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Campground Cooking: How to Cook Over an Open Fire
Cooking meals over an open fire has become something of a lost art. Even when you’re camping, there’s no guarantee that every campsite will have fire rings or metal grills, which means that much of our outdoor cooking happens on gas-powered burners nowadays. While these camp stoves get the job done, we at Primus know that true cooking freedom means having options. Sometimes, there’s just nothing like cooking over a roaring fire, which is why we designed the Openfire Pan.
How to Cook Over an Open Fire with the Openfire Pan
With this pan, you can cook meals in the outdoors just as easily as you cook meals at home. Made of highly conductive aluminum and scratch-resistant stainless steel, the Openfire Pan is lightweight, easy to clean, and perfect for all of your campfire cooking needs.
Cooking over an open fire doesn’t have to be a lost art anymore, but just in case it’s been awhile since you’ve done it, here are 6 steps to creating the perfect outdoor cooking setup:
1. Find a safe spot for your fire.
The best practice is to use preexisting fire rings—this prevents damaging the ground and keeps your fire from spreading. (If you know in advance that your campground doesn’t have any fire rings, check out Primus’ Kamoto Openfire Pit, which keeps your fire completely off the ground.) When you’re selecting a spot for your fire, make sure to find a place far away from low branches or dry brush that could ignite, and use only small, dry, fallen branches for fuel. For more information about how to build efficient, safe campfires that leave little impact on the environment, you can read about Leave No Trace fire techniques here.
2. Let the fire get hot.
To get optimal, even heat for cooking, let your fire burn for a while until you have a nice glowing bed of coals at the base. If you try to cook before the fire is stable and steady, the flames may be too hot or may go out altogether.
3. Unfold the Primus Openfire Pan.
Once you’ve got a warm, steady fire, unfold your Primus Openfire Pan and place it over the fire. Make sure to wear heat-resistant gloves and try to make the cooking surface as level as possible.
4. Get your ingredients.
You’re ready to start cooking. Now, you can cook anything from stirfry to scrambled eggs—anything you make on the stove at home, you can make on the Openfire Pan. Get cooking!
5. Clean up.
When you’re done cooking for the night, the Openfire Pan is easy to clean. Remove it from the fire and wait until it’s completely cool, then wipe it down with a warm, wet cloth. When you get home, you can clean it the same way you clean your other stainless steel pans, but until then, leaving a little oil behind on the surface won’t hurt.
6. Put out your fire.
Make absolutely sure your campfire is out before you go to sleep or leave the campsite. Millions of acres of forest are lost every year to unplanned wildfires, so it’s essential to be careful and take the proper steps to extinguish every fire you make. If possible, let all of the wood burn completely to ash. Then, pour water over all of the coals until you can no longer hear any hissing coming from the embers. Using a stick or shovel, stir the embers to make sure there are no more hot coals.
This summer, take your campfire cooking to the next level. You’ll be amazed at how much you can do with the Openfire Pan. Once you’re done cooking, you can spend the rest of your time enjoying good food, beautiful scenery, and the peace of nature with your friends and family around the campfire's roaring glow.
- Tags: Tutorials
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