camping cooking questions…?
Posted: August 14th, 2010 | Author: Mitch | Filed under: Camping Recipes | Tags: bbq grill, camping, charcoal, egg, enthusiasts, fish, ommlette, tea, teapot | 5 Comments »Hello camp enthusiasts…
I decided to buy a charcoal bbk (those round ones) to go camping and grill some fish and chicken…
my questions are… can I put my teapot on the BBQ grill to boil water for tea?
Can I make an egg ommlette on a flying pan on the BBQ grill?
and do i need a BBQ basket to grill fish?
teapot? yes
frying pan omelet? yes
BBQ basket? I’d say yeah, especially for softer fleshed fish like trout. halibut and salmon are the only one’s I’d attempt to grill without a basket, due to their firm texture, but that would still be risky for falling apart into the charcoal, I’d say use a basket.
You’ve gotten some good advice, but one thing that’s missing is something I experienced the time I tried camping with ONLY a charcoal grill (no camp stove, and no firewood for a regular fire):
It takes an incredible amount of heat to boil water. Charcoal, in my experience, just doesn’t cut it, at least not easily. I suggest that you give yourself another cooking option. A single burner that screws on top of a can of propane is relatively cheap, and can make your mornings a lot easier.
Hi – Jonal had some very good answers for you.
Let me add only that you can adjust the heat from a BBQ grill by changing the number and spacing of the briquettes you use. Typically a pile of charcoal briquettes lit and then spread out fairly thickly – often touching and overlapping. They don’t need to be so close.
I would spread the charcoal pieces out, 1-4 inches apart, depending on how hot you want it. Practice is the best way to determine what works best for you.
You can also vary the spacing of the charcoal under various portions of the grill for different effects. More to boil water quickly, less to keep it warm, etc.
Owen
Yes
Yes
No. But I would bring along a non-stick spray such as Pam.
A BBQ is just a portable fire.You can cook anything on it you can cook on the stove at home. Boil a pot of water, put a saucepan over it for soups and stews, veg etc, or a frying pan or oven tray for cooking bacon and eggs, omelettes, fish, pork chops, anything you want. An oven tray with raised edges makes a big frying pan you can cook a long fish on or cook two or three pancakes at once.
It’s best to make a little stand for the pots and slide the BBQ under it. Some tent pegs knocked into the ground is the easy way and for small pots you can put the BBQ coals into a small round tin like a small biscuit tin.
A couple of small oven trays around eight or ten ten inches long are great over a BBQ.
Use one over the other for a covered tray and then you can keep muck out for things that take longer like Spanish omelettes, big fish, bubble and squeak which is mashed potato shredded cabbage and bacon bits with tomato if you like and great for breakfast, and you can make cookies in it too . It’s more like an oven if you cover it and don’t use oil.
You can use a biscuit tin for an oven too. Just raise the food off the bottom with a wire mesh tray or a couple of squashed cans and put the tin over the BBQ with the lid on.
Ordinary cooking oil is fine. You don’t need non-stick sprays , but you could take non-stick oven trays which you can buy dirt cheap in supermarkets and cook shops.
Woks are great for camping and will do eggs just as well as a frying pan will. The shape keeps eggs together well so you don’t get them flowing all over the place and have to scoop the edges in.
Like this, on a street stall in Thailand….the wok is hot. Woks work well when they are hot all over….Wery Hot….so they do well over a BBQ with the heat going up the sides.
http://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/460638/frying-an-egg-in-a-wok.html . . . . .
The same with stir fries…a wok hot all over does a proper job, not like using an electric stove at home which only heats the base. My stir fries at home are done on a big camping stove outside and they turn out properly then. I lived east for a few years. Love it in the east.
See how this guy waits for the wok to get hot before he chucks the stuff in. Expert cooking this….flambe cooking
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x75ei4_cuisine-au-wok-au-thai-village-a-au_travel . . .
For a fish, you can just lay it on a wire mesh over the BBQ but it gets too hot and burns if it’s too close. That’s where a little stand comes in handy.
It’s best to cook it in a covered tray or frying pan with a bit of oil or butter and milk and whatever flavourings you like such as a squeeze of lemon juice or some dill or tarragon or lemon or orange slices down the middle inside it which works well for trout , or wrap it in kitchen foil and bake it in the biscuit tin oven or beside a fire or directly over the BBQ. The foil helps to keep the juices in so the fish doesn’t turn out dry if it cooks too long.
Here is a camp cooking answer with the same wok bits and videos for somebody else.
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AhO4lgKFesDNK5p6ESUMZIwhBgx.;_ylv=3?qid=20100711153137AAcVpxP&show=7#profile-info-CwH0MvCgaa . . . .
Bon Appetit, buon appetito y Spaghetti Bellissimo…..wiv a decent cuppa.