Open Fire Cooking?


buckslayer

New member
I was just wondering how many people cook over an open fire, and what some of your favorite recipes are? Everyone uses a grill these days, and anyone can cook a hotdog over a fire; but not many people have actually cooked over a fire pit. Does anyone have any simple fish recipes they’d like to share?

I used to cook trout in tin foil (cooked whole minus guts) with butter and garlic salt, but I don’t have trout around where I live at the moment. What I do have is an abundance of Northern Pike, Walleyes, Sunnies, Crappies, Bass, and Perch.
 

I was just wondering how many people cook over an open fire, and what some of your favorite recipes are? Everyone uses a grill these days, and anyone can cook a hotdog over a fire; but not many people have actually cooked over a fire pit. Does anyone have any simple fish recipes they’d like to share?

I used to cook trout in tin foil (cooked whole minus guts) with butter and garlic salt, but I don’t have trout around where I live at the moment. What I do have is an abundance of Northern Pike, Walleyes, Sunnies, Crappies, Bass, and Perch.

Your recipe for trout will work excellent for any fish and virtually any meat as well. With foil, you can cook direct (inside the coals-not inside the flames) to get a nice brown skin.

I don't have a specific recipe, but would like to make a point about open fire cooking. If you don't have your food wrapped in foil, never cook it in the flames. The flames will add nasty tasting soot and ruin your meal. I lived outside for several months as a teen and cooked thousands of meals over a fire. Always use the coals.
 
We made hobo stew at camp and man was it outstanding. Take meat,potatoes,carrots,onions wrap it all in aluminum foil and put in in the coals to cook.
 
I don't have a fish receipy but if you like onion soup you gotta try this . Take a Vadallia onion cut the top off and cut the bottom just above the little roots and skin . Take a potato peeler and hog out the middle, leave a little from the bottom . Take a chicken bullion cube cut in half , put butter in the core and put the pcs. of cub in the core . Butter to the top and place the onion in the middle of a pcs, of alu. foil and fold up around the onion (bottom side down) twist the top of the foil and place on the fire 45 minutes TO DYE FOR !!!!!!:pleasantry:
 
Found this on the internet. We used to use a similar recipe when we went to Canada fishing. Also works on fresh Pike. Yummy!

Lemon Garlic Walleye
thanks to Craig Kirk

Recipe Ingredients:

4-6 Fresh Fish Filets Walleye or Smallie (usually will feed 4)
4-6 Cloves Garlic sliced (I like garlic so I'll use 6-8)
1 Whole lemon quartered
A double handful of Cilantro
Salt and Pepper to taste

Cooking instructions:
Lay out the filets in aluminum foil. Salt and pepper each side. Slice the garlic cloves and sprinkle on the fish. Next shred the cilantro and spread over fish. Now squeeze the lemon quarters over fish and drop the rind in with the fish. Seal the foil and bake over hot coals on the fire grate for 20-30 minutes.

Variations/Hints:
This is a very easy recipe to do on the first or second night. The ingredients are simple and easy to use. The garlic only needs to be roughly sliced and cilantro can be added with stems intact because most people will not eat the cilantro anyway. Serve with wild rice and toss a couple of baking potatoes in your pack and cook them in the fire coals wrapped in foil.

Comments:
This is a good first or second night supper.
 
Open fire cooking is great, especially with others that do the same. Just takes a little innovation and it's something you can't rush. Start the fire early in the am so there are plenty of coals...hubby loves to play in the fire! With some iron skillets, old pots - soap the bottoms with a hard bar of bath soap to not char the bottom; a old oven rack, few bog rocks...you get the picture. We could cook just about anything and it's a great enjoyable time.

-take a bag of frozen mussles, add to iron skillet with some white wine and olive oil or butter, salt and pepper ----wonderful appetizer, diced chicken breasts are good for those that do not care for mussels.
 
My outdoor cooking setup:

Firepit with grill and tripod to hold a Lodge Camp Dutch Oven; everything was made by me (except the CDO).

