I just found this subforum, looks like fun. Here is an introductory offering:
A DISH OF ODDIMENTS OF MEATS, WELL SEASONED WITH A SUFFICENCY OF
SAVORY SPICES, AND MESSED FORTH WITH INDIAN BREAD, USEFUL FOR FEEDING
A NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHEN THERE IS NOT A SUFFICENT QUANTITY OF ANY ONE
MEAT TO MAKE A MEAL
Or Spicy Meat Stew, if ya wanna short name……
Get your fire going and stoke it good so you will have a decent amount of coals to work with.
Might as well hang your kettle over this to start getting water hot, too.
While the fire is burning down, cut up your meat - beef, pork, chicken, lamb, whatever -
in about 3/8" dice and dredge it in seasoned flour. Cut up an onion or two and crush & paste some
garlic (crush it with a knife, sprinkle it with salt, and use you knife to smear it into a paste).
By now you should have enough coals to work with, so pull some out of the fire - enough to make a
bed about the size of your dutch oven (12" works good), but leave a space about 4 or 5 inches in the
center clear of coals. Set your oven over the coals. Add some grease of some sort - oil, shortening,
bacon grease, and get your onions going. When they are soft, but not brown, add the meat.
Stir it about some. Add powdered cumin, ground black pepper, a little ground coriander, chili powder,
and a little each of hot, sweet, bittersweet, and smoked paprika, and a touch of chipotle chili powder (vary spices to suit yourself of course). Stir it around some. Check and adjust seasoning. Add a little chicken stock, stir. Put the lid on
and put some coals on the lid. Set a slightly smaller oven (10") on top of that to start
heating up, throw some chopped bacon into that one. Have the lid for the 2nd oven sitting on something clean and put some coals on top of it so it will get hot.
While it is heating take about 3 cups of cornmeal, one cup of flour, some salt, a little baking
powder, a little baking soda, and mix them together. Add one beaten egg and about 2 cups of
buttermilk - if you don't have buttermilk you can use 2 cups regular milk clabbered with about 2 or 3
Tbs of cider vinegar. Mix this up into a batter. Make sure that the bacon in the 2nd oven has rendered
out a lot of the fat (you don't HAVE to use bacon, you can use Crisco, butter, oil, but you need some
hot fat). Swirl the oven so the grease coats the bottom and at least an inch up the sides. Pour in the
batter and put the lid on. About every 10 minutes, give the oven a quarter turn clockwise and the lid a
quarter turn counter-clockwise, this helps even out hot spots. Cornbread should be done in 30 to 40
minutes. And the meat will be done about the same time as the cornbread. At some point about half
way through cooking the cornbread, you will want to check on the meat.
If there is too much liquid you can either thicken it up with some couscous, roux, or cornstarch, or set
up more coals to put the cornbread on, add some coals under the meat and let the sauce reduce with the
lid off. Towards the end of the cooking, your water should be boiling so you can make your coffee.
Use your favorite method. Turn the cornbread out of the oven, cut it for serving, butter it if you want. I
like to crumble it in the bottom of my bowl and mess out the meat on top of it. And have a chunk of it
on the side with honey or molasses for dessert. N.B. you will need to check your coals from time to
time during the cooking to make sure you keep your heat. If you have cornbread left over, split it in
half the next morning and fry it up in the fat from the bacon or sausage that you cooked for breakfast.
Good way to do biscuits, too.
