Camping and Dutch oven cooking go well together and it seems to me that one always makes the other all the better. Recently we spent the weekend at Fairfield Lake State Park, one of our favorites, to camp and present a Dutch oven cooking demonstration.
The demo was Saturday afternoon and so the order of the day was preparation of food items during the post breakfast mid-afternoon time frame. We fixed a pot of beans, a couple of batches of cornbread, and a peach cobbler dessert for the 2:00 event. By the time we were done with the demo, we were ready to clean the pots, pack up, grab something quick and easy like sandwiches for supper, and relax. I know, not very exciting, but sometimes simple is the best way to end the day.
This particular trip was especially nice because we had friends that were also camping in the same state park and our schedule was such that we had some time to hang out together. One of them is a young friend of ours named Stewart. Stewart is practicing his cooking at home and has had great success with his specialty recipe that everyone was raving about. The big question on his mind for the weekend was, “can this be cooked in a Dutch oven?”
Anytime anyone asks me if something can be cooked in a Dutch oven, my answer is automatically, “Yes!”. Usually I go into more detail with that answer and ask a few questions first. How do you cook this at home? Is it baked in the oven? What kind of a pan do you cook it in? Are you using a 9 x 13 casserole pan? What oven temperature do you use? Is it between 325° and 350°? When these answers are all yes, they have told me their recipe is a perfect dish for a 12 inch Camp Dutch oven!
Since we had the gear, and nothing significant on the evening menu, and he had the recipe, and a mom ready to run to the nearby store for groceries, Stewart’s Pesto Chicken became the star of the menu for our Saturday night dinner. I started some coals, gave Stewart some Dutch oven coaching, and he did the rest.
Like many excellent recipes, this one required minimal ingredients, was simple to put together, and made for a delicious meal. The basic ingredients are chicken, pesto, fresh tomatoes, and cheese. For cheese, we went with a combination of Mozzarella and Parmesan, both shredded.
While they normally make it at home with chicken breasts, we had more folks eating than they normally do so chicken tenders were the cut of choice and we opted for a larger pot, a 14″. Although it’s not a requirement, we lined the Dutch oven with parchment paper to make clean up a little easier since we are out in the woods.
Stewart loaded the pot with chicken tenders to start things off. The next step was to cover the chicken with pesto sauce. (Those who have a bit more creativity than we did might choose to make their own but we were quite happy with the jar of pesto picked up at the grocery store.) This is not the time to be shy about pesto quantity, instead of just a sprinkling, the chicken was completely covered.
Sliced fresh tomatoes were added to form the second layer on top of the pesto covered chicken.
The final topping was a healthy portion of a blend of mozzarella and parmesan cheese to completely cover the tomatoes.
That’s it! Chicken, pesto, tomatoes, and cheese. Now it’s time to put on the heat! When he makes this at home, Stewart uses a casserole dish and bakes it for about an hour at 350°, however, since we’re using the Dutch oven, we have a little different cooking dynamic in that all of the heat and steam stay within the iron pot creating a bit of a pressure style of cooking which takes less time. With that in mind, we reduced the cooking time to 45 minutes. To achieve our goal temperature, we simply used a ring of coals underneath the Dutch oven and one on the lid. This put us somewhere between 325° and 350°.
At about the 30-minute mark, another pot was heated up with boiling water for some rice and it wasn’t long until time for dinner.
A quick sampling to make sure the cooking was finished ended with two thumbs up and agreement that it was time to serve.
The juice from the chicken and the tomatoes mixed with the olive oil from the pesto, makes a wonderful sauce to add on top after serving over rice.
I greatly appreciate learning the new recipe from Stewart and was very impressed with his Dutch oven debut. We’ll make this one again and I look forward to more recipe trading with him in the future!
Stewart’s Pesto Chicken Recipe:
Boneless Skinless Chicken, (Tenders, Breasts, or Bite sized pieces); Pesto; Tomatoes – sliced or diced; Cheese – Mozzarella + Parmesan; baked at 350° for 45 minutes to an hour until chicken is fully cooked and tender. Serve with rice.
