Guy Time: Cooking Outside with a Dutch Oven

This weekend Tricia was out of town and Russ and I launched the canoe in Bayou Nezpique to do a little fishing.  We struck out.  I mean completely struck out.  A big catfish broke my line and we had several nibbles, but other than seeing an alligator swim near us and seeing a nest of red wasps that was the size of your head hanging in a tree over the water, it was uneventful.  With no fish for the pot, Russ and I hatched Plan B.  We decided we would pull out his cast iron dutch oven and cook outdoors. We decided to make jambalaya and here's how we did it.

Dutch Oven Jambalaya

1 lb smoked sausage
2 Tablespoons oil
1 onion chopped
1 bunch green onions
2 cups bell pepper, chopped
2 cups celery, chopped
Cajun seasoning to taste
2 cups uncooked rice
8 or 10 tomatoes cut up, with juice
2 Tablespoons minced garlic
4 cups broth
4 bay leaves

It was a nice afternoon to do it so we got busy preparing the items for the dish.  We didn't even have to go to the store.  We had everything on hand - either fresh or frozen.  Russ cut up a pound and a half of smoked chicken sausage. There is a specialty meat market in town that makes it up for us.  It has great flavor.

Smoked Sausage, cut up

While Russ cut that up, I cut up all the fresh veggies.  Moving from left to right on the cutting board below, we have garlic, celery, onion, bay leaves, bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, tabasco peppers, and green onions. I like all the colors of the different vegetables.  Note the red tabasco peppers on the far right, I'll come back to that later.

Veggies all prepped

Then I chopped up 8 or 10 heirloom tomatoes from the garden.  This is almost the last of them.  I cut them up on the plate in order to save all the juice.

Chopped tomatoes with juice

Last but not least, our oil, Cajun Seasoning and rice...

For outdoor dutch oven cooking it is critical to monitor the temperature.  Too much heat and it will burn and create a crust on the bottom of the pot.  Too little and your dish won't cook.  This jambalaya requires a temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In order to achieve that temperature, there is a formula to use.  You need 2 charcoal briquettes for every 1 inch diameter of pot.  Our dutch oven is 12 inches, so we used 24 briquettes that we started in our chimney starter and put them on a square of aluminum foil and placed the pot on top of it.  The legs on the bottom of the pot hold it the proper height off of the coals so the pot warms properly.

We poured in a little oil and our sausage and cooked it down for about 2 or 3 minutes.

Sausage heating up

Then we added all of our chopped vegetables...

Pretty like a painting

Added our cut up tomatoes, and rice...

Added four cups of chicken broth or water and gave it a good stir...

This photograph shows that the Dutch oven has four legs on it.  I put a sheet of aluminum foil down and put the briquettes on the foil and then set the pot directly on top.  I leave 12 briquettes below it and using tongs, once I've put the lid on, I place 12 briquettes on top.  This will give an even cooking temperature all over the pot, similar to the way an oven would.  Allow the jambalaya to cook covered for about 20 minutes.

Dutch Oven Cooking

The top of the pot (obviously) gets very hot. They sell this pot handle lifter at sporting goods stores down the camping aisle.  Alternatively, a pair of vise grips and gloves would also do the trick.

After 20 minutes has passed, open the lid, stir and allow to continue cooking for 10 additional minutes, uncovered, to allow more moisture to cook off.  Man, this was smelling good!

Russ and I could have allowed it to cook a little while longer to dry up a little more, but we tasted it and the rice was done and we were hungry.  

We got ourselves a couple of plates and served it up.  A good meal for the guys, cooked outside with minimal mess in the kitchen.

Jambalaya

This was a delicious meal.  Russ and I ate two heaping plates.  One thing to remember for next time, though, is to go a little easier on the tabasco peppers!  I've never cooked with tabasco peppers - only jalapenos. We were given some tabasco pepper plants and I grew them to try to make some tabasco sauce.  I'll know next time that they are much hotter than jalapenos.  We both drank a couple of glasses of water and milk while eating supper!  Hot, but delicious.  Next time we're going to make a peach cobbler on the dutch oven.