Anyone can pack sandwiches, sausages and burgers and throw on a BBQ and satisfy some hungry mouths. Don’t get me wrong very often that is all the we do on a lot of our trips, but sometimes it makes a trip more memorable to cook proper food. You can only really do that if you are properly equipped for the task.
Last year I purchased my first piece of cast iron cookware – a Camp Oven (whooo hoo, sailor) It has different names in different parts of the world, a Potje or Black Pot in Africa, a Dutch Oven in Europe but I prefer to call it a Camp Oven. I have seen a lot of people use different versions, cast iron, stainless steel, but I knew that I wanted a decent sized cast iron pan to use in live fire cooking (Silly expression for cooking on coals)
Having seasoned my new pot carefully, a process involving cleaning, oiling, heating, burning yourself, cooling, drying, oiling, heating, burning yourself again and cooling the pot to create a natural non stick surface, I was ready to embark on my first camp oven dinner. But (as is often the way with new kit) having a camp oven showed up weaknesses in my equipment. I did not have a good complete kitchen solution. I set about creating one in earnest.
I now have a good collection of cast iron pots, pans, skillets and griddles which rattle away in the back of the car ready to burn me at any opportunity I chose to start trying to cook with them. I love it, its the best way to cook as the pans add flavour and taste created through half hearted washing techniques and layers of past conquests.
So here is my guide to the best kitchen camping set up for weekend’s in the desert. Like all advice only listen to what you really want to hear, you’ll work the rest out yourself if you ever need to.
My number one piece of advice is to keep everything in bags, not boxes. Heavy duty canvas bags that can be squashed and don’t smash into pieces on the road. I use a collection of Tool bags and purpose built equipment bags to keep all of the kit below from smashing about in the back of the car.
Larder
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- Salt
- Pepper
- Tabasco
- Chilli flakes
- Chilli powder
- Curry powder
- Hot chilli sauce
- Stock cubes/ gel
- Tomato puree
- Bisto
- Baked Beans
- Coconut Milk
- Instant coffee (Emergency supply!)
- Olive oil (Decant it into a plastic container)
- Garlic puree
- Ginger puree
- Mayonnaise
- Ketchup
- Mustard
Kitchen Equipment
-
- Plates
- Mugs (Coffee for adults and crisp for kids)
- Steel glasses (Wine is amazing from a steel cup, but crap from plastic)
- Cutlery
- Dustbin bags
- Kitchen roll
- Tin Foil
- Marshmallow skewers
- Scrubbing brush
- Fairy liquid
- Folding Bucket (never ever used this)
- T Towel
- Cloth
- Table (proper 6ft trestle is ideal for big groups)
Cooking
-
- Grill (Cast iron is ideal)
- Camp Oven
- Griddle
- Frying Pan/ Skillet
- Kettle
- Long tongs
- Long Flipper
- Wooden spoon
- Grater
- Big sharp knife
- Chopping board
- Welding gloves
- Gas Cooker
- Spare gas bottle
Storage
-
- Kitchen Bag
- Camp oven Bag (
- Larder Bag (Tool bags)
- Food chiller bag
- Drinks chiller bag
- Frozen packs (Better than ice for 1 night)
- Tupperware (With lockable lids, not cheapo ones that explode)
- Bag clips (for sealing crisps etc)
You can’t have too much storage stuff, bags inside bags, inside bags. It protects your food and drinks from exploding all over the place and potentially dinner being ruined!
Amidst the sea of inane and all-too-frequent updates of life in our current times that we all seem to be pre-determined to trawl through each morning (despite our understanding that there is not going to be anything new to learn about this beast of a thing), I found this post justifiably positioned – like a piece of unwanted flotsam or jetsam, that has been carried along wilfully with the currents for years, and washing up one day on my beach, (without permission, no less!), forcing me to exert unplanned energy to remove it, disposing of it before it brings harm to someone.
Just sayin’…
Do you really think it’s that good? I thought better of you.