Simple baking and frying pointers for wood ovens

Wood burning ovens create a unique, old-world taste to your meals. These informative instructions  will ensure you produce the best possible food whether you're baking, frying or doing casseroles.

When using a wood stove remember the oven has natural heat zones: slightly cooler below the centre and slightly warmer above it. Here's how to use those different heat zones to your advantage.

• To brown baked goods, move them to the top of the oven; if a dish is cooking too quickly, move it down to the lower part of the oven.
• Small items, such as potatoes, fish and stuffed peppers, can be baked gently in the ashpit under a hot fire. Potatoes need only to be wiped with olive oil, but wrap fish and peppers in double layers of foil before placing in the ashes. Cook peppers until the flesh is tender and the stuffing begins to shrink.
• The dry, radiant heat of a wood stove's main oven is quite good for baking bread, which develops a thick, crisp crust. The oven should be hottest when loaves are first put in, then cooled down by slightly opening the draft regulator.
• If your oven seems to be producing uneven heat, take your largest baking tray and cover it from edge to edge with biscuits. Bake the biscuits for the normal time. The range of colour of the cooked biscuits will give you an indication of the varying degrees of heat throughout the oven.

Stir Frying:

• Make a fast fire to cook finely shredded meat and vegetables in the shortest time possible.
• Lift off the stove lid and place the wok directly above the firebox (this will quickly blacken the bottom of the wok or pan, so soap the outside before each use to reduce blacking and to aid cleaning).

Pan Frying

• Bacon and lamb chops are especially good if fried very slowly in a cooler part of the stovetop.
• Bacon cooks to a crisp without charring, and chops are tender and juicy after slowly cooking for one hour or more in a lightly oiled cast iron pan.

These dishes can be particularly tender and well flavoured if allowed to simmer gently all day. Using a heatproof casserole with a well-fitting lid, start the dish off on the stovetop, then leave it simmering at the back. Alternatively, transfer the dish to a low shelf in a slow oven or (depending on the temperature) to the warming oven for long, slow cooking. Scotch broth, pea and ham soup, Boston baked beans and stews are particularly tasty when cooked this way.

A wood stove is a fabulous way of giving some extra flavour to your favourite meal regardless of your preferred cooking method and hopefully these guidelines will make it easier for your dish to come out tasting its best.

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