Sunday, May 6, 2007

I like to dutch oven on windy days. It keeps me on my toes. It seems to me that the wind makes my coals burn hotter. I like that. But they also burn faster, so I have to watch my side fire more. I also have to replenish more often, so I use up more coals.

In the (nearly) year since I started my sunday tradition, I've cooked in all kinds of weather. Summer heat, winter cold. Snow, rain, too, but usually under cover, like my open garage.

I knew I wanted to learn this thing, and I also knew I'd give it up pretty quickly if I didn't keep trying, and doing it on a regular basis.

So, if I can throwbout any real advice to a dutch oven neophyte, it's this: Keep cookin'. Everything will be great if you just don't give up.

Now, after all those inspiring words, let me follow up on my last entry before this week's recipe. Remember how I said that Kofta was, how shall I say it, Not my familiy's favorite dish? Well, it turns out that I pretty much had it all to myself.

My oldest escaped the culinary torture by pretending to be full.

Oh, well. *I* liked it. And I ate pretty well at lunch for the next few days.

Today, I'm doing a roast. I got the recipe from Byron's Website on the recipes page here. It turned out really great. A little zesty, a little sweet. And the meat itself was deliciously moist.

I was pretty true to the recipe, actually, so I'll just post the link. I don't know if it was the weather or my management of the coals, but it cooked about a total of two and a half hours. We were kinda lucky to have both of the vinagres, and I had to dig to find the rosemary, but in the end, it was all there, and it cooked up great!

3 comments:

  1. I got here via google search. Nice informative site. I may have to link this site as I would hate to loose it. I didn't notice any subscribe too button thingys.

    I'm hitting thee archives. i was just at Byron's site and copied his Pot Roast recipe. I hope to cook this up in my dutch oven this weekend...weather permitting. So, how was this pot roast; simple for a first timer? Good tasting?

    I notice mos people use charcoal to cook over. I suppose that is best until I figure this out. i plan on cooking over our firepit using the available wood coals.

    And of course I'd be taking photos of the cooking event.

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  2. Wow! I've never cooked with wood, just with charcoal. That's quite a challenge!

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  3. Success! Thanks to your tips and Byron's recipe, my first dutch oven attempt was a huge success.

    My Pop and I have had nearly 30 years experience cooking over a wood fire while camping out on fishing trips. Both of us tended the wood coals, adding wood at the edge when necessary. the high winds kept things cooler than we liked which made for a longer bake.

    Thanks for the help with your blog.

    http://northmetro.blogspot.com/2008/10/dutch-oven-pot-roast.html

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