Cooking in foil ?

[Paullyfuzz]

Am gonna have a go at cooking an all in one meal in foil. Do you just stick everything in, Inc meat, and then seal the foil parcel and place direct on the embers. ?

Any other tips ?


Well, we tried it and twas a resounding success. The key is in preping the fire.

From this...

To this.

very tasty indeed.

 

[The Big Lebowski]

It depends what you plan on cooking... some products have less/more time.
I tend to find, unless its a spud, putting anything on embers will go 'armadillo'. e:g crunchy on the outside, raw in the middle!

Heating a rock (griddle), placing a rock in the middle of the fire (so you cook around food), cooking on a skewer to the edge of the flames will all give you better results.

I would rather it take twice as long, than polish my teeth while eating it

al.

 

[Frogo]

Am gonna have a go at cooking an all in one meal in foil. Do you just stick everything in, Inc meat, and then seal the foil parcel and place direct on the embers. ?

Any other tips ?

Depending on what you plan on cooking? I would use a double layer of foil and rake out the embers until you are down to the ash, then place your foil parcel on the ash and rake the embers back around the parcel, but not touching the foil as you are after indirect heat. In the foil parcel i would also use a base layer of say peppers, tomato, onion etc these wont burn and create enough moisture/steam to cook fish, chicken our what ever you fancy.

 

[Samon]

I don't cook with foil much as I hear it's very difficult to degrade/recycle but I'd use mess tins if they were available or cook things on sticks.

When cooking spuds on camp we'd just throw them in the heart of the fire for about 35 minutes, then fish them out with a stick and crack open their brilliant charred shell to eat the amazing soft insides best camp food ever!

Me and a friend even grew spuds in the woods near our favourite site!

 

[Andy2112]

I cooked a fresh quarter pound beef burger, carrots, potatoes and onion in foil a few months ago. I found that doubling up the foil into a pouch worked better as it didn't burn the food to cinders. Putting the burger in last seems to help cook the veg as the juices/fat render out and soak into the veg keeping them moist and tender.

 

[Ahjno]

Dice up your spuds and other veggies. Stuff that needs less cooking can be cut in larger chunks. Smaller pieces are done quicker than larger pieces.

EDIT: Remembered Jamie did something alike:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/home-cooking-skills/veg-in-foil
http://en.petitchef.com/recipes/baked-snapper-fillet-fish-recipe-from-jamie-oliver-fid-258864

 

[SimonM]

We cook in foil with the Scouts...a lot.

Breakfast:

• 2 layers of foil
• layer of sliced potatoes which are sacraficial if you leave them too long, but saute in the bacon fat if you get it right!
• 2 slices of bacon
• a "nest" of sliced mushrooms
• Crack an egg into the "nest"
• slices of tomatoes & chunks of black pudding on top
• Black pepper to taste

leave for approx 30 - 40 minutes on hot embers...this is one of the scouts so no mushrooms or black pudding...

"Stew"

• 2 layers of foil
• Layer of onion rings (sacraficial)
• sliced potatoes
• sliced carrot (1/3 the thickness of the potatoes)
• chunks of meat (corn beef, sliced sausages, mince etc)
• pepper & salt to taste

Simon

 

[Paullyfuzz]

I cooked a fresh quarter pound beef burger, carrots, potatoes and onion in foil a few months ago. I found that doubling up the foil into a pouch worked better as it didn't burn the food to cinders. Putting the burger in last seems to help cook the veg as the juices/fat render out and soak into the veg keeping them moist and tender.

That's what we've got to cook, burgers , peppers, onions, potatoes and mushrooms

 

[GordonM]

I cook in foil quite often. Here are a couple of pointers that work for me. As mentioned above, rake your coals over to the edge of your fire. This makes it easier to work and only utilizes the heat from the coals and not the hotter fire. When preparing your foil packet, roll the foil to your food in the middle and then both remaining ends. This will give you a good seal to help retain any steam. Then do the second sheet of foil the same way. If I am planning for a total cooking time of say 30 or 40 minutes, I flip the packets over on the coals, about every 10 minutes, to give even cooking and prevent burning.

Like all things we do outdoors, practice and your own personal experience will get you where you want to be. I would recommend trying this in your oven at home to help with the "mechanics" of the process. When you do it on a fire outside, use your senses to help guide you, if it smells as if it is burning it probably is burning. Good luck and let us know how you get along.

Gordy

 

[santaman2000]

That's what we've got to cook, burgers , peppers, onions, potatoes and mushrooms

That's the meal we used to cook in the scouts. We would knead the chopped onions and peppers into the burger and wrap with the potatoes in a double layer of foil. You can do this the night before and place it in the freezer. When you get ready to leave wrap the frozen foil package in several layers of newspaper and slip it into a zip-loc. Place that in your pack and it will thaw as you hike to your camp.

We always cooked it straight on top of the coals back then and I don't remember ever burning anything---but that was decades ago.

 

[mr dazzler]

Many years ago on a trip into Canada I developed a taste for blue bass fish, caught on frog lures (excellent fighting fish, like perch extremely kamikaze aggressive.....) I generally ate 3 or 4 each morning, they averaged about 14 to 16 inches long. Any way I used a truck wheel as a fire pot, with plenty of embers from dry fire wood. The fish were simply gutted, headed and tailed, washed out (in the lake of course), rubbed with salt. Then stuffed with very fine chopped onion and bread chunks.and seasonings, wrapped and folded into aluminum foil, then put in the embers and turned once. As I recall, they took about 20 minutes to cook, and very perfect and tasty they were too.....

 

[PeterH]

We cook in foil with the Scouts...a lot.

• 2 layers of foil
• Layer of onion rings (sacraficial)
• sliced potatoes
• sliced carrot (1/3 the thickness of the potatoes)
• chunks of meat (corn beef, sliced sausages, mince etc)
• pepper & salt to taste

Simon

Have done lots of similar, with and without meat. Just remember that some liquid is needed, but not much. We add a couple of teaspoons of water and crumble some stock cube in.
You can use outer leaves of cabbage etc either between the foil and food or even instead of the foil .. Well that is the theory!

 

[Paullyfuzz]

Update with pics

 

[GordonM]

Thanks for the update, looks very good!

Gordy

 

[Vickyjs]

Here's some instructions you can print out…
http://freepdfhosting.com/36cf60ad14.pdf
Vicky

 

[calgarychef]

The best food I ever cooked in foil was rabbit. We were deer hunting and I couldn't resist so with careful aim of my 7MM remington magnum i neatly lopped off the poor creatures head. A painless death if there ever was one, anyway I digress. I cleaned it and disnointed it then wrapped it all up with butter and salt and pepper that's all-nice and simple. Then I wrapped it in about 5 layers of foil, sealing each layer separately in case the butter leaked, it did leak but most sayed in the package. We were camping in buddies yurt and it was about -15C so the barrel stove was fired up and I pushed all the coals to the back of the stove and buried the backage in the ashes closer to the front of the stove so it wouldn't get too hot. Bunny went in the stove at 9pm or so and we got up at 6Am or so and breakfast was done. It was tender and delicious after gently cooking in butter all night.

The trick with foil cooking is to try and avoid sticking stuff directly on the hot coals, unless it's an item that cooks fast and you want brown and crispy.

Here's my carrots in foil super secret recipe.... Mix your peeled and sliced/diced carrots and onions with some soft butter and salt and pepper, dill too if that's what you like. then add in a bit of flour until it's the consistency of soft roux or a very soft and saggy dough to those uninitiated with roux. Then do the foil thingy and cook for 20 min or more. It's nice to cook this one directly on coals for at least part of the cooking time to get things nice and browned.