Cooking outdoors

Upload photos of your outdoor food adventures to Instagram and you could win a Primus Onja stove worth £105

Primus Onja stove, SRP £105

With a heatwave expected this Bank Holiday and hopefully a long Indian summer in the coming weeks, there’s no better time to gather family and friends together for a bit of cooking in the great outdoors.

Our friends, iconic Swedish stove makers Primus have crafted a genius new range of kit for cooking up culinary delights in the wild with their new CampFire collection.

Scandinavian craftsmanship

Drawing on 120 years of stove expertise, smart Scandinavian design and sustainable materials, CampFire is a beautifully crafted three-strong range of double burner stoves, high quality pots, pans and accessories for those with a love of entertaining outdoors.

Out of the three double burner stoves in the range, Onja (SRP: £105) is a show-stopper stove made in Europe from a unique blend of stainless steel, oak, brass, cloth and leather.  Compact and portable, it’s easy to assemble and pack away, yet suitable for large pots for cooking up culinary treats outdoors.  Plus there’s no need for expensive, heavy gas cylinders as the all the stoves run off easy-to-buy self-sealing LP gas cartridges. Simply cook, eat, laugh, pack up, pop on your shoulder and plan your next outdoor culinary adventure.

Clever little touches to this aesthetically appealing range include:

• stackable stainless steel pots with integrated colanders in lids that can be packed away neatly into a storage bag
• a utensils kit, complete with oak and stainless steel knives and accessories, held in a polycotton wrap that can be rolled out flat or hung
• a cutlery set that packs neatly into a leather sleeve
• a utility sack with a watertight roll-top closure – handy for carrying water or food in, then taking home used cutlery and plates

Primus Onja stove, SRP £105

Win a Primus Onja stove

To be in with a chance of winning one of these finely crafted stoves, we want to see photos of your summer outdoor cooking adventures. Upload your photo to Instagram, tag @primusequipment and @ernestjournal and use the hashtag #outdoorcooking. The most inspiring pic will win a Primus Onja stove worth £105.

Next week: keep your eyes peeled for ITV Coast and Country presenter Andrew Price reviewing this awesome piece of kit for Ernest. 

Terms and conditions:

1. The closing time and date is 11.59pm on 4 September 2016. Entries after that date will not be considered. 2. The prize is a Primus Onja stove, SRP £105. 3. The prize is non-transferable and no cash alternative can be offered. 4. See our full terms and conditions.

Issue five is on sale now!

We're thrilled to announce that issue five of Ernest Journal hits the shelves this week and it's a corker of an issue, exploring the interconnected themes of time travel, slow journeys and solar exploration. Read on for more about what's in store and order a copy today...

24-page guide to Vancouver Island

Seek out old growth forests and storm-battered beaches in Tofino, before exploring a puzzle of islands characterized by fiercely independent and resourceful people and a finely balanced ecosystem.

Curious histories

Enter the unruly world of made-up languages; meet the small cryonics community striving for immortality; conduct time traveling experiments in your sleep and explore everyday tales of radiation. 

Spaces

Meet the photographer capturing every RNLI station in Britain using a Victorian photographic technique; learn about the humble geologist and map maker that changed the world, and explore time bending images that have been painstakingly restored to change the way we think about the past.

Slow adventure

Seek out simple shelter in the mountain bothies of the northwest Highlands; follow in the footsteps of The Peregrine author JA Baker, and journey with Tres Hombres as she ploughs across the Atlantic, carrying cocoa and barrel-aged rum in her wooden belly to herald the start of a new slow cargo movement.

Timeless style

Chart the evolution of British style through the post-war era of burgeoning café culture, modernist architecture and rock’n’roll, and explore the social history of the fisherman’s smock. 

Workmanship

Pick up the journey of an antiques restorer who plies his trade on the open road; explore the practice of solargraphy, a long exposure technique that records the path of our sun, and discover a movement that sees artists, perfumers and chefs blend their practice to create intriguing multi-sensory experiences.

Wild food

Unravel the history of the vindaloo; reimagine the strange, unsettling, yet magical recipes of The Futurist Cookbook with Bompas & Parr, and gather wild plants from the forest floor to make your own herbal first aid kit.

Issue 5

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Moss-steamed trout

Our friends at Woodlore share their recipe for steaming fish in the outdoors – all you need is moss, a good campfire and some lemony herbs

Images: raymears.com

The method of steaming your food between two layers of moss is one of the simplest ways of cooking in the outdoors, particularly with fish. It requires very little in the way of utensils or equipment (which means minimal washing up), and is very hygienic. But the greatest benefit of this technique is the way that it leaves you feeling truly immersed in the outdoors. This dish requires just two ingredients – trout and wood sorrel, the latter being a pleasant lemony stuffing that works well with fish. 

