My childhood included numerous campfires, mostly belonging to other people. Curiously, no-one seemed to have heard of toasting marshmallows over the embers, though we often lost the jacket potatoes in the ashes. Many were lit by the troops of Girl Guides who camped annually in one of the fields of my parents’ farm. Neatly organised, and protected from the rain by canvas awnings, they had heated, bucket-like pans hung over them, mostly, it seemed, containing baked beans or mashed potatoes. Relatives and family friends who sometimes camped on our land lit campfires too, for everything from boiling water for tea to fry-ups of bacon and mushrooms, or pots of potatoes and stews.
Later, life moved on to camping expeditions with primus stoves and people who insisted on dry mixes of the add-boiling-water-and-stir variety. Often, I wished I’d taken a supply of bacon and eggs along as well, as I knew there were other possibilities. This chapter gives a few ideas. Campfires are fun to build, cheering, and warming to sit round. Lit in shallow pits created by cutting out several pieces of turf, surrounded by a circle of flat stones, they link us to all those fires of time immemorial when humans depended on them for cooking the day’s catch.
Ensure you have dry twigs and other wood – branches, small logs or chunks of bigger ones. As with barbecues, pine cones work well as firelighters: put a few in an egg box on top of a couple of sheets of crumpled newspaper. Cover with a handful of thin twigs and add a few thin branches. Set light to the newspaper. When the fire is burning up, add a couple more branches and a small log or two. Keep adding wood and letting it burn; once there is a good bed of glowing embers, allow the fire to die back and you’re ready to cook. Balance pots and pans on stones beside the fire, and keep watch to make sure the contents cook evenly; or arrange a barbecue grill over the top to support them directly over the fire. When you’re ready to leave, make certain the fire is out and replace any cut turf.
Garlic Butter and Garlic Bread
Magic Pudding Baked in Orange Skins
Makes 4–6
4 large onions, peeled
450–500g minced beef
a generous handful of breadcrumbs
4 tablespoons finely grated strong cheese, such as Parmesan or mature Cheddar cheese
4 tablespoons tomato ketchup
1 teaspoon salt
Potatoes in Tin Cans or boiled potatoes, to serve
Layers of onion make good containers for meat wrapped in layers of foil and baked in the embers. The Spiced Pork Patties also work well in this; omit the apple and bacon, and add some breadcrumbs.
Cut the onions in half from the top down to the root. Carefully scoop out the centres with a teaspoon, leaving shells 2–3 layers thick (about a third of this can be chopped into the filling recipe here, if liked; keep the rest to fry with sausages or add to another dish).
Mix the remaining ingredients together to make a paste. Divide the mixture among half the onion shells and top with the other half. Wrap each onion bomb in a double layer of foil. Twist the tops well to seal, then cook the bombs in fairly hot embers. Move them around from time to time so that they cook on each side.
Open one after 35 minutes and cut into it to test if it is done in the middle. If in doubt, re-seal and return to cook. They are best when the onion has browned a little underneath or in patches where the fire is hottest. Serve with potatoes.
Serves 4–6
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill leaves
500g neck of lamb fillet, cut into small pieces
2 onions, roughly chopped
4 large potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
salt
This recipe is to be cooked in a heavy casserole dish on the edge of a campfire. The marinade mixture can be also used for neck of lamb fillet for a simple barbecue as well as this stew.
Put the oil, mustard, dill and 1 teaspoon salt in a bowl and mix together. Add the meat, mix well and put in the base of a heavy flameproof casserole dish. Scatter the onions over the top. Leave to marinate in a cool place for 24–48 hours.
Put the potatoes over the meat and onions. Add water to come halfway up the level of the contents, and scatter a little more salt over the top. Cover the casserole and set on stones beside a campfire. Turn it round at intervals, and check a couple of times to make sure that it isn’t drying up. It will need 1–1½ hours simmering.
If it’s more convenient, the meat and marinade can be carried in a zip-type bag and the onions added at the same time as the potatoes.
