CMCA’s resident camp oven cooking expert Derek Bullock shows how to whip up a delicious three-course camp oven meal, guaranteed to get your mouth watering.
Well over 30 years ago when I ?rst started camp oven cooking, I decided there was no need not to be able to eat well in the bush. The reason being that camp ovens, whether they be cast iron or spun steel, are quite capable of cooking just about anything that you can cook in your stove at home.
The other thing I decided was that you do not have to be in the bush and have a camp? re to cook in a camp oven, as Heat Beads can be used pretty well about anywhere.
With this in mind, I recently cooked a full three-course dinner for my wife Maggie and myself in my camp ovens at home on our side verandah.
PRAWN, CHORIZO AND SCALLOP ENTREÉ
For the entrée, I chose prawn, chorizo and scallop in a lemon and white wine sauce.
To cook it, I used the lid from my spun steel Bedourie camp oven.
First, I sliced a chorizo in thick chunks and cooked them slowly so that a nice chilli ? avoured fat was released. I then seared half-a-dozen prawns and half-a-dozen scallops in this fat until just cooked through.
Removing all of these from the camp oven lid, I then poured in the juice of one lemon and half a cup of white wine and simmered to reduce it to a nice sauce.
All was plated up, with the chorizo, prawns and scallops stacked up and held together with a toothpick. The sauce was then poured over.
Three per person made a very nice entree.
CHICKEN AND VEGETABLE STEW WITH DUMPLINGS
The main dish was a chicken and vegetable stew with dumplings.
I diced six chicken thigh ?llets as well as onion, potato, celery and carrot.
This was placed in the camp oven along with a cup of chicken stock and some water, just to bring the liquid up over the meat and vegetables.
To this I added salt and pepper to taste and some ?nely chopped rosemary from my herb garden.
It was brought up to heat and allowed to simmer for just over an hour.
For the dumplings, I put a cup of self raising ? our in a bowl and added a good heaped tablespoon of soft butter and rubbed it all together until it resembled coarse bread crumbs.
To that I added some ?nely chopped rosemary and mixed it to a soft and moist dough, adding a little milk at a time. I ?nd dumplings are lighter with a moist mixture.
Dollop the dumpling mix on top of the stew, pop on the lid and allow to steam for around 15 minutes. Once cooked, serve all together and enjoy!
HOT CROSS BUN AND BUTTER PUDDING
Dessert was something I just thought up recently and because Easter was fast approaching, I decided to cook a hot cross bun dessert. It really is a bread and butter pudding made with hot cross buns.
You need enough buns to cover the base of the camp oven. I used a 10-inch camp oven, which took seven buns.
Slice the buns, butter them and then slather on your favourite jam. I used an apricot conserve.
Put the buns back together and place them in the camp oven, allowing a little room around them. Then sprinkle in a few sultanas.
Mix together about three-quarters of a litre of milk with four eggs, a dash of vanilla essence and half a cup of castor sugar. Pour this over the buns.
The buns will rise a bit so set the camp oven aside so that they can soak up that lovely custard mixture ?rst.
Then sprinkle over some raw or Demerara sugar and bake in the camp oven for around 30 minutes.
When cooked, the custard will be set and the sugar on top of the buns will be caramelised.
