Men with the Pot Cookbook

Delicious Grilled Meats and Forest Feasts

Kris Szymanski, Slawek Kalkraut

• Publisher: Harvard Common Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780760374184
• eBook ISBN: 9780760374191
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Culinary Arts

Bask in the beauty of the forest (or your backyard) with the Men with the Pot as you create memorable, mouthwatering meats, rustic bakes, and more over your campfire or on your grill.

People often ask the Men with the Pot “what’s behind the name?” The answer is simple: when they started out, they were just two men with one pot who wanted to do something big! Their aim was to light a fire and inspire others to follow the same path—cooking whatever brings them joy.
 
Kris and Slawek’s eye-catching videos have done just that, propelling that humble idea into a concept reaching tens of millions of fans every month.
 
Men with the Pot Cookbook brings that same spirit to the page, with their first collection of recipes in print. Chapters and recipes include:
 

• Forest Cooking Around the World: Chicken Alfredo, Gnocchi Two Ways, Polish Rolady, Paella, Forest Takeaway, Tagliatelle Ragu, Campfire Ravioli
• Forest Baking: Sausage Rolls, Skillet Pizza, Forest Pretzels, Baked Camembert in Forest-Made Bread, Focaccia Bread, Campfire Donuts
• Chicken, Turkey, and Duck: Forest-Fried Chicken, Honey Mustard Chicken Quarters, Duck Breasts with Smashed Potatoes, Chicken From Hell
• Meat Madness: Tomahawk Steak, Perfect T-Bone Steak, Tropical Pork Ribs, Pineapple Pork, Lamb Chops with Pomegranate Sauce, Campfire Irish Stew
• From the Sea and Into the Forest: Pastry-Wrapped Salmon, Fish Curry, Cod Fillets Wrapped in Bacon, Drunk Salmon, Prawn Pasta, Fish and Chips, Herb-crusted Cod
• Sandwiches, Tacos, Quesadillas, and More: Chicken Fajitas, Smoked Pork Belly Sandwich, Dirty Cheeseburger, Steak Sandwich, Best Meatball Sandwich, Chicken Quesadillas with Forest-made Tortillas, Cheese Tacos

Throughout the book, you’ll also learn some bushcraft, from lighting a fire to making a campfire spit or cooling rack from found wood. And of course, there are plenty of photos from their forest kitchen, which means even a simple weeknight meal is sure to take you away from the ordinary.

1

A FIELD GUIDE FOR USING THIS BOOK

If it isn’t already obvious, we would much rather spend our days out in the forest than shopping for ingredients. And we want that for you, too. We frequently use whatever we happen to have on hand, and the recipes still turn out great! Food should be fun, after all, so don’t stress the small stuff. We do, however, have some tips and suggestions that will help make your time in the woods more successful.

TOOLS

If you’ve seen just a couple of our videos, you know we enjoy making many of our tools. But we can’t make everything! Here are some things we use frequently:

BOWLS: Two large bowls (same size) for mixing, serving, and covering and a small or medium bowl for mixing.

CAST-IRON POT (5-QUART, OR 4.5-LITER): If you’ll be cooking over the fire the way we do, you’ll want one with a hanging handle, rather than something like a Dutch oven.

CAST-IRON SKILLETS (2 [12-INCH, OR 30 CM]), WELL-SEASONED: Cast iron is unbeatable for cooking, especially with fire. Don’t use anything coated with enamel (unless you don’t mind ruining the enamel).

ENAMEL OR STEEL CAMP CUPS (2 large [12- or 16-ounce, or 360 or 480 ml]) with a handle (or small saucepan with a flameproof handle).

FLINT: It’s how we start our fires (see How to Light Your Fire).

GRILL PANS (2, SAME SIZE): Ours are 11 inches (27 cm) with handles on either side but use whatever you have (so long as the handles are flameproof).

HANDSAW: Helpful in bushcrafting.

HATCHET: Useful for chopping firewood; we also use the blunt head as a mallet.

HEAVY-DUTY OVEN MITT: Something leather, like a barbecue or welder’s glove, not what you use in the kitchen, so you’re not burned by the high heat.

KNIVES: Large chef’s knife. One rainy day, when we were unable to cook outdoors, we decided to make a knife. We went into a shed and came out a few hours later with what would become our most-asked-about tool: our signature 7½-inch (19 cm) cleaver. For us, it’s a universal instrument that chops, slices, stirs, flips . . . whatever we need. Plus, a smaller (6-inch, or 15 cm) camp knife: We often use this for whittling.

LARGE CUTTING BOARD: Our wooden one is 11 × 18 inches (28 × 45 cm), and we frequently roll dough to “the size of our board.” We actually have two boards, one dedicated for cutting proteins on.

MEASURING SPOONS (see Forest Hack, at right): Yep, for measuring.

MORTAR AND PESTLE: It sounds strange, but everything tastes better when made with a mortar and pestle; we don’t know why, it just does—but feel free to use a food processor for chopping, crushing, or mixing ingredients.

PARCHMENT PAPER: To help prevent foods from sticking to the cooking vessel and to make cleanup easier.

PASTRY BRUSH: For brushing on sauces, melted butter, glazes, etc.

ROLLING PIN: for rolling doughs.

SKEWERS: We whittle our own (see Make Your Own Skewers and Holder), but you can use wooden or metal ones if you prefer.

SPIDER OR SLOTTED SPOON: We just use branches to fish things out of hot water or oil, but we want you to be safe!

WOODEN SPOON: For both mixing and cooking—you don’t want to damage your cast iron, so always use wood, which won’t scratch it.

FOREST HACK

When we’re in the forest, we frequently use a combination spoon/fork/knife camp utensil for our measurements, so we tend to think in terms of “1 spoon of oregano” or “2 spoons of mustard.” Because our viewers always ask about our ingredients, we’ve given more precise measurements here. For things like bread and pasta, stick with the measures we provide. For other things, like sauces and general seasonings, go ahead and use your spork—start small and taste as you go, adding more of what tastes good to you.

INGREDIENTS

We can’t say it often enough: Food is an adventure! Look at these recipes like a map. You can follow them precisely, or you can veer off on your own and discover something entirely new. If you think you can add something to make a dish better, please do it! Similarly, if we call for a yellow onion, but all you have is red, use it. If there’s an ingredient you don’t like, use something you do like. Because meals take longer to prepare in the woods than they do in the kitchen, you’ll find that everything just tastes better, regardless of whether you use the same ingredients we do (though, we do prefer salted butter because we didn’t have it as children in Poland, and it’s really quite amazing).

HEAT VS. FLAME

Even when you’re cooking over your own grill at home, it’s not always easy to control the heat—fire is unpredictable! But building a proper campfire with plenty of glowing embers takes time, at least 45 minutes. When you’re out in the forest, among the elements, it proves even more difficult (just ask us about making bread in a light Irish rain). What starts out as a pleasant day could turn into a windy or drizzly evening come dinnertime. For us, the wind is the worst, but even your elevation can be a factor in how your food cooks. Where we live, we can experience the four seasons every 15 minutes, but this is...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction: Welcome to the Forest
• Chapter 1 A Field Guide for Using This Book
• Chapter 2 Forest Cooking Around the World
• Chapter 3 Meat Madness
• Chapter 4 Chicken, Turkey, and Duck
• Chapter 5 Forest Baking
• Chapter 6 From The Sea and Into the Forest
• Chapter 7 Burgers, Sandwiches, Tacos, and Quesadillas
• Resources
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Index
• Copyright