Help me break in my dutch oven
 

One of my father's day presents was a dutch oven. A combination of travel and bbq weather has kept me from using it yet. I'll be home for 2 weeks and the rains are starting to come back. Any recipe suggestions?

Steve,

If it's cast iron, don't forget to season it. I scrub them with soap and water, then rub them liberally with peanut oil. Then into a 375 oven for two or three hours and it's ready to go.

I have a recipe for a pork butt you cook, then shred up for tacos or wraps. It's at home, but I'll get it to you in the next day or two.

BTW, I'm headed up your way in a couple of weeks. I have taken a contracting job in B'ham (actually Bessemer) and will be commuting Mon-Fri for a while.

Did you get a Lodge or a Le Creuset one or some other?

As for seasoning, the Lodge ones come preseasoned. If you want to season it again, I thought normal veg oil at 200F for an hour would do the trick? You don't want an oil that gums up. I tend to use sunflower (avoid corn and canola/rapeseed). Not sure if peanut oil is that great because of its high burn point.

I like making lamb shanks and oxtail stews in them.

Oh yeah.......I definately like using Dutch Oven for Lamb Shanks! ^

We use our Lodge Dutch oven only outdoors with charcoal heat, primarily for cobbler desserts. Since you mentioned rain I'm thinking this type cooking is not what you're planning. Please advise.

I don't know. It's kind of pretty, blue enamel on the outside. I hate to get it all black and smudgy. Can't I do cobbler indoors?

This thread belongs in Omni

LOL. I think everyone was assuming that this was a standard cast-iron variety Dutch oven. ;) If you haven't tried making cobbler in one of those using coals, you wouldn't know how much better it can be than the oven variety.

Fo stove-top applications, I usually make chili in mine...and the recipe is somewhere in Omni. :)

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Is it white enamel on the inside too? Need to watch the heat applied if it's a Le Creuset since the enamel can melt.

You also need to keep grease and other liquids off the outside as much as you can as these can bake on (and is really difficult to remove).

Remember never to use soap to clean it inside if it's cast iron, and only use coarse salt and a cloth to clean up any food stains.

I believe it's cast aluminum. It was a surprise even though I'd asked for one in the past. I know there have been times I've passed on recipes that called for something to be started on the stovetop and then transferred to the oven. Since Mrs BamaVol is in charge of cleanup, I thought she'd appreciate one less item to wash.

I've had cobbler from the campfire. I was a boyscout for a few years and a couple of the BamaVol Jr's made it through Cubs before losing interest. Campfire cobbler was probably responsible for all of us sticking it out one more year than we would have otherwise. ;)

What are you using for a heat source? Since getting my first 'nice' range 3 years ago, I've regularly used my 15-year-old Le Creuset dutch oven on a 15,000 BTU burner at full blast, and I've never had any enamel melting issues.

I personally haven't melted any of my enamelled Le Creuset (or other) cookware (yet and hopefully never) but I've seen such items at thrift shops. I guess if you let it boil dry, it will melt.

I too use a industrial-grade range with a 15,000 BTU burner but I tend to watch the heat (except for the Lodge cast iron pan that I used for making blackened burgers,fish/chicken/pork chops).

That makes sense. The full-blast sessions my Le Creuset endures are supervised, so the pot never runs dry.

A dutch oven should be cast iron, heavy and cost less than $20. The OP has some sort of yuppified overpriced cooking utensil produced mainly for show and display.

MisterNice

Shucks, if it's aluminum, it's just a soup or stock pot, hardly useful at all for the myriad indoor and outdoor roles of a real "Dutch Oven". I bet the sum..... don' even have no ware handle for hanging and carrying. The kind with legs are hardly ever seen any more, and anything but black cast iron is as out of place as a Hezbollah member at a Bar Mitzva.

Actually, it cost less than $20 before shipping. And now you've gone and hurt its feelings. :(

I have selected a Rick Bayless recipe to break it in. I will be making a pork roast braised in green salsa. I'll let everyone know if it lets me down.

edited to add: I think the offical recipe name was pork loin braised in tomatillo sauce. It came off quite well and I liked taking the unit directly from stovetop to oven. I did keep forgetting to use a cloth to grab the handles while I used it on top of the stove, though. And, I had to guess on timing since my pork loin was 2.5 times the size of the one in the recipe. I'm thankful for instant thermometers. Since it braised at 325, there was little risk to the pan finish.

I finally found out last night why my kids snickered every time I say "dutch oven". :D

Real cast iron dutch ovens are too heavy to ship and if it was shipped, you hurt its feelings. A yuppie product, a yuppie recipe, high priced yuppie flesh, thermometers etc. Oy!

MisterNice

So would a "dutch oven" blow pot smoke in their faces?

So you're from Tennessee (pronounced TIN uh SEE) live in Alabama (pronounced TUSK uh LOOS uh) and we've PM'd about Ocean Springs and Biloxi, Miz-sip-i. What you really need in your dutch oven is something from a little further southwest at http://www.gumbopages.com/recipe-page.html

or perhaps you need the New Orleans Smothered Chicken, The recipe calls for a whole bird, but I use about 4 pounds of split breasts with the skin on...

lay about a a half pound of bacon on bottom of the cool oven
take 2 large or 4 small lemons and holding them vertically slice the pith off them in about six strokes; tilt them to slice the pith off the ends; slice in about 5-6 disks per inch and pick the seeds out; lay on the bacon, (it's bitter if you don't cut the pith off)
cover with another layer of bacon. Pig Is Good!
add a pound of carrots, sliced lenthwise if they're thick
add about a pound of sliced onion, Vidalia is very good
layer on some spice - I generally use some tarragon & a few bay leaves; & too much black pepper
add the chicken till it's near the top of the pot
add some chicken bouillion, about two tsp dissolved in warm water to cover it all
put the lid on tight

heat GENTLY! don't fry the bacon! let it heat up slowly!
Do Not Stir! Blot up the mess if it boils over!
cook on SIMMER about an 40 minutes or more until the chicken is done.
Do Not Stir!

Use tongs to pull the chicken out. Pour everything else through a colander. Eat the chicken, bacon and veggies. Put the insanely rich stock into the fridge to scoop most of the pig/fowl fat off the top. Cook some rice or veggies in the broth the next day.

Ask your darling wife (or ungrateful teenagers) to clean the yuppified dutch oven since you've slaved over the hot stove and drank too much beer.

Look up "dutch oven" at the Urban Dictionary.

Wow, that's a heck of a recipe!!!!!!! I like your instructions!

Some excellent recipes for REAL (cast iron) dutch ovens

The Geezer Dutch Oven Cookbook

I'm sure they could be adapted for indoor yuppie oven use.

Thats the English trying to give the Dutch a bad name back in the 17th century (when the Dutch still topped them).

I make pot-roast in mine pretty regularly. As yet, it hasn't let me down. The recipe I prefer is here.