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I also have a smoker, not pictured here. I don't eat fish (much) and have never cooked it, so I can't help with the fish recipes. I like beef ribs, briskets, steaks and the usual hamburgers and hot dogs. Now that it's warmer, we'll be cooking a lot outdoors, it will help keep the house cooler.

Good luck.
 
Nothing better than slow-cooked dutch oven chili with mexican cornbread. Just don't forget the antacid.:shout:
 
My wife's grandmother, who died in about 1985, taught me how to bake a peach cobbler. She did it in a kitchen oven, but I decided that I could do it in a Dutch oven. I've done it many times over open fires, including while putting on cooking demonstrations for Boy Scout leaders. The cast iron Dutch oven that I used, and still have, was given to me by my wife's Great Aunt. It is over 100 years old, has three legs and a handle. The top has a rim to hold coals on the top.

Let fire burn down to a heavy bed of coals.

Pour one large can of sliced peaches in HEAVY syrup into the Dutch oven.
Pour a small can of crushed pineapple into the peaches and stir.
Sprinkle about 1/2 cup of chopped pecans on top of the peach-pineapple mixture.
Pour one box of Aunt Jemima's Yellow Cake Mix on top of the mixture. Do NOT stir.
Sprinkle about three table spoons of sugar on top of the cake mix. Do NOT stir.
Place top of Dutch oven on the oven.
Place Dutch oven on bed of hot coals for about 15 minutes.
Put hot coals on top of Dutch oven.
After about 10 minutes, check top of cobbler. Periodically check for browning of crust.
When top is browned, remove top of Dutch oven and pour off coals.

The heat causes the peach syrup to bubble up and mix with the cake mix to form a crust.
It is delicious.
 
I do alot of what are in these post. When i have a pot of something going in the dutch oven and need some biscuits.
Just make up your dough grab some twigs around the camp site. Clean off the bark with your pocket knife. Then roll out the dough and wrap it in a spiral up the twig and lay over the pit. When brown they are done.
 
My past experience with the BSA has proven that a good quality cast iron dutch oven is invaluable for open fire cooking. I found the lipped (not domed) lid is the best. You can stack more than one and create a cooking tower.

The tinfoil fish was a staple with our troop once the boys learned how easy it was. ;-)

Almost any dutch oven recipe you can find on the net for in the house dutch ovens will work outside over an open fire.

I found the key to open pit cooking is to control the heat, using embers/coals for the cooking heat source is the best. Loading coals under and on top of the dutch oven turns it from a cook pot to an oven.
I've baked bread in the DO and made pizza.

If you don't want to go with the DO (they ARE heavy to transport) a cardboard box and tinfoil make a darned good open bottom oven.

A cedar plank soaked in water, fish flank filet with skin side down, (season per fish type this woks nicely with any white fish) sprinkled with garlic powder, light sea salt, some pepper, squeeze of lemon (or cover with thin slices of whole lemon), cover with a slice of onion slit into rings and sprinkle with dill. Add a drizzle of either EVOO or melted butter.

Place a cooking grill on fire rocks (Preheated in the fire so moisture is already boiled out)place at the 4 corners of the grate. Scrape a couple of good hot coals under the grate, place plank and fish on grate and cover with foil lined box. (For some reason a beer case seems to be the right size!)

Cook until meat is flaky. Serve/eat right off the plank.
 
I do a lot of Dutch Oven cooking. I do a shrimp and scallop scampi variation in it. I have also done pork loins over an open flame on a grate. Got a great smoke ring on them.
 
Cast iron is the way to go. My son's troop has some aluminum and cast iron dutch ovens. The cast are controllable. From stews to deserts, it cranks out great meals reliably. The aluminum is all over the place. No heat control. They said they make them to be back packed. Way too heavy.
 
we always open fire grill our steaks when we camp...i usually break up small sticks to supplement flame when needed
 
Every day, billions of people put their lives at risk simply by cooking meals. Whether open flame cooking or unsafe stoves and fuels, both methods release smoke that causes respiratory and heart disease – and lead to four million premature deaths a year.
 

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