1. Firstly, prepare a hot fire with a good bed of embers, preferably of oak.  

2. Forage a handful of wood sorrel (make sure you are confident in identifying the plant first).   

3. Collect two large handfuls of sphagnum moss, taking care to keep them intact. Remove any leaf litter from the moss. 

4. Gut and clean your fish, then stuff it with the sorrel(at this stage you can use the clean side of the moss as a place to prepare the fish).   

5. Once your fire is ready, place the first layer of moss on top of the embers. Place the fish on top of the moss. Cover the fish with the second layer of moss, so that the soil and roots are facing upwards. Leave the fish to steam.

6. If the fire has been prepared correctly, you should see steam rising from the moss. After 30 minutes of steaming, check on the fish and turn it if it’s not cooking on top.
A simple way of testing if the fish is cooked is to gently press your thumb against the skin; when the fish is ready, the skin and flesh should slip away from the bone. Remove the fish from the fire and peel away the skin. Spoon the flesh away from the bone and enjoy with a pinch of wood sorrel.

You can learn various cooking techniques, alongside other bushcraft skills on a Woodlore course; raymears.com

Discover more wild food recipes in issue 4 of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

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Issue 4

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Cree bannock

Woodlore, the school of wilderness bushcraft founded by Ray Mears, share their recipe for a warming, energy-filled snack that's a perennial favourite of the outdoorsman

Bannock is a traditional Scottish bread

Every region has its own take on the standard method of cooking bannock. In Australia they bake it straight on fire embers; in the far North it is cooked in a frying pan. In North America, the dish was adopted by indigenous peoples after it was introduced by fur traders. To free up cooking equipment for other jobs, the Cree cooked their bannock skewered on a stick, which is the method we’ve used for this recipe: 

Ingredients (serves 3)

4 x handfuls of flour
2 x handfuls of milk powder
4 x teaspoons of baking powder
1 x handful of dried fruit
Sugar (to taste)
Water

Method

1. Put flour, milk powder, baking powder and sugar in a large bowl or pan. Stir with a wooden spoon, getting plenty of air into the mixture. Make a well in the centre and gradually add water, stirring into a stiff consistency.

2. Fold in the fruit, taking care not to force air from the dough.

3. Find a green, non-toxic stick about an inch in diameter (we use willow) and scrape it down to the bare wood and sharpen both ends. Heat the stick over the fire until scorching.

4. Form the dough into balls and skewer them, pushing the balls together. Push one end of the stick into the ground and lean it towards the embers – the bread at a height above the fire at which you can hold your hand no more than five seconds.

5. Turn the stick regularly to ensure even cooking until the bread is golden brown all over. Peel the bread off the stick and serve warm with butter and jam. 

Learn more cooking techniques and bushcraft skills on a Woodlore course; raymears.com.

You can read our guide to wild butchery and foraging for the Norwegian cloudberry in print issue four of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

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Swedish torch log

Ever tried to start a fire on wet ground? There aren’t enough curses in the dictionary. A Swedish torch log is the answer, providing all the fuel for the burn and a surface for resting your kettle on, while keeping the fire raised off the ground

A Swedish torch log burns for two to four hours

Based on a centuries old idea, the Swedish torch log is becoming increasingly popular among bushcraft and outdoor enthusiasts as a low-impact alternative to gas stoves and an antidote to the frustrations of trying to start a campfire on wet ground.  

There is some conjecture over their origin but Swedish torches may have been used by soldiers of northern European states, fighting in the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). The name is likely to have derived from the German words Schwedenfeuer or Schwedenfackel, which translate as Swedish Fire or Torch.

The great advantages of the Swedish torch log over a conventional campfire, are that the log provides all the fuel for combustion and for the duration of the burn – typically around 2-4 hours, depending on its size. The fire burns from the top, downwards (hence their other name 'log candle') and is always raised off the ground, which is very handy in cold, wet weather. The torch can also be used as a cooking stove, since its flat top provides a stable surface on which to rest a pan or kettle, exactly above where the flames and heat are most concentrated.

To make one, you'll need a well-seasoned log around 8 inches or more in length. Pine, larch or birch are ideal. Using a chainsaw, cut two or three slots across the diameter, down to 3/4 of the log's length. If you don't have a chainsaw you can use an axe to quarter the log then reassemble it using wooden spacers to keep the slots open. I like to attach a string handle to the log so I can carry it around easily (before it's lit, obviously!). Insert kindling into the slots and on top of the log, then light it. The gaps will allow air into the heart of the fledgling fire, which eventually becomes self sustaining as the log begins to burn from the core outwards.

Words and photo provided by Lewis Goldwater, a Herefordshire-based green woodworker. turnham-green-wood.co.uk

Originally featured in issue 4 of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

Issue 4

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