Why does outdoor cooking always taste better?
Firepit skewer cooking
Cooking with skewers over a fire is simple. For quick foods like marshmallows, use wooden skewers. For meat like kebabs and sausages, metal skewers are best. Simply pierce the thickest part of the food, secure it on the skewer, and cook it over the heat (not in the flame), turning it slowly. Marshmallows are, by the way, hotter than the surface of the sun when they’re freshly toasted so be mindful of little mouths. The wails of a small child really take the edge off fireside cooking!
We love cooking outdoors. I’m fairly sure that for Ben some primal instinct kicks in – a strong connection between man and flame to an ancient past. We actually do it so much that Ben has become quite the master, so for this blog I’m handing the keyboard over to him.
“Fire pit cooking is one of the easiest ways to cook great food. Instead of using gas or charcoal, our firepit is fuelled by solid wood – sustainably sourced from our own woodland – and this gives the best possible warmth and intensity of flavour. It’s not difficult to get the hang of but is slightly different than cooking on a traditional outdoor grill or BBQ. I love cooking outside on a real wood fire is unrivalled and the food tastes great too!
My first tip is to make friends with a fantastic butcher. The quality of the meat really does make a difference to how delicious the end result is. My next – and probably most important piece of advice – is to get the flame right. Too soon, and you’re in food poisoning territory – burnt on the outside, raw in the middle. Unlike a roaring flame, a glowing fire (similar to a BBQ) is ideal for cooking. Patience really is a virtue here. My good friend, Will, cooks his steaks directly on the embers – get it wrong and you’ve wasted a good steak…but get it right and it’s unbelievable!
My seven-year-old self would have been quite happy with bangers for every meal, but just in case you’re looking for more variety here are a few other ideas.
Pot cooking on a firepit
Cooking in a pan or pot over a fire requires more equipment – we provide swing arm grills for guests to use (which can easily be removed after cooking so you can enjoy the fire pit).
Now, back to the food. One of my favourite cuts is bavette (also known as beef skirt steak). It’s a hugely under-appreciated lean cut, with an open texture and bags of flavour that is far less expensive than fillet steak.
Cooked with care and served with fried red onions, mustard and salad leaves on fresh crusty bread, it’s mouth-wateringly good.
I buy mine from Hillcrest Farm Shop in Stanton (a couple of villages away) but have also bought it from Turner and George, who do another great cut called picanha.
This is a Brazilian cut (we call it rump cap) and is great for BBQing (Turner and George has some delicious BBQ recipes on their website – worth checking out).
A recipe that our eldest son, Henry, invented and we all love is Riddlesworth Campsite Beans with Chorizo.
In a heavy bottomed pot gently cook off thinly sliced red onions in olive oil, with salt, pepper and garlic.
When soft, add diced chorizo and cook until sizzling. Chuck in a couple of generous spoonsful of paprika and then add in a couple of tins each of butter beans, cannellini beans (in fact you can add any beans you like as long as they don’t have sauce them) and a few tins of tomatoes.
Xanthe Clay wrote a brilliant review of The 26 best and worst supermarket tinned chopped tomatoes 2025 for The Telegraph – useful insight for this store cupboard essential.
Bubble away for 20 minutes and then serve in bowls with chunks of crusty bread. It’s so quick, delicious and filling with barely any washing up.
Chop a large smoked Polish sausage, 250g of halloumi, 1 large potato, 1 red pepper into chunks, toss in oil, cover in foil and roast over the open flame for about 40 minutes.
Some of our other family favourites are:
Mix 2 crushed garlic cloves with ground cumin, chipotle paste and olive oil. Cut a butternut squash lengthways into 8 wedges (leaving the skin on) and muddle it around with the paste, leaving for around 30 minutes while your firepit gets up to heat.
Remove the squash from the tin and place it directly on the grill flesh side down. Cook for 3-4 minutes then turn onto the skin and cook for around 12 minutes until the flesh is tender.
Delicious served with almost anything!
This is a bit more fiddly and time consuming but flipping delicious so I think worth the time. Make the chicken rub in your kitchen at home and stick it in a jam jar to bring with you saves time on the day.
The rub is simply dried bay leaves, freshly ground pepper, sweet paprika, sea salt, garlic powder, soft light brown sugar and cumin.
Prepare a brine using 2 litres of warm water, 300g sea salt, 300g soft dark brown sugar, 4 cloves of crushed garlic, 4 whole cloves and 2 bay leaves.
Halve the chicken (obviously double or triple the ingredients depending on how many chickens you need to feed your brood!).
Now, leave this in the fridge while you go out for the day (or overnight). At the same time, sling a couple of pieces of wood in a bucket of water.
The firepit needs to have a good heat going, but no flames.
Remove the chicken from the brine, dry off, slash the legs and thighs (but not the breasts – this is to ensure everything cooks evenly) and then massage the pre-prepared rub into the chicken, leaving to marinade for about ten minutes.
Add your soaked logs to either end of the fire to create the smoke. You want the chicken to cook long and slow for a couple of hours. I promise, it’s worth the wait.
My final tip is to get the children to do the washing up. At the campsite you can make it fun by filling up the huge sinks with loads of bubbly warm water and getting all the kids to get stuck in.
We’re not fussy about the floor at the campsite getting drenched and if you’re not fussy about the children getting covered from head to toe in bubbles and washing up to turn into a water fight with squeals of delight then it’s less of a chore!
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