There’s a certain magic surrounding campfire cooking. A sensorial explosion of wood spitting and crackling as dense ribbons of fragrant smoke drift into the open air, while an orange glow warms the face and exposed skin. It connects us to our ancestors, with the flames no doubt beguiling us in the same way. Read on for our campfire cooking tips on how to set up safely, the best tools for the job, and how to get the most out of this wondrous tradition, observed by the stars.
How to start a campfire
First things first: campfire safety. If you’re headed to a campsite, park, or any outdoor space, check that you’re allowed to set up a fire. Some campsites have specific places where you’re permitted to build a campfire for cooking, which can appear in the form of pits designed for fires – we’d of course recommend that if there are pits available, then you should use them.
If there aren’t pits, choose an open and well-ventilated space, a good distance from any tents, trees, or surrounding foliage. After clearing an appropriate fire area, start by creating a guard using large rocks to stop it from spreading – they also function as useful rests for grates and cooking equipment, but we’ll get to that later.
A well-made fire consists of pieces of wood, incrementally increasing in size. Start with tinder or feathering: wood shavings you can make with a knife that catch fire easily, dry grass works wonderfully, too. Then, add your kindling: thin sticks you can layer over your tinder in a tepee or log cabin shape, making sure to allow for plenty of airflow. With the first stage set, light your tinder at multiple, evenly spaced points around the campfire structure.
Once the fire is established and the kindling is catching, slowly add larger pieces of wood to keep it burning steadily. Once your fire is up and burning, you should wait at least 30 minutes before cooking, giving it time to reduce to a bed of hot coals. This gives you a perfect amount of time to chop, mix, and prepare your ingredients for the embers.
Cooking on a campfire
When outdoor cooking, you can go as modest or elaborate as you would like, depending on the type of camping you subscribe to. At its most rudimentary, this could mean simply skewering a hot dog or heating a can of soup over the embers. However, we suspect that if you’re frequenting our little corner of the culinary universe, then you might be after something slightly more ambitious. The minimal campfire cooking tools we’d recommend would be a grate, some skewers, a knife, a chopping board, a wooden spoon, and a cast iron skillet.
As you’re always running the risk of cooking up a storm in a literal storm, campfire cooking lends itself to simpler recipes and more solid flavour combinations. For example, you’re unlikely to be bringing your thermo-blender or sous-vide – although we aren’t here to discourage innovation, so never say never. But, to generalise, the food that works best isn’t fiddly and doesn’t require lavish garnishing. Out here, glazes and marinades really flourish. Pair their sharp sweetness with the smoke the scorched wood gifts your meat or vegetables (especially mushrooms) for a mouth-watering eruption of flavours. You can also brush your glazes and marinades onto your searing meat and veg with tied together sprigs of foraged rosemary to impart extra flavour and gain approbation amongst the other wilde-chefs. To briefly caveat this: please only forage what you can safely and confidently identify.
On an open fire, barbecue skewers are essential for easily rotating your foods, evenly charring and imbuing them with gorgeous smoky undertones. Finally, employ a cast iron skillet as your aide-de-camp and take full advantage of its hardiness and versatility.
To conclude
To cook over an open fire – much like camping in general – is to pair back and reduce one’s means of living. Embrace the imperfections, unpredictability, and beauty that comes from being in nature before returning to the great indoors. Happy camping.