Boiling

In backpacking particularly, boiling water is the most common kitchen operation undertaken on the trail, used for cooking or reconstituting food, making hot beverages, cleaning up, and even sanitizing drinking water. Portable stoves are therefore generally rated in terms of how quickly they can boil a liter (or another appropriate size) of water; indeed, some commercial stove models are specifically optimized for fast boiling, with other operations such as frying or baking being an afterthought.

Like camp frying pans, camp pots are generally made of very lightweight material (often aluminum or, at a considerable price premium, titanium). Though less of a worry given the thermal mass of water, the camp cook must still take care not to allow food to burn, since the pot itself has very little mass to spread the heat out.

Alternatively, a fireproof container (e.g. mess can, bamboo segment or improvised tree bark pot) is placed (or hung) above the fire.

Roasting

Possibly the simplest method of cooking over a campfire and one of the most common is to roast food on long skewers that can be held above the flames. This is popular for cooking hot dogs or toasting marshmallows for making s'mores. Hungarians often roast slab bacon (Szalonna) over a campfire. Besides skewers and fireplace popcorn poppers, pie irons too may be used (small iron molds with long handles), into which can be placed slices of bread with some form of filling — which are placed over hot coals to cook. When using meat, roasting can have the advantage over grilling in that the grease that drips from the food can be reused. This can be done by placing a fireproof container under the food.

Grilling

A grill, circa 4th-6th century BC, exhibited in the Ancient Agora Museum in Athens, housed in the Stoa of Attalus

Grills are simple to use and food being grilled tends to pick up some flavor from the smoke, although that is not by design as in a Barbecue where the meat is cooked slowly over hours at a significantly lower temperature. Grills over a campfire are used in the same way as an ordinary backyard charcoal grill. If the food is simply placed on the grill, it may catch fire so it requires constant attention. Hand-held grills, aka broilers that clamp over the food may be used for various tasks like warming food, grilling burgers or sausages or making toast. In cases where open fires are not allowed, lightweight charcoal grills (sometimes considered a type of hibachi) are sometimes used for direct grilling of food.

Frying

Frying is not always necessary, but is often used for fish or wild game caught while on the trip, as well as pancakes and certain kinds of bread and desserts made on the trail. As a general rule, the frying medium used in camp cooking is usually either vegetable oil or margarine. Normal (salted) butter may also be appropriate for camp use, but unsalted butter or lard may not be, due to their shorter shelf life.

Camp frying pans often lack handles for easy packing, with the camp cook using a clamp-like device to pick up and move the pan. Camp frying pans are generally made out of very thin metal (though some campers do use cast iron pans for this purpose as well), so extra care must be taken to evenly cook the food, especially over the small-diameter flame of a portable stove. A "round the clock" technique, where the frying pan is moved repeatedly to expose different parts of its base to the flame, is the most commonly recommended solution to the problem, though it is also possible to use a flame diffuser to achieve the same effect. For campfire use, on the other hand, some camp cooks prefer a legged cast-iron pan called a "spider", which is elevated to allow a small fire directly beneath it.

Camp cooks making pancakes in a moderate-size pan often simplify their work and speed up their service by pouring enough batter to make one large, moderate-thickness pancake that takes up the entire pan and then cutting the final product with the spatula to serve individual portions. Also, camp cooks often replicate toast using a frying pan: a bread slice (or more, or a combination of whole and cut portions) is placed in a well-greased pan, pressed down with a spatula, flipped, and pressed down again.

An improvised griddle can be made by putting a flat stone directly on the fire (or above it, on top of other stones). Food is then placed on the stone.

Baking

A homemade reflector oven

A reflector oven prior to use

The oven set directly on hot coals

Putting a baking sheet pan over a furnace can allow for baking, which is in turn derived from the concept of the masonry oven. This was common for centuries, used to make bread, pies, and other items, and is still popular today, particularly among campers who enjoy stuffing their meats. Ovens can be made from cast iron, sheet metal, or aluminum foil-covered cardboard boxes. Reflector ovens are metal containers designed to surround an article of food being baked over an open flame and reflect the heat towards the food.

Dutch ovens and other pots

Outdoor cooking with a large pot and other utensils

A cast iron potjie on a fire, very similar to a Dutch oven

Closely associated with the American Old West, the Dutch oven of tradition is a heavy cast iron pot, traditionally made with three short legs and a concave cover for holding hot coals on top. While such pots are generally considered too heavy for backpackers, Dutch ovens are often used in group camp-outs and cookouts.

