Cooking with Dutch Ovens Made from Cast Iron, Aluminum, Ceramics—Indoors, Outdoors, Camping

 

Advantages of cooking with Dutch ovens include the fact that you can cook just about anything in them. Dutch ovens come in various sizes so you can cook for one person at a time or for several people in a single pan. Dutch ovens operate with charcoal briquettes or with wood so campers and other Dutch oven users do not need to concern themselves with lighter fluid or propane hazards as they would with other outdoor cooking gadgets. To put it simply, Dutch ovens are like a camper’s best friend.

Dutch ovens are pots made from aluminum, ceramic, or from cast iron. Cast iron pots are super strong. Since the iron is “cast”, it is malleable and can maintain its shape and durability for centuries! Dutch ovens include lids that fit the pots very tight in order to keep heat in once the pots are placed in cooking mode. Some aluminum Dutch ovens are made for out door use and cook as well as outdoor cast iron ovens. Other aluminum Dutch ovens in addition to ceramic Dutch ovens are intended for indoor stove-top use.

Herein lays several great advantages of cooking with Dutch ovens:

• Dutch ovens clean fairly easily—perhaps easier than some indoor roasting and baking pans. Cast iron Dutch ovens are cured prior to initial use, which makes cleaning them even easier. Just the same, however, a cook finding himself without a cleaning cloth can even burn residue from cast iron Dutch ovens if he so chooses.

• Dutch ovens come in large enough sizes to enable cooks to prepare large meals just as if they were using conventional ovens.

• Some Dutch oven lids double their usefulness allowing cooks to utilize them as griddles for pancakes, eggs, and bacon.

• Dutch oven purchasers can decide how much expense to bear when buying Dutch ovens by choosing either aluminum or cast iron ovens for outdoor use. Aluminum Dutch ovens are not as heavy as cast iron ovens, which could be a factor at times when one needs to consider how much weight she must lug.
• Aside from using briquettes and coal to heat Dutch ovens directly, cooks can prepare meals by burying outdoor ovens with underground coals or setting them over open fires.
• Dutch ovens made from cast iron give meats unique flavors that no other cooking device can equal. From chicken to pork to beef to veal, Dutch ovens can cook them all and in fact can cook large birds like turkeys as well. In addition, Dutch ovens cook vegetables to go with the meats.
• Want to make a loaf of bread or a pie while out camping in the woods? Never fear Dutch ovens heat up to temperatures from 300 degrees to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Moreover, you can use Dutch ovens to knead dough. This means you can bake breads such as biscuits, lengthy loaves, and corny bread. Large Dutch ovens can cook three loaves of bread at once! In addition, you can bake pies as well.
• Despite the fact that Dutch oven cleaning is not problematic, cooks can use disposable liners for their pots. Disposable liners allow cooks to prepare one meal after another quickly without cleaning the ovens. Not having to clean Dutch ovens from one set of ingredients to another set of ingredients cuts down on meal preparation time because the pots do not lose heat while undergoing cleaning.

Dutch oven sizes vary from five inches through twenty-two inches and hold from ½ quart to 64 quarts of foodstuff. These varying sizes allow cooks to prepare meals for one person all the way up to sixty or more people depending on which pots are used. Since Dutch ovens are great for cooking everything from zucchini to chicken to pies and of course beans with pork, as mentioned at the start, Dutch ovens are like a camper’s best friend.