New to the Dutch Oven

[Neutz68]

Hello all, 

 I received the Lodge Logic 7qt Dutch Oven for a Christmas gift.... I have to say this is my first and i am not sure where to start.... Anyone out there give me a few tips ??  It is already seasoned so all i have to do is follow the directions on cleaning from factory and then wipe down with a bit of Veg oil...  Looking for a couple recipes for a newby.. 

 

Thanks... 

[delcecchi]

How experienced a cook are you, and what did you have in mind?    Campfire?  Stove?

 

Chicken and Dumplings

Pot Roast

Beef Stew

come to mind of the top of my head.   

[Neutz68]

delecchi, 

 I can hold my own in the kitchen so i am told.. I enjoy smoking and grilling the most though..Thought i would start it off in the oven.,.. Was thinking about the Pot Roast, Beef Stew idea as well... Also wondering about doing a whole chicken and also Pork Chops... I hear that a person can make a good bread in the Dutch Oven too... Just looking for ideas... 

Thanks for the reply!!! 

[delcecchi]

In the oven, make all sorts of stuff.   No knead bread is good.  The no knead bread my Daughter in Law makes is killer. 

 

Chicken in a pot.  Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic.   Porketta.   Pulled Pork.  

 

Stews of all kinds.  Gumbo, etc. 

 

Smothered Pork Chops maybe. 

 

Anything for a crock pot will be better in dutch oven in the oven. 

 

 

[RebelSS]

Squirrel stew wid taters and veggies!!!!  No tree rats? Throw a few squab in there with some chicken stock and veggies, make some dumplings, let'er slow cook....um num. 

 

Or, a braised roast with beef gravy.....onions and carrots. Dutchies are great cooking utensils. 

[perchking]

Corned beef and cabbage are a must in a Dutch oven. After you put it on a fire for about 6 hrs with coals on top u will not be disappointed!  For some reason, it just tastes better to me. 

[Big Dave2]

Cook pretty much anything you would normally cook in the oven at home. I would probably start with chili or stew just because it is easy and you can get a good feel for cooking with the dutch oven.

[Neutz68]

Thanks guys!  I will be trying something this weekend. 

 

[RebelSS]

Pics are a must!!!!!!!! 

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Perfect timing on this post.  I don't use my dutch oven very much, but I'll be cooking the 40 clove chicken on the ice this weekend.  Sounds amazing!

[Neutz68]

I sure wish i was trying it on the ice as well Lip_Ripper Guy.. In the process of a bathroom remodel at home AND have a couple weeks left on the fish house build... Falling behind on everything. 

 

[Neutz68]

delcecchi & Lip_Ripper Guy

 

Sure have my interest in this 40 garlic clove chicken....   Where can i find the recipe for the Dutch Oven?? 

[PurpleFloyd]

Oops. This is not the Dutch Oven conversation I was expecting from this group.

 

Carry on.

[delcecchi]

Still looking for a recipe for the chicken with 40 cloves.  But here is a recipe for Brunswick Stew.   In the old days this had squirrel in it.    

 

Brunswick Stew

From Cook's Country | April/May 2016

 

Why this recipe works:

Recipes for this hearty Southern stew differ from region to region, but there are a few commonalities—meat (pork, chicken, beef, or game) and vegetables simmered in a tomato-based liquid. All too often, however, this stew becomes bogged down by too many additions. Our aim was to make a simple yet complexly flavored version. To start, we built our stew around a homemade barbecue sauce; browning the ketchup we were adding to the sauce gave it extra depth. Lean chicken breasts dried out, but chicken thighs, which contain more collagen, yielded more-tender meat. Adding kielbasa sausage gave our stew its smokiness, and staggering the addition of potatoes, tomatoes, lima beans, and corn to the pot ensured that all the vegetables finished cooking at the same time.

 

Brunswick Stew

This rib-sticking stew is too often the butt of jokes. Our aim was to turn misunderstanding into gushing respect.

Serves 4 to 6

Our favorite kielbasa is Wellshire Farms Smoked Polska Kielbasa.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped fine

3/4 cup ketchup

4 cups water

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed

1 pound russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch chunks

8 ounces kielbasa sausage, sliced 1/4 inch thick

6–8 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon yellow mustard

1 teaspoon garlic powder

Salt and pepper

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 cup canned crushed tomatoes

1/2 cup frozen lima beans

1/2 cup frozen corn

Instructions

1. Heat oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add onion and cook until ­softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Add ketchup and 1/4 cup water and cook, stirring ­frequently, until fond begins to form on bottom of pot and mixture has thickened, about 6 minutes.

2. Add chicken, potatoes, kielbasa, 6 tablespoons vinegar, 1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire, mustard, garlic powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, pepper flakes, and remaining 3 3/4 cups water and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until potatoes are tender, 30 to 35 minutes, stirring frequently.

3. Transfer chicken to plate and let cool for 5 minutes, then shred into bite-size pieces with 2 forks. While chicken cools, stir tomatoes, lima beans, and corn into stew and continue to simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Stir in shredded chicken and remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire and cook until warmed through, about 2 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and remaining vinegar (up to 2 tablespoons) to taste. Serve.

