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Episode-1960- Mathias Rieske on Dutch Oven Cooking — 15 Comments

  1. Mmmmm. Loved the cooking show today. Time to break out the old dutch oven again!

  2. Just wondering could a Dutch oven be fabricated out of very heavy gauge stainless steel, say 1/4 inch gauge so as to get the same benifits in cooking yet not have the hassle of oiling and curing to prevent rust ?

    • There are dutch ovens that are porcelain coated inside and out. IMO that’s cheating, seasoning cast iron is far easier than you think.

      • Cheating? Frankly if you are not doing things purists call cheating in life, you are not trying hard enough in life.

  3. Here is one of my favourite Dutch oven recipes which is very simple to do. Sprinkle fine chopped garlic on the white side of two macrel, place them in a Dutch oven, put the lid on and then place the Dutch oven inside a wood stove. Dont over bake it, you will get a slightly different taste depending upon if you are burning pallets or ash oak etc. Get a magnetic temperature gauge for your stove. Use approximately the same temp every time ghen you only have to fine tune the baking time via trial and error. Eat that regularly and your health and energy will thank you for your efforts and it tastes great.

  4. Cast Iron: A Brief History of Casting
    Posted at sheries-kitchen.com/cast iron/history_of_casting.htm
    Sand casting has existed for hundreds of years. The basic technique has changed little over time: pour molten iron into a mold created in sand to create a shape. One creates a mold by packing sand around a pattern, which when removed from the sand produces the void space into which the iron will flow.
    Sounds simple, doesn’t it? From my own very limited experiences in casting iron, any potato head can cast a small, simple, thick piece of iron (given access to the proper materials, especially 2500 degree molten iron!).
    Minor changes in the casting process allow for the approximate dating of pieces. The oldest pieces will have a circular “sprue” mark on the underside of the piece. This technique was used until the mid-to late 1700s. (Most pieces were cast upside down, to avoid having an unsightly sprue or gate mark on the top of the piece). The sprue is the point where the maker poured the molten iron into the mold. Any piece that is cast, even those today, will have at least one point on them where you can see where the iron entered the mold.
    The next generation of cast iron have a “gate” mark, which will look like a long thin line on the bottom of the piece. This is where the iron entered the mold, and the technique lasted from the mid-1700s to the late 1800s or so. Pieces made around 1875 to the present time have the iron enter the mold from the sides (usually in two places, sometimes opposite one another), which creates a smooth bottom. Current techniques have the iron coming in from the side, so look for one or more places on the side of the iron with heavy grinding marks–that is where the iron entered the mold. The grinding was done to get rid of the excess metal from the pour.
    Between 1875 and 1940, cast iron cookware manufacturers periodically refined their casting techniques to produce extremely well-made pieces. The earliest pieces (1875 to 1900) were thinner than those produced later. This thinness led to a high number of pieces that cracked or warped during use. Pieces produced during this time also had fewer finishing steps on the production line, and many of the gem pans have a slightly more primitive appearance.
    Pieces made between 1900 and 1940 were both slightly thicker and more finished in their appearance, and the quality of the production process reached its pinnacle between 1920 and 1940. During this time, the manufacturing included a series of polishing steps that produced pieces with glass-like surfaces. One such step was as follows: Manufacturers would tumble the finished product in a large (several feet in diameter) rotating drum that contained small bits of metal (usually star shaped) that served to polish the pieces. Other pieces, such as skillets or dutch ovens, were turned on lathes to provide a very smooth cooking surface. You can often see the lathe marks on the inside of these pieces.
    After 1940 or so, both Griswold and Wagner were no longer controlled by family members, and the quality deteriorated significantly. Pieces made after 1940 are downright clunky in appearance and do not have the same high quality finish. You can tell these pieces from a distance due to their thicker skillet walls and course looking castings.

  5. A couple of things, Mathias nailed it when he was talking about using the dutch ovens as supplemental ovens for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. 90% of the time, when I do roasted new potatoes, I do them outside in the camp dutch oven. It’s easier and cheaper than heating up the whole oven in the house. Another cool thing about them is that they are heavy and stable enough that they don’t dump over in the back of a truck. Back when I did construction in the winter, I would regularly have a dutch oven of chili, stew or whatever else in the back of the truck. A little while before lunch, I’d set it next to the fire, put some coals on the lid. When I was done it would go back in the bed of the truck. As long as the outside temp was in the 40’s or below, its as cold as a fridge. Point is there is no reason to think of using these ovens as special. They are a great tool that are many times more convenient than “conventional” methods.

    Cook a few pieces of bacon in the open dutch oven

    Pull the bacon out, dump in the small potatoes

    Season with garlic salt, black pepper, fresh rosemary and stir

    Move some of the coals to the lid and cook until the outside of the potatoes are a little crispy stirring a few times

    Add some diced onion, fresh garlic, the chopped up bacon you cooked earlier and some butter

    When they are done, top with fresh parmesan, move all the coals to the top and run it for another 5 min or so.

    When I am done cooking with my cast iron, I rinse it out with hot water, with little soap and scrubbing if needed, dry it with a paper towel, lightly spray it with cheap vegetable oil spray from walmart and put it in the oven. As long as I am not running the oven over 400 or so and don’t need the room, they stay in.

    A little note. If you have problems with scrambled eggs sticking in a cast iron pan, let your pan heat up all the way to the handle and pour your eggs in slower. The pan does not need to be hotter, it needs to be thoroughly heated.

    Bonus: https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-L410-Pre-Seasoned-Sportsmans-Charcoal/dp/B00022OK2A

  6. Also, a metal wash tub with some sand in the bottom. Now you are cooking on the deck, on the tailgate, in the duck blind, deer stand etc.