Dutch ovens were traditionally specially designed for camping, and such pots (often with legs and a handle, both for suspending the pot over a fire) are still widely available, though sometimes at a premium over flat-bottomed stove-top models. The oven is placed in a bed of hot coals, often from a keyhole fire with additional coals placed on top of the lid, which in camp ovens usually has a raised rim to keep the coals from falling off. Dutch ovens are made of cast iron or aluminium and are generally not considered suitable for backpacking due to the heavy weight of the pot. Dutch ovens are convenient for cooking dishes that take a long time such as stews, joints of meat, and baked goods. They are not the only option for baking on a campout as devices for baking on portable stoves exist and clay ovens can be constructed at longer encampments. A pot hanging over the fire, although picturesque, may spill, and the rigging may be difficult to construct from found wood. Generally, this is done with metal rigging, much of it identical to that historically used in home fireplaces before the invention of stoves. Two vertical iron bars with an iron cross-piece allow pots to be hung at various heights or over different temperatures of fire. Griddles, grills, and skewers can also be hung over the fire. When working with wood, one may use two tripods, lashed with tripod lashings, but the rope will be liable to melt or burn. Dovetail joints are more secure but difficult to carve.

Outdoor cooking using a Tajine

An oven constructed from found materials

A good alternative to cooking with a tripod is to cook directly on the fire itself. To do this properly the fire needs to have a reasonable bed of coals and to have burned down to the point where it is not a roaring fire. While the pot may be set directly upon the coals, this is not preferable since that will tend to extinguish the coals. To lift the pot up off the fire, often two small logs of similar size may be used on either side of the pot; camp-style Dutch ovens have three legs built into the pot to perform this function. An alternative is the use of a metal thread or mesh fire basket. This allows continued airflow through the fire while providing optimal heat. The one downside to this form of cooking is that the pots will become blackened with soot and ash, which can be difficult to scrub off. The ash and soot buildup can be easily avoided by applying a thin layer of dish soap (preferably biodegradable) to the outside of the pot before cooking. The ash and soot will stick to the soap which is then easily rinsed off later.

Steaming

Bamboo steaming

Can-in-can steaming

Steaming is possible with plants such as bamboo. In this method, a piece of bamboo is set diagonally above a fire. The bamboo is perforated from within (between the joints) and water is placed in the lowest bamboo segment. Food (e.g. rice) is then placed in the top segment which is steamed due to the water evaporating from the heat in the lowest segment.^[1]

Other covered techniques

A Māori earth oven

The original form of covered cooking is the earth oven, simply a covered pit with a fire built in it, demonstrated in techniques such as the Polynesian umu/Hāngī, the Indian tandoori, and the Native American clambake.

Another commonly used technique is the baking of food in aluminum foil packets. Food is wrapped inside a durable packet of tin or aluminum foil, crimped to seal, and placed on or under hot coals. Baked potatoes are commonly cooked this way but entire meals can be cooked in one packet. Besides aluminum or tin, organic material such as leaves (of trees, "Nelumbo nucifera" lotus, "Dendrocalamus lactiferous Munro" bamboo aka Bambusa oldhamii (麻竹葉), phragmites, plantain, taro, etc.), husks (of corn, "Phyllostachys makinoi" bamboo (桂竹籜), etc.), and skins of fruit (citrus, etc.) are also frequently employed. Tree leaves such as those from the banana tree do not burn/ignite as they contain enough oil to resist the heat from the flames (at least until the frying is complete). The way to adapt recipes where food is wrapped in foil is to use a barrier such as baking or silicone paper between the food and the foil; the overall technique is similar to the en papillote technique developed in French cuisine but uses a more robust container.

Other simple methods include clay wrapping food (such as in the kleftiko method used in Greek cuisine), leaf wrapping, and plank grilling,^[2] where food is cooked on a wooden plank set above the fire. Hot-stone cooking, where food is placed on a heated stone next to or even in the fire, or where fire-heated stones are dropped into a pot are other methods.

Long-distance truckers, automotive travelers, and rally racers have occasionally resorted to cooking on accessible sections of the vehicle engine; the book Manifold Destiny, though written to a certain extent as a humor book, is considered the authoritative reference on the subject. The food is usually wrapped in several layers of aluminum foil and secured onto the engine block or other hot parts of the engine.

In some areas where there is a significant amount of steady, less-hazardous volcanic activity, lava cooking (invented in Hawaii) is sometimes practiced as a novelty.^[3] The food does not come in direct contact with the molten rock, instead being wrapped in a moist barrier (usually wet tropical leaves such as banana foliage or ti leaves). The wrapper is sacrificial, and is chipped or otherwise cleaned off along with the cooled lava before serving.