Serves 4
120g salt
1 litre boiling water
4 trout, cleaned
oil, for greasing
Wild Garlic Pesto or salad, to serve
My favourite method for farmed trout is to hot-smoke it (this works for mackerel as well). It takes a while because, for the best flavour, the fish needs salting for a few hours (this can be done as in the Trout en Papillote recipe, or, for a better result, use brine as below).
You’ll also need a barbecue with a lid and, crucially, wood to produce smoke. You can buy packs of chips of various wood species especially for using on the barbecue, or you could acquire some shavings or sawdust from a joiner. It is important that this is 100 per cent hardwood, and not softwood, MDF or any other synthetic material, and it should be free of solvents, glues, and so on.
For cooking the fish, it is best to have coals that are on the slow side; this gives the smoke time to penetrate the fish well and give a good flavour.
Make sure you are downwind of other people, and far enough away so as not to cause annoyance when the wood is added to the coals.
You will need 2 handfuls of small hardwood chips, such as oak, alder or apple, or wood shavings or sawdust. This is ample to smoke 4 fish. They are good hot or cold, so you might like to do extra for the next day.
Put the salt in a large bowl and add the water. Stir, then leave to cool. Take a deep tray or a large zip-type bag large enough to hold all the fish and the brine and pour the brine into it. Add the fish, then seal and leave in a cool place for 3–4 hours. Ideally, the fish will be submerged in the brine; if not, turn the bag every 30 minutes or so to ensure the fish is well soaked.
The barbecue coals should have been lit for some time and have burned down to medium heat (cook something else over them while they are really hot). Put the wood chips or wood shavings in water and allow them to soak for 20 minutes before using, or damp the sawdust well.
When the coals are ready, remove the fish from the brine and pat dry with kitchen paper. Brush with oil.
Use tongs to move the coals to the sides of the barbecue, leaving an empty space in the centre.
Drain the wood, shaking to get rid of as much water as possible, and scatter it over the coals. It should smoulder, not flare up and burn, and it will immediately produce lots of smoke.
Put the grilling rack in place, put the fish on it, and cover with the lid. Leave for at least 10 minutes, then check to see how well done the fish is. Cook for as long as necessary. Good hot with Wild Garlic Pesto, or let the fish cool and eat with salad.
Serves 4
4 trout, cleaned
30g butter, plus extra for greasing
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
a few tarragon sprigs (optional)
1 lemon, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons white wine or cider salt
bread, to serve
I leave the heads and tails on the fish, but this works equally well with fillets, and takes less time. If they have been salted before cooking, as in the previous recipe, there is no need to add any more during cooking. You will need to take lots of foil with you for cooking.
You will need medium-hot coals in the barbecue or embers of a campfire. Take 4 pieces of doubled foil, each large enough to enclose the fish well. Lightly grease the top layer of foil. Put a fish on each one.
Put the parsley, tarragon, if using, and butter in a bowl and add a teaspoon of salt. Mix together well then divide into 4 and put knobs of the mixture inside each fish. Put 2 lemon slices into each one, then pour a little wine or cider over them.
Fold the foil around each fish to make neat parcels and tightly roll the edges so that no liquid can escape.
Cook on the barbecue grill, or perch the parcels on embers raked to the edge of a campfire, for 7 minutes on each side. Open a parcel and probe against the backbone of the fish to make sure they are fully cooked. Open the parcels on plates to catch all cooking juices, and eat with bread.
Makes about 340g
40g fresh flat leaf parsley leaves
8 large garlic cloves, or to taste, roughly chopped
8cm celery stick from the heart, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
250g salted butter, cut into pieces
For garlic bread
1 baguette, cut in half if long
This butter is intended mostly for using in garlic bread, although it can also be used as a spread for sandwiches or as an accompaniment to barbecued food, especially chicken and salmon, or with mussels. Prepare ahead and store in a cooler, or make the garlic bread up to 24 hours in advance and wrap it up for heating as needed.