Key Step: Browning Ketchup

Ketchup offers a lot of culinary bang for the buck, with sweet, tangy, and savory flavors in a single bottle. For this recipe, we cook the ketchup until it thickens and browns, making it even more complex.

related content

--------------------------------------------

Here is another, chicken this time.  

 

Chicken in a Pot

From Cook's Country | February/March 2009

 

Older recipes for Chicken in a Pot called for submerging the bird in liquid and boiling it, but the drawback was that all the meat cooked at the same temperature, meaning that by the time the legs cooked, the breast meat was dried out. We took a cue from a Julia Child recipe and cooked the chicken in the oven with poaching liquid that covered just the legs and thighs. To flavor the liquid, we started with chicken broth and a splash of white wine for brightness and complexity. We browned just the back of the chicken before poaching, which elicited just enough fond to intensify the broth. We also browned the vegetables to add more flavor to the broth.

 

Serves 4

You will need kitchen twine and a Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid and at least a 6-quart capacity to make this recipe. Serve the chicken with Dijon mustard, pickles, and horseradish as accompaniments, if desired.

Ingredients

1 whole chicken (4 1/2- to 5-pound), trimmed of excess fat

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 onion, peeled and halved, root end left intact

1 celery rib, halved crosswise

1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

6 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup white wine

1 cup low-sodium chicken broth

1 1/2 pounds small red potatoes, scrubbed and quartered

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon finely chopped chives

Instructions

1. Season chicken: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Using fingers, loosen skin from breasts and legs of chicken. Rub 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper all over chicken and underneath skin. Tuck wings behind back and tie legs together with kitchen twine.

2. Brown chicken: Heat 1 tablespoon oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Following photos, add chicken, breast-side up, and cook until back is lightly browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer chicken to plate. Add remaining oil, onion, celery, and carrots to empty pot and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add wine and broth and bring to boil. Arrange chicken, breast-side up, on top of vegetables. Season potatoes with salt and pepper and arrange around chicken. Transfer pot to oven and cook, covered, until thigh meat registers 170 to 175 degrees, 50 to 70 minutes.

3. Make sauce: Remove pot from oven and transfer to wire rack. Remove lid and tent pot loosely with foil; let rest 20 minutes. Carefully transfer chicken to carving board. Using slotted spoon, transfer vegetables to serving platter, discarding onion and celery. Let sit 5 minutes, then strain and skim sauce (you should have about 2 cups of sauce; if you have less, supplement with chicken broth). Whisk butter and chives into sauce and season with salt and pepper. Carve chicken and serve, passing sauce at table.

[leech~~]

8 hours ago, Neutz68 said:

delcecchi & Lip_Ripper Guy

 

Sure have my interest in this 40 garlic clove chicken....   Where can i find the recipe for the Dutch Oven??

 

I was going to say, I love garlic, but you are cooking that out of the ice house right?

[delcecchi]

OK, found a reasonable recipe. 

from Alton Brown

40 cloves and a chicken

Ingredients

1 3-to-4 pound broiler/fryer chicken, cut into eight pieces

kosher salt, to taste

black pepper, freshly ground, to taste

2 tablespoons plus 1/2 cup olive oil (not extra-virgin)

5 sprigs fresh thyme

40 cloves garlic, peeled

Instructions

1 Heat oven to 350°F.

2 Season the chicken all over with salt and pepper. Coat the chicken pieces on all sides with 2 tablespoons of the oil.

3 In a 12-inch straight-sided oven-safe sauté pan(your dutch oven) over high heat, cook the chicken for 5 to 7 minutes per side, until nicely browned. Remove the pan from the heat; add the remaining 1/2 cup oil, the thyme, and garlic cloves. Cover and bake for 1 1/2 hours.

4 Remove the pan from the oven and set aside for 15 minutes with the lid on. Serve family style with plenty of toasted bread to spread the softened, fragrant garlic on.

[Crow Hunter]

Here is another 40-clove recipe, it is from a slow cooker recipe book, I am pretty sure you could use the baking instructions from the recipe above, but I would add some oil in the bottom of the pan as in the recipe above, 1/2 cup sounds like an awful lot to me.

1 frying chicken (3 pounds), cut into serving pieces

1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup dry white wine

1/8 cup dry vermouth

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or 2 tsp. dried parsley leaves

2 tsp. dried basil leaves

1 tsp. dried oregano leaves

pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

40 cloves garlic, peeled

4 ribs celery, sliced

juice and peel  of one lemon (I assume just the zest from the peel?)

fresh herbs (optional)

 

remove skin from chicken if desired.

sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add chicken; cook 10 minutes or until browned on all sides. Remove to platter.

Combine wine, vermouth, parsley, basil, oregano and red pepper flakes in large bowl. Add garlic and celery; coat well.

Transfer garlic and celery to slow cooker with a slotted spoon. Add chicken to remaining herb mixture; coat well.

Place chicken on top of vegetables in slow cooker.

Sprinkle lemon juice and peel over chicken, add remaining herb mixture.

Cover and cook on low 6 hours or until chicken is no longer pink in center. Garnish with fresh herbs, if desired.

