There are many ways to cook on an open fire. With a minimum of tools – all you really need is a stick – you can hold food at the optimum distance from heat in order to crisp or roast it. As you expand your culinary range, include stews, casseroles and fry-ups, or increase the size of your portions with larger cuts of meat, you will need to invest in some tools and utensils to manage open-fire cooking.

Equipment to use over open flames

Pots, skillets and saucepans: Cast-iron is our preference for cooking on an open fire, as it’s durable, heats evenly and can handle extreme temperatures. Cast-iron is heavy, though, so it’s not recommended for lightweight camping adventures.

Dutch (camp) ovens: A Dutch oven is a large pot with a lid and legs. The best ones are made of cast-iron and may well be the only camp cookware you will ever need.The advantage of a Dutch oven is its versatility; you can reproduce just about any one-pot dish that you could make at home on your kitchen stove. Dutch ovens retain and distribute heat evenly, which means less chance of burning your food. It offers a tremendous amount of control with cooking, as you can cover the oven with coals or move it further away from the heat source when needed.

Grills and griddle plates: A grill is a metal grate that will support your food at the right distance from the coal bed. Having a stable, flat surface is handy for pots, pans and kettles. You can adjust the height of the grill or move the coals into different layers beneath the grill to control the heat. Griddle plates are great for cooking smaller pieces of meat (rashers, chops, chicken) or veggies without them falling through into the fire.

Other bits of useful camp cooking kit

• Fireproof mitts or gloves: Getting close to hot fires can easily lead to burns. A pair of fireproof mitts or gloves are essential for safe campfire cooking.

• Long-handled spoon or fork: Used to prod food, remove lids from pots and move coals around the fire.

• Shovel: Used for digging a fire pit and moving hot coals around.

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Building a fire hot enough for roasting

Build and light your fire. When building a fire to roast food, it pays to have some hardwood on hand. Hardwood is the best fuel for producing extremely hot coals, which will be crucial for roasting and grilling. Try to have your hardwood chopped to kindling size, as smaller pieces of wood will burn down to coals more quickly. Building a second, and even a third, fire with kindling tipis is a great way to get your cooking fire producing coal quickly.

After your fire has burnt for about half an hour, the flames will start reducing and your fire will begin producing hot coals. These will give off an even heat, which you can control by moving around your cookware, spit or grill. At this stage, you will need to be vigilant about continuing to stoke the fire’s heat with fresh fuel.

Using a long-handled spoon or shovel, you can isolate the hot coals and move them to the side that will become your cooking fire. You can keep adding more kindling to the main fire, as this will keep producing hot coals for your cooking fire. You now have the option of either cooking directly on the coals, using a pot or skillet, or setting up a grill, or even a spit.

Roasting veggies

Some vegetables are perfect for roasting in a campfire with little or no preparation or tools. You can simply bury veggies such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut pumpkin (squash), Jerusalem artichokes, turnips, chestnuts, garlic and onions in the hot ashes, or set them near hot coals, for an hour or so. When you retrieve your treasure from the fire, simply peel away the outer layer or slice the veggie in half and spoon out its soft centre. If you want to keep the skin of your veggie intact, then wrap it in aluminium foil prior to cooking or, better yet, in soaked banana or palm leaves.

To roast corn ears, soak them in water for an hour, then place directly onto your hot coals. Cook for 30 minutes or so, turning a few times, and you will be rewarded with wonderfully charred husks and perfectly steamed corn. Just add butter, salt and pepper to achieve instant camp legend status.

If you want to get a little fancy, you can’t beat Hasselback potatoes: crispy outer layers and beautifully soft, creamy centres make these a campfire favourite. Choose medium- sized roasting spuds. One by one, nestle the potatoes in the curve of a large wooden spoon. Using a sharp knife, slice downwards until your knife hits the edge of the spoon. Work the knife from one end of the potato to the other, spacing your slices about ½ cm (¹⁄8  in) apart.

Meanwhile, heat some oil and butter in a pan along with some thin slices of garlic. Brush your potatoes with the oil/butter/garlic mixture, then salt generously. Either wrap your spuds in foil or banana leaves, or arrange in your favourite cookware – a Dutch oven is great for this. You can add grated cheese and chives at the end for extra points.

This is a story from Rewild, a book by Doron Francis and Stephanie Francis.

How to grill a steak on an open fire