Baked Potatoes Cooked Over a Fire

campingfirepotatoes

This weekend, my wife and went camping. I tried to impress her with a surprise meal (much more than the usual smokies or hotdogs roasted on a stick). I went for steak, potatoes, mushrooms, salad and a corn on the cob. Everything turned out great — except for the potatoes.

ISSUE

Potatoes were only cooked after 4 hours in the coals.

TECHNIQUE

Got the fire food and hot (at least 350F, used an infrared thermometer to check). I put the potatoes (Yellow, baking potatoes if it matters) in the hot coals. I have made them like this before, and it typically took 2 hours. And I rotated them periodically (so as to not let the foil burn from prolonged contact). As I mentioned above, I've made potatoes like this before…but never had them take so long to cook.

By the way the rest of the food turned out just fine (actually better than fine, it was the best back country camping meal I had ever made). We ended up using the potatoes for hashbrowns the next morning because we didn't want to wait for them to finish before making/eating the rest of the dishes.

QUESTION

Given the above technique, why did my potatoes not cook like they should.

Best Answer

Two likely possibilities:

The potatoes had too much foil surface exposed and not enough in contact with hot coals, and as a result were just not getting hot enough. Maybe it was a colder night (were you hiking at altitude?) maybe the coals had a lot of insulating ash, maybe the coals were already too cool (350F is not particularly hot for coals). This is why burying the potatoes in the coals is more common.
The potatoes you bought were defectively dense. Apparently potatoes can have a growing problem where the core of the potato is extra-dense due to weather changes, and that core takes forever to cook through.

Related Solutions

Chicken – How to cook chicken and asparagus over an open fire

You have two delicious choices. Both require a bed of coals, so I'll start with that.

You'll need to build a fire with the logs stacked 'log cabin' style, and let the fire burn down to coals. You want a deep red coal, just starting to darken on top. The coals should look something like this.

Coals should look something like this

You can bake, or bbq the chicken and asparagus. Both are delicious methods.

To bake, wrap the chicken, asparagus and a starch like potato gratin style in layers of tinfoil. Use the starch around the outside, you'll sacrifice a layer of it as some of it sticks/burns to the tinfoil. Put the most delicate item in the middle, in this case the asparagus, and the chicken around the asparagus. Add a generous amount of butter, salt and pepper and bake for about an hour buried in the coals. Corn or green beans are also very good, and can be sacrificed a little around the outside to preserve your meat and vegetables.

I would layer it this way.

 1.Coals
 2. Tinfoil
     2. Potatoes 
     2. Generous dollop of butter
     3. Salt & Pepper 
     4. Green Beans 
     5. Asparagus
     6. Chicken 
     7. Potatoes
 3. Tinfoil
 4. Coals

Now, BBQ. You'll do it very much like a charcoal BBQ. Keep the grate close to the coals, you can generally test the heat by holding your hand above the grate, you should only be able to keep your hand there for a second or two at most.

Grill the chicken like you would on a bbq, and roast the asparagus on a cooler part of the grill. I'd marinate both before putting them on the grill. I'd also try to get an aromatic wood like hickory or mesquite, pine will impart a resinous taste.

What are “cooked” potatoes

Usually that would mean potatoes that have been simmered to fork tender, but you could use potatoes that have been baked too. It's faster to dice the potato before simmering, but for some things it actually tastes better (tiny difference) to simmer first, then dice.

Be careful if you dice first, they will overcook and become waterlogged quickly.

If the recipe doesn't specify, you can use peeled or unpeeled potatoes. I almost always prefer scrubbed, unpeeled potatoes.

Don't forget to salt the water!

EDIT: One more little note. 1/4 inch dice is small for simmering potatoes. If you do it that way, get them out of the water just before they are completely tender, carry-over cooking will get them the rest of the way. You might also want to rinse them in cold water to stop the cooking.

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