 

And one more recipe, this is a stew recipe I found hand written in a recipe book I found at an estate sale, I make it all the time in a dutch oven:

 

Beef stew

2 pounds stew meat

1 bunch carrots cut in hunks

1 cup celery cut up

3 onions, chopped

1 tablespoon sugar

pepper to taste

1 tablespoon salt (I use less)

3 tablespoons tapioca

1 large can tomato's, drained ( I replace part of this with some of my homemade salsa)

 

Put all ingredients in dutch oven and cover.

Bake in 250 degree oven for 5 hours, don't peek. If you bake in pyrex, bake at 225 degrees for 6 hours.

I have added some chunks of Yukon gold potato's to this from time to time also.

Enjoy.

[RebelSS]

But 40 cloves?!  Yeesh......

[Crow Hunter]

39 minutes ago, RebelSS said:

But 40 cloves?!  Yeesh......

Oh, yeah.

We roast a couple of heads of garlic all the time before football games, smear a clove on a cracker, add a bit of brie cheese, and wash it down with a cold beer... Fabulous. Roasting the garlic makes it less pungent. I could eat 40 cloves by myself.

[Mike89]

51 minutes ago, RebelSS said:

But 40 cloves?!  Yeesh......

so agree!!

[delcecchi]

OK, here is another one for you.... from cooks illustrated

 

Carbonnade a la Flamande (Belgian Beef, Beer, and Onion Stew)

 

In a good carbonnade recipe, the heartiness of the beef should meld with the soft sweetness of sliced onions in a lightly thickened broth laced with the malty flavor of beer. Our tests revealed that the small, long, shoulder-cut blade steak was our best beef option, given its generous fat marbling, which provides flavor and a tender, buttery texture. Lots of thinly sliced yellow onions found their way into the pot next, and a spoonful of tomato paste and a couple of minced garlic cloves boosted the flavor. The key element of this Belgian stew, however, was the dark, potent ale, bathing the chunks of tender meat and the slivers of sweet onions. This beer, combined with equal portions of chicken and beef broth, gave us a beef stew with a strong, complex flavor.

 

ingredients

3 ½ pounds blade steaks, 1-inch-thick, trimmed of gristle and fat and cut into 1-inch pieces (see illustrations below)

Table salt and ground black pepper

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 pounds yellow onions (about 3 medium), halved and sliced about ¼-inch-thick (about 8 cups)

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 medium cloves garlic, minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 teaspoons)

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

¾ cup low-sodium chicken broth

¾ cup low-sodium beef broth

1 ½ cups beer (12-ounce bottle or can)

4 sprigs fresh thyme leaves, tied with kitchen twine

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

 

Top blade steaks (also called blade or flatiron steaks) are our first choice, but any boneless roast from the chuck will work. If you end up using a chuck roast, look for the chuck eye roast, an especially flavorful cut that can easily be trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces. Buttered egg noodles or mashed potatoes make excellent accompaniments to carbonnade. The traditional copper-colored Belgian ale works best in this stew. If you can't find one, choose another dark or amber-colored ale of your liking.

 

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 300 degrees. Dry beef thoroughly with paper towels, then season generously with salt and pepper. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in large heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium-high heat until beginning to smoke; add about one-third of beef to pot. Cook without moving pieces until well browned, 2 to 3 minutes; using tongs, turn each piece and continue cooking until second side is well browned, about 5 minutes longer. Transfer browned beef to medium bowl. Repeat with additional 2 teaspoons oil and half of remaining beef. (If drippings in bottom of pot are very dark, add about 1/2 cup of above-listed chicken or beef broth and scrape pan bottom with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits; pour liquid into bowl with browned beef, then proceed.) Repeat once more with 2 teaspoons oil and remaining beef.

 

2. Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil to now-empty Dutch oven; reduce heat to medium-low. Add onions, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and tomato paste; cook, scraping bottom of pot with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits, until onions have released some moisture, about 5 minutes. Increase heat to medium and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are lightly browned, 12 to 14 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add flour and stir until onions are evenly coated and flour is lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Stir in broths, scraping pan bottom to loosen browned bits; stir in beer, thyme, bay, vinegar, browned beef with any accumulated juices, and salt and pepper to taste. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to full simmer, stirring occasionally; cover partially, then place pot in oven. Cook until fork inserted into beef meets little resistance, about 2 hours.

 

3. Discard thyme and bay. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper to taste and serve. (Can be cooled and refrigerated in airtight container for up to 4 days; reheat over medium-low heat.)

 

 

52 minutes ago, RebelSS said:

But 40 cloves?!  Yeesh......

 

You ever eat roasted garlic, Reb?   Outstanding, and not strong at all.  Like the difference between cooked onions or onion soup and raw onions.   

[Big Dave2]

The more garlic or onion the better I say.

[delcecchi]

8 hours ago, Big Dave2 said:

The more garlic or onion the better I say.

 

ah, but what does mama say?

 

[Big Dave2]

2 minutes ago, delcecchi said:

 

ah, but what does mama say?

 

 

 

[delcecchi]

Uh, OK.