Sorry, no pictures with this one...
So, I was camping this weekend and tried a little something new over the fire in my cast iron pot. It was a Beef and Smoked Brisket stew. Everyone that tried it said it was the best stew they ever had. I enjoyed it so much that I'm going to make it again in a few weeks on another fall camping trip. It served about 6-8 of us. We had it with cornbread which was a great topping over the bowl of stew. Here's the outline/process (3-4 hours):
1 cast iron cooking pot/oven
1 tripod with chain to support hanging pot over the fire
~1-2 lb stew meat cut up in small bite size pieces
~8-12 slices smoked brisket cut up into bite sized chunks
5-6 potatoes peeled and cut into big bite sized chunks
3-4 carrots peeled and sliced
2-3 celery stalks sliced
1 green pepper cut in half and sliced
1 red onion
1/4-1/2 cup parsely flakes
1/2-1 cup red wine
1/4-3/4 cup water
~4 TBSP Montreal Steak seasoning
2 beef boullion cubes
light sprinkle of salt/pepper over
vegetable oil
Directions:
Prepare campfire and get wood burning for about 1 hour to make a nice coal bed under the hanging from tripod cast iron pot. Ensure you have proper handling utensils for hot cast iron. I used fire gloves, metal lid/pot grabber, and metal firewood tool for handling burning wood/coals. After starting fire this would be a good time to slice up and prepare the ingredients for cooking.
When ingredients are ready, preheat the pot over the fire/coals (nearly touching) for a few mins. Dump enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the pot about 1/8th inch high. Let the oil heat up for a few more minutes over the hot coals (shiny color). Dump the stew meat into the hot oil and brown it up on all sides (couple mins in hot oil should do this well). Add onions to the mixture and additionally cook them a few mins to soften them up.
Add the remaining vegetables and seasonings to the pot. Stir things up to mix everything together well and get the bouillon cubes into the liquid. Liquid should cover only approximately 1/2 of the pot vegetables. Place the lid on the pot and hang it about 6 inches above the coals for the first hour. Ensure the coals put out reasonable heat (but not flames) to slowly heat up the stew pot. Check, stir, contents and rotate pot around the heat source approximately each 30 minute interval for about 2-3 hours. Liquid will evaporate/thicken near the finish. Feel free to add some water to reach desired consistency and give it time to absorb the stew flavors before serving.
Could definitely taste the brisket smokiness in the finished product and everyone really loved that distinct flavor mixed with the rest of the stew ingredients! This one is definitely going into my must repeat each fall camping season list. Hope you all enjoy it as much as we did. Maybe next time I'll try to collect pictures. Picture are hard to think about when your focused on not getting burned, keeping things going with the fire, drinking beer, and talking with company around the campfire.
