Two weekends ago, I had the honor to be a judge at the Amador Heritage Days Cornbread cook-off. The event was a great festival with wagon rides, chili cook-off, exhibitors of antiques, mountain men and food. The weather was perfect and the cook-off went smoothly without a hitch. There were three teams competing with their best recipes, all being cooked in Dutch ovens. Two teams were first time beginners and one team had competed before.

With a prompt 10:00am start the teams started cooking. All ingredients had to be prepared on site and cooked over coals. No pressureat all! I can tell you that they had a great time doing this, everyone was sneaking around to peak at what the competitors were doing, laughing and joking. Everyone had to interact with the crowds of people showing up to see what was happening. This was part of the cook-off, interaction and sportsmanship.

Judging was not easy and as you can imagine. Everyone had to be judged on the following with each being worth 5 points:

• Overall appeal = originality, creative ingredients, good recipe, good sportsmanship. Public interaction.
• Appearance & presentation = visually appealing, pleasing aroma.
• Execution = cooked just right (not over or under done), cooked evenly. No burnt spots.
• Taste = good flavor combination seasoning, texture.
• Dressed in 1800 outfits or made an attempt to. (1 point)
• Clean cooking practices and area.

26 points possible. 26 possible points for the judge to screw up on. 26 possible reasons to disagree with the judge. It was tough! they all tasted great, everyone did a fantastic job and everyone scored very high.

Here’s the results:

• 1st - Karen Phillips and son, Pot of Gold team.
• 2nd - Tom and Joyce Reese, Team Iron Man
• 3rd - Dean and Maureen Wilson, Dutch Oven Amigo’s
• Popular vote - Dean and Maureen Wilson, Dutch Oven Amigos

Now I have to explain the Popular vote. Anyone who wish to could purchase a taster’s ticket. That meant that after the judges had a sample you could taste the contestants dish for a dollar and cast your vote for the best dish. Great! Me against the crowds………. Well as you can imagine again, popular vote was against my vote and 3rd place won the popular vote. Go fiqure! Well all I can say is, Dean and Maureen, brown the top of your Corn Bread and I’ll give you first place also.

Congrats to all of the cooks and cudo’s to Bridget Ebert for putting this event together.

Here are the pictures from the event and I will be posting each recipe here in the next week.

“Get out of the kitchen! Light the fire! Start cooking outdoors”

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Pulled Pork Sandwiches cooked in a Dutch oven. To tell the truth, I never even tried Pulled Pork Sandwiches before I tried to cook this in a Dutch oven! Always willing to give something new a try, I chose a biggie ……. Pulled Pork is traditionally done in a BBQ or smoker and cooked for hours and hours. I mean this is serious cooking and very serious cooks take this very seriously. Did I mention serious? I don’t mean to insult anyone by changing history but I just didn’t know any better and I am sticking to that story.

I had no experience, no recipe, no help from a expert, so I did as I always do, I winged it! First I asked the Meat dept. guy what to use for Pulled Pork, his recommendation was a Pork shoulder roast?? Huh? OK, new to me and three pounds latter I was at home trying to figure out what to do next.

Rub? Marinade? Injector? Salt and pepper with a prayer? Rub won, so I started to look for just the right rub and couldn’t find it. Well, i’ll just mix something up and it will be great, right? I took part of an recipe here and there and rubbed up my Pork Roast. I added some stuff to the bottom of the Dutch oven placed my roast in it and of course, some beer!!

Four hours latter I ate my first Pulled Pork Sandwich ……… and I was fantastic!! I am hooked! I now take my Pulled Pork very seriously.

Here is the recipe and steps that I took.

Ingredients:

• 3lbs of Pork Shoulder Roast
• 1 tbs xtra virgin olive oil
• 2 medium onions sliced
• 1 tbls brown sugar
• 1 tbs cumin
• 1 tsp black course pepper
• 2 tbs chili powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 4 cloves garlic (or more)
• 4 oz green chile’s
• 1- 3 bottles of dark beer
• 12″ Deep Dutch oven
• Approx 50 - 60 coals

Cook time 4 hours

Preparation:

Wash and dry your Pork.

Coat with olive and mix rub together (Brown sugar, pepper, chili powder, salt, paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin). Rub the Pork all over and let sit for a couple of hours.

In bottom of Dutch oven (12″ Deep) coat with some Crisco and place onions, chile’s and garlic.

Place Pork on top and pour in beer.

Use the 4 up, 4 down count for your coals. 12″ = 9 on bottom and 16 on top. This will be about 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Every hour add more coals, about 6 on the bottom and 10 on the top.

Check to make sure that the Dutch oven doesn’t dry out on the bottom. If it looks like it will dry out and more beer.

After 4 hours the Pork should be falling apart. Remove Pork and set aside.

You now have two choices:

1. Pour the gooey stuff on the bottom into a small bowl. Freeze it for 30 minutes to separate the grease. Heat back up and pour over the Pulled Pork.
2. Throw the gooey stuff in the garbage

You figure it out based on your personal taste. (I like the gooey stuff)

Pull your Pork into shreds and add your favorite BBQ sauce, pile it on a bun with some Potato Salad and chips. Yummy!!!

This was so good we had it for Dinner (twice) and Lunch (twice).

Give it a try and let me know how it went…………

“Get out of the kitchen! Light the fire! Start cooking outdoors”

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THE OLD DUTCH OVEN

Some sigh for cooks of boyhood days, but none of them for me;

One roundup cook was best of all — ’twas with the X-Bar-T.

And when we heard the grub-pile call at morning, noon, and night,

The old Dutch oven never failed to cook the things just right.

‘T was covered o’er with red-hot coals, and when we fetched her out,

 
The biscuits there were of the sort no epicure would flout.

I ain’t so strong for boyhood grub, ’cause, summer, spring, or fall,

The old Dutch oven baked the stuff that tasted best of all.

Perhaps ‘t was ’cause our appetites were always mighty sharp —

The men who ride the cattle range ain’t apt to kick or carp;

But, anyway, I find myself a-dreaming of that bread

The old Dutch oven baked for us beneath those coals so red.

COPYRIGHT, 1916 AND 1917,

“Get out of the kitchen! Light the fire! Start cooking outdoors”

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