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Cooking Meat over CoalsIn this edition of Camp and Trail Cooking our intrepid chef explores the preparation of that perennial favorite of campers and reenactors everywhere, meat. Put a piece of Jean Baptiste's freshly grilled meat in front of me at any event and all you'll hear is contented grunting and slurping as the fare disappears, usually in short order. No, he's not a short order cook. Follow his simple instructions and you too will be assured of a place in anyone's camp. Anyone who cooks as well as Jean Baptiste turns out to be a welcome addition. Just have someone else do the cleanup.---Ed. |
Here on the West Coast, we usually like to bring our firewood in because we can choose the type. Most of our forests are comprised of relatively soft woods like redwood and pine which don’t make for a particularly good cooking fire. We pick up the tinder and sticks we need to get a fire going off of the ground, but we want to cook over a nice bed of hardwood coals. Soft woods for starting a fire are cedar, pine, and small pieces of oak, etc. Hardwoods for making coals are almond, oaks, and fruit woods. You can even start a fire with some soft wood and then add lump charcoal. (You can purchase lump charcoal from Panther Primitives. It isn't shown on their Web site but is available through their printed catalog. If you don't already have one, get one. There's a ton of good things inside, not only their justly famous tentage.---Ed.) This way there is no need for starter fluid – which is sure to get you jeers from your neighbors. Even if they can’t see the can, the smell is unmistakable. Remember, we’re cooking over glowing coals rather than an open fire, so once the coals are ready, all that is left is to grill up the meat.
Now let’s talk about how to develop that nice bed of coals.
Just as with a tipi or the chimney in your house, you need a good wind break and a good draft in order to a fire that will produce the bed of coals that will last you through the cooking of your meal.
At rendezvous most of us cook over a grill of some kind. Yes, you can cook on flat rocks near the heat source or hang something from a tripod, etc., but for the purposes of this article, we’ll assume you’re going to be cooking over a grill since they’re readily available, familiar and easy to master. For portable iron grills and other camp and trail cooking gear try The Log Cabin Shop or James Townsend & Sons.
Since most grills are rectangular in shape, the fire pit is usually built in the same shape. You will have a back, front, and sides to your fire pit, and dug out to sit below the level of the ground. Also, clear quite a way around the fire pit, right down to the dirt. Go at least three feet, and the further the better. I like to clear six to ten feet. Fire is a major concern out in the woods, and I’ve seen and fought more than a few. Take no chances. Keep a shovel and water bucket near the fire, and never leave your fire unattended. Use large rocks to build a wall around the fire pit, leaving an opening at the front or side for loading wood. Let the fire burn down to nice, hot coals and then move them under the grill. Use pokers fashioned of longer, sturdy sticks for moving the wood and coals around. You’ll want to be able to move coals under whatever is cooking, or you’ll want to remove them when you don’t need as much heat. Your cooking fire is really two fires, one of wood burning into coals and one of hot coals to cook over. Once you master a fire, all that is left is how to handle the different pieces of meat.
Steaks.
Steaks, no matter the source, are the usual grill fare. Steaks can be cut open to see if they’re done but you’ll never see a chef send a cut piece of meat to your table. Learn to determine doneness the way the chefs do, by feel. It is the method of choice for steaks and chops of all sorts but works equally well for chicken and fish.
If you press on the meat with your finger, you can actually tell, with a little practice, exactly how far along in the cooking process it is. You’ll notice that the firmer the meat is, the more it is cooked. A general rule is to make a fist then feel the fleshy part of the hand between the thumb and index finger. How it feels when you make a loose fist corresponds to rare. A moderately tight fist corresponds to medium and a hard fist to well done. You can also use a fork or something that will give you the feedback that you need when you are testing the meat on the grill. Practice this at home, too. In no time you’ll be able to cook steaks or most any other meat exactly the way you, your guests or your campmates want it.
As far as recipes go, steak can be marinated or spiced, however you like it. On the trail or at rendezvous, dry spices are the norm. Marinades are too messy for most, and didn’t really exist as a way of preparing meats before cooking them. However, some good marinades are soy sauce-based for an Asian flare, vinegar and oil add an Italian taste, and red wine with garlic for special occasions. All of these have salt and pepper in them, and you can add garlic and onion to about anything.
