Do you want to cook an all in one meal over coals? This is possible only by Tin Foil Dinners. In this technique, you only have to pack up your food and then sit back relaxing, while the fire does its work. You can customize the dishes to your own taste, prepare them ahead of time, and there is no need of
pots and pans for cleaning afterwards.
While making such dinners, you only have to keep some point in mind:
- Always have a large enough piece of foil, in case a packet tears or needs to be rewrapped after checking.
- Spray the foil with cooking spray or brush on a coating of oil.
- As meat takes longer time to cook, place it on the bottom of your packet. Pound or cut thicker meat to facilitate cooking.
- When using chicken, it is suggested to lightly pre-cook the chicken first, before assembling the dinner. Since all chicken is thick, cut it into ½" pieces and quickly browned the chicken in a dry skillet until just white but still slightly pink inside and then finish cooking in the tin foil.
- Noodles and rice must be pre-cooked before adding to the foiled packet.
- Toss potatoes in oil to avoid sticking and encourage more even browning. Use one tablespoon of oil for every one large potato.
- Add moisture to your dinner in the form of a few extra tablespoons of butter, milk, soup, or even water, to avoid sticking.
- Get a good seal. Fold the long sides together, crease them well and fold them over at least three times. Leave some space for expansion and steam. Fold in the corners of the remaining sides and then fold them over at least twice. Pinch the folds tight.
- Try new flavors, like BBQ sauce, salsa, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, mustard, Italian dressing, soups and more. If adding a liquid like soy sauce or Italian dressing, fold all but the last side of your packet, pour in the liquid and then seal it tight.
- Never put cheese, caramels or marshmallows inside the foil packet. These would scorch quickly and burn the food. Add them after the food is cooked and let the heat from the food melt them.
- Always cook on or near white coals. Avoid the red or glowing coals. Instead, you can also bury your packet under the ashes, but don’t forget where it is kept.
- Turn your packet halfway through cooking.
- Meat needs the longest time to cook. Depending on the thickness of meat and heat, the cooking times may vary from 10 minutes per side to 20 minutes, for a total time of 20 to 40 minutes.
- Hard, raw vegetables, such as carrots and potatoes may take as long as meat. You can slice them thin or grate them to speed cooking.
- Onions do not need long time to be cooked, so tuck them between the meat and potatoes. In this way, they won’t be burned and will flavor both the meat and potatoes.
- Green, yellow and red vegetables cook faster than meat, potatoes or carrots. Mix up a packet of these vegetables and cook them separately. Cooking times range from 8 to 10 minutes per side.
- Sliced fruit and berries and thin biscuit dough will cook quickly.
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