Sunday, Sep 14, 2003 at 19:51
Found this info from The Mitsubishi 4WD Owners Club (Qld) site after doing a generic search via Google for '
camp ovens'.
This seems to be the most complete answer.
(Thank to The Mitsubishi 4WD Owners Club (Qld) members for use of their
information).
All the best folks,
Haldo
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CAMP OVEN COOKING
Cast iron
camp ovens are fun and a time-proven way to
cook a variety of food including breads, roasts, stews and casseroles.
Camp ovens come in various sizes and a good one will last a lifetime if cared for. Most
camp stores carry good quality ovens but look for one that has a strong handle and a lid with a large lip to hold the coals.
Before using a
camp oven and to prevent rust it needs to be "seasoned". The first step with a new cast iron
camp oven is to peel off any labels and then wash the oven and lid in warm water only, rinse and dry completely. Grease the oven and lid inside and out with a good grade of olive or vegetable oil. Do not use lard or other animal products as they will spoil and turn rancid. Do not use a spray in coating the oven but rather use oil soaked in a paper towel.
Place the oven upside down on an oven rack with the lid separate and place aluminium foil underneath to catch any excess oil. Bake at 300-350 degree oven heat for at least an hour.
You will probably need to repeat the process for the oven to obtain the desired uniform black patina that provides the non-stick qualities and protects your oven from rust.
CARE OF YOUR OVEN
Avoid at first acidic foods and water which removes the "seasoning" otherwise you will have to re-season the oven. After cooking remove the lid and do not use the oven as a food storage vessel.
In cleaning the oven NEVER use detergents, they will enter the pores of the oven and you will forever have the lingering taste of soap. Never use a hard wire brush unless you intend to re-season the oven. Simply scrape out the remaining food and clean the oven with hot water and a natural fibre brush and allow to completely dry.
To store your oven, lightly oil all surfaces, place a piece of paper towel inside and store in a dry place with the lid ajar. The seasoning will improve with each use. It's a good idea to make a bag or a box to transport your oven. NEVER pour cold water into a hot oven as it may crack.
USEFUL TOOLS
There are a few essential
tools for cast iron
camp ovens. The first is a long strong hook to lift the lid of your
camp oven to
check on cooking progress and to remove the oven from the coals. You can make your own from thick wire or you may find one in a
good camp store. They are usually sold as tent peg pullers, are 60 - 70cm long and come with a wooden handle.
You will also need long handled tongs, a pot scraper (a spatula or
putty knife), oven mitt or heavy pot holder, a small whisk broom (not nylon) to remove the ashes from the lid, paper towels and oil.
Cooking with coals from the
camp fire is fine but it will take a bit of practice to get enough coals in the right place to avoid burning and to
cook the meal to perfection. A great alternative to
camp fire coals is heat beads (see Feb magazine). They are easier to control, hold their heat longer and you can use them to practice the art of cast iron
camp oven cooking at
home.
Australian
Camp Oven Festival
Kampers Kitchen visited the Australian
Camp Oven Festival (again) at Milmerran during October. There were
camp oven demonstrations, cooking competitions, country music, bush poetry, sheep dog trials, a tour of local
places of interest and lots of other country events and displays.
It was held at the
show grounds and was
well attended especially by caravan clubs from all over Australia but surprisingly there were no 4WD clubs. Ned Winter who is regarded as the King of
camp oven cooking was doing his usual displays. Ned has a collection of around 100
camp ovens. His biggest is one of 10 cast at the
Toowoomba Foundry for a cattle property in the Northern Territory. The lid alone weighs around 90kg with an all up weight of around 200kg. It holds 24 gallons (109 litres) of stew. Another giant
camp oven was around 4 feet in diameter and was made from an
old tractor rim. Ned used 25 kg of flour to
cook a damper in it.
Some of Australia’s best and funniest bush poets were on stage for a couple of hours on Sunday morning and the bands were also very good.
Many of the
camp ovens were 100 year old genuine "furphy’s" and there were some new ones, with a Milmerran 2000 lid, on sale for $135. By way of comparison Sherrys had an imported 12-inch oven for sale at just $30. However the lid of the Furphy weighed far more than the imported oven because of the better quality cast iron used.
The great grandson of the founder of the Furphy Company talked about the origin of the company and in particular about the water wagons used in the First World War and which of course gave name to "furphy" for a rumor.
It seems the old guy was a moralist of sorts because many of wagons carried the slogan, "good better best, never let it rest until your good is better and your better best!"
He was also against strong drink, but not wanting to upset many of his customers who weren’t, he cast on his water wagons in Pitmann shorthand, which looks like Arabic, a warning about evils of the demon liquor and that people should only drink the good water carried in his carts!
In case you are thinking of buying a second hand furphy
camp oven from an antique
shop forget it! One chap we spoke to said he had been all over Australia looking for them and the asking price is now more than for a new one. It seems there is a great revival in
camp oven cooking because of TV shows featuring cooks such as Thommo.
However for just $10 more, that is around $145, the Furphy company will make a personalised lid for their 12 inch
camp oven. If there is enough interest or demand we could order genuine Furphy
camp ovens with the club name and logo as
well as individual names cast on the lid. Not only would they be a novelty they will guarantee
camp oven cooking success and they will become collectors items worth many times the original cost.
The standard of cooking in the competitions was very high and the prizes totaled several thousands of dollars. There were various age groups for children, novice etc and the prize for just boiling a billy, which any of our members could do, was $70.
After seeing
our camp oven specialists in action at the Muster I have no doubt that our club could make a clean sweep of ALL the prizes. The next one will again be held at Milmerran and would make a great social trip for the club.
Testing
camp oven heats by paper
test
Kampers Kitchen has previously advised on regulating the heat of
camp ovens using heat beads. Here’s a way to determine the heat of an oven when using coals from a fire.
Pre-heat the oven on a bed of coals. Place a piece of paper inside the oven to find out what heat the oven is at. The paper will change color according to the heat of the oven within a few moments.
HEAT DEGREES PAPER
TEST
Very hot oven 500 Dark brown
Hot oven 375-400 Light brown
Moderate oven
325-375 yellow
Slow oven 250-325 Crust
TOO BLOODY HOT
Black & on fire!
What do you think?
There are lots of
recipes for beer dampers – what a waste – drink the beer and make your dampers using water or milk. For starters there would not have been much beer in bush camps and what little there was most certainly would not have used to make a damper. And that’s not a furphy!
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Last Modified Thursday, 19 June 2003.
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