Dry spices that were available are salt, pepper, cayenne, and not much else. Though it makes for what we would consider as plain fare, sometimes the simple things taste best – especially when you’re out there on the trail. Cayenne pepper also provides the added bonus of opening your capillaries a little so as to warm the extremities. Early American cooking used a lot of maple sugar and dried fruits as well. They ate more sweetened entres than we do today.
Chicken or other fowl.
Chicken is also popular, as is fish. Chicken and other wild birds (ducks, geese, pheasant, turkey, grouse, quail, etc.) all cook up about the same. I use a technique called “spatchcocking” where a bird is prepared for cooking by splitting it along the spine and removing the cartilage of the breast bone. Then it is opened and pressed flat. Next, make little slits through the skin at the bottom of the bird and slip the ends of the drumsticks through. This keeps the bird flat while it’s cooking. Then, just flop the bird on the grill skin side up and cook it about 60-70% of the total cooking time in that position. Flip it over and finish cooking skin side down to crisp things up. A four pound chicken will usually cook through in about 40 minutes. Usually, a bird’s hip sockets become pretty loose when they are done. Some people say that “if the juices run clear when pricked with a fork,” the bird is cooked. At any rate, if you don’t think it’s cooked, cut it open and look! Or think of it this way, a slightly over-cooked bird is better for your system than an under cooked one.
Recipes for fowl are the same as for steaks, above.
Fish.
The most common native fish here in California is trout. They abound in our streams and lakes in the Sierra and can be caught with period gear or that fly rod you snuck into camp.
Fish can be prepared the same as steak or fowl, above. Another way I like to cook them, when the tin foil police aren’t around, is to wrap them in tin foil, seal it tightly with some spices, butter, lemon wedges, or any combination thereof. Then, simply throw the packet in the coals, turn it once or twice, and in a few minutes – done!
If you don’t like the tin foil idea, you can prepare your fish for the fire by simply sprinkling salt on it, inside and out, and grilling it. I’ve also cooked trout on rocks next to the fire, caked in clay and placed on the coals, and in a frying pan. They all eat up just fine.
Since you’ve come this far, here’s another hint for tin foil use – you can make a nice stew with chunks of beef this way, too. Just pour in some of that red wine you've been hiding, add some potatoes and carrots, seal it up and throw it in the coals – voila! Great stew with no clean-up, you just eat it right out of the tin foil packet! Use that linen napkin you made out of your cloth scraps to hold it and no need ever know.
First cook over coals, not over flames. Flames burn your meat on the outside while not cooking it on the inside. Second, as with everything, practice, practice, practice. If you can, build a fire pit in your backyard and cook some meals over the fire as if you were at rendezvous. This is valuable practice and makes rendezvous so much easier. Basically, you’re not doing anything new and will know what to expect. Plus, you can practice all the other skills you’re going to need out there – starting a fire with flint and steel, campfire set-up and maintenance, and camp clean-up chores. The added bonus is that you won’t have a kitchen to clean!
When your fire is going good and you start to get a few coals, put on some water to heat for cleanup afterward. If you don’t think of it beforehand, you will waste heat and miss the coordination it takes to have hot water for cleanup. Start heating your water when you start cooking. Then when the food is cooked and off the grill, the water pot replaces the meat on the grill to maximize the use of the remaining heat. Plus, you won’t waste your wood heating water because you didn’t plan ahead. This can be especially painful if you’ve hauled your wood in.
For the dishwashing chores use a biodegradable soap, like Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap, to wash with. It’s liquid and pure Castille. Maybe not period correct but environmentally friendly. Besides it doubles (or triples) as bath soap, shampoo and can even be used to brush your teeth! Fun stuff. You’ll find it at most backpacking stores.
Again, practice these techniques before you are in camp. You'll find that in no time at all you'll be able to rustle up a passle of sumptuous victuals with a minimum of time and effort. As always, write to me at jeanbaptiste@armoryhill.com with your questions and suggestions.
Thanks, and good cooking! ---Jean Baptiste