposed to happen, it’s never, ever worked for me.

Well, today, I found that I was out of lighter fluid (it’s what I usually use). So, I thought I’d give it one more try. I tried all kinds of configurations. Newspaper below, charcoal above was one. Another was newspaper below, then charcoal, then newspaper, then more charcoal…

Nothing. The paper burned beautifully. Never caught the charcoal. What am I doing wrong?

Finally, I just went to a neighbor and borrowed some starter fluid. Then it lit right up.

I made two dishes today. One was a recipe for Cashew Chicken. After deciding to do it, I realized that I didn’t have half the ingredients, including the cashews. So, I just sort of muddled through with what I had. It did turn out pretty well, all things considered. The second was for Au Gratin Potatoes. They both turned out great.

Dutch Oven Cream Cheese Chicken Rolls (Without Cashews)

8” Dutch Oven
12” Dutch Oven

Lots of coals, once it really gets cooking in the 12” dutch oven, 8-9 below and 16-18 or so on top

But first, I marinaded some boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I did five. You can really pick up whatever commercial marinade you happen to have. This time, I used a Ginger & Sesame marinade with some minced garlic and a lot of lemon juice. Italian dressing with some extra seasonings would work great, too. I let that marinade for a couple of hours.

Then, in the 8” dutch oven, with 8 coals below and 8 above, I combined:

• 1 8oz brick of cream cheese
• 1 cup milk
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 small can mushrooms
• 1-2 diced tomatoes
• 1-2 Stalks of celery, finely chopped.
• ½ jalapeno, chopped
• Liberal shakes of grated parmesan

I let that simmer until the cream cheese melted.

Then, I took the chicken breasts out of the marinade. I took one and pounded it flat between two sheets of wax paper. Then I put a couple of spoonfuls of the sauce from the 8” dutch oven and put it in the center of the flattened chicken. I folded it over and secured it with a couple of toothpicks. Then I rolled it in whipped egg, and then into crushed crackers. This I set in one of my 12” shallow dutch ovens. Four more rolls were made the same way.

Then I poured the rest of the sauce from the 8” dutch oven over the chicken rolls. In retrospect, I might have saved that and poured it over to serve, after the chicken was done. Not sure.

Anyway, it went on the coals and cooked for about 45 minutes. It turned out really good!

Dutch Oven Au Gratin Potatoes

12” dutch oven

8-9 coals below
16-18 coals above

• 1 package bacon
• 4-5 medium to large potatoes
• 2 medium onions, finely chopped
• liberal shakes of parsley, salt, pepper, garlic powder
• 6 tbsp flour
• 3 cups milk
• 2 cups grated cheese

This dish I started by putting a 12” dutch oven over about 20 coals or so. I fried the bacon pretty crispy.

While that was frying, I quartered and sliced the potatoes and chopped up the onions. All of this went into a bow with all of the dry ingredients.

Once the bacon was done, I poured off most of the grease, and added the bowl mix. I also added the milk and the grated cheese. It all got stirred up and put on the coals as listed above. It also cooked about 45 minutes, until the potatoes were soft.

That was actually just about the same time as the chicken was done, so I brought both pots in, and sprinkled another half cup of grated cheese on the potatoes. That melted pretty quickly, and by that time everyone had gathered and was ready to eat.