Put the parsley in a bowl and pour over enough boiling water to cover. Drain immediately and refresh in cold water. Squeeze dry in kitchen paper.
Put the parsley and the remaining ingredients in a food processor and whizz to a smooth paste.
If making garlic bread, preheat the oven, if using, to 220°C. Take the baguette and cut it into 1cm diagonal slices, not quite through to the base. Spread the side of each slice with the soft garlic butter, then wrap the baguette, or each half separately, in foil. Heat through in the oven, or on a barbecue or beside a campfire for 20 minutes until warmed through and the butter is completely melted.
Serves 4 greedy people, or 8 less hungry ones
50g plain flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
100g caster sugar
90g butter, melted
1 medium egg, beaten
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
8 medium-large oranges
For the sauce
40g soft brown sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
8 tablespoons boiling water
A magic pudding is a chocolate mix sprinkled with cocoa and sugar, with hot water poured over the top before baking. The water percolates down during cooking to make a sauce underneath the cake layer.
Cooking in the orange skins means you can enjoy baking on the move, and the orange gives a lovely flavour to the pudding.
You will need a generous amount of foil for wrapping the puddings.
Put the flour in a large bowl and add the baking powder, salt, cocoa and sugar. Stir together well. Stir in the butter, egg and vanilla. To make the sauce, put the brown sugar and cocoa in a bowl and stir together.
Cut a lid from each orange about one-quarter to one-third of the way down. Holding the orange over a bowl, carefully scoop out the flesh into the bowl, being careful not to break the orange skins. (Use the fresh orange juice and segments for breakfast.)
Divide the cake mixture among the orange skins. Don’t overfill them – the mixture needs to be just below the halfway mark. Scatter some of the brown sugar and cocoa mixture on top.
Just before you are ready to cook, add 1 tablespoon boiling water to each orange. Put the ‘lids’ back on top and wrap each orange in a double layer of foil. The mixture expands as it cooks and may boil out at the top if the coals are hot.
Put the parcels in the warm ashes of a campfire or over low embers on a barbecue. They will need about 30 minutes to cook. Move them around occasionally so that they are evenly heated.
Unwrap and eat with a spoon directly from the shell. Be careful, as the pudding is very hot when taken straight from the fire.
Serves 1
1 ripe banana in its skin
2 squares of chocolate
double cream or ice cream (optional), to serve
Bananas baked in their skins make good barbecue or campfire desserts, especially loved by children. Chocolate is the simplest addition, or you could use the brown sugar mix below. Vanilla ice cream goes well with this if you have it available, or try a little cold double cream instead.
If cooking on the barbecue. Put the banana on the grill rack. Cook until the skin discolours and browns or turns black, depending on how well you like it done. Turn using tongs to make sure both sides are done. Over a medium heat it will take about 20 minutes to cook through.
If cooking on a campfire, wrap the banana in foil and bury it in the hot ashes of the campfire for a similar length of time.
Remove the banana from the heat and put on a serving dish. Cut a slit in the skin of the banana, insert the chocolate, and give it 2 minutes to melt before eating. Open the skin and serve with a little cream or ice cream, if you like.
Serves 1
1 ripe banana in its skin
2 teaspoons soft light brown sugar
2 teaspoons butter
2 teaspoons rum
Adults might prefer this combination, with rum and brown sugar.
Slit the banana skin along its length. Add the sugar and butter to the opening and pour over the rum. Cook the bananas as for Baked Banana, above, and eat hot.
Serves 1
25ml rum
25ml boiling water
1 teaspoon soft brown sugar
1 knob of butter the size of a hazelnut
a squeeze of orange juice
freshly grated nutmeg
Rich and indulgent, this is the perfect drink to warm you on chilly nights spent under canvas or otherwise outdoors.
Put the rum in a small heatproof cup, mug or a warmed glass. Add the boiling water and stir in the sugar. Float the butter on top, squeeze in the orange juice and grate a little nutmeg over the drink.
