The Pauley Principle: Restoring a Rusty Cast Iron Dutch Oven

Welcome to The Pauley Principle!

The Pauli Principle, named for Wolfgang Pauli, deals with atoms and electron-sharing that results in new, stronger bonds. Think 2 parts hydrogen and 1 part oxygen, a shared delectable (!) electron and VOILA! Water!

Similarly, when you prepare whole food to share with family and friends, especially foods you've grown, something amazing happens. Meals become tastier and healthier. Your soul, not just your stomach, becomes fulfilled. You live life more abundantly as a result. During a shared meal, the bonds that people create grow stronger and become something new: GREATER than the sum of the parts! I give you The Pauley Principle.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Restoring a Rusty Cast Iron Dutch Oven

wall hangers

more wall hangers

cast iron skillets that I use daily

I grew up with an appreciation for cast iron cooking, and began collecting new and vintage cast iron and steel pieces at an early age. The secret to their longevity is in the seasoning. A cast iron piece that is well-seasoned will hold up to most cooking techniques without rusting. MOST.

Occasionally I have bloopers, but I can't show a picture of what I did to my 12 quart cast iron Dutch oven because I was so beside myself I didn't think to take one. I had prepared peach cobbler over coals, just like I had done many times before, but this time my cobbler had boiled over! We had eaten around a campfire after dark and I decided to wait until morning to clean it. To my dismay, the lid was stuck on. I meant to ask Chris to try to pry it off, but I forgot about it and then left it out in the rain. You should never ever EVER do that, and I knew better. Life gets busy and I totally forgot. My beautiful Dutch oven rusted. Badly. Normally, all you have to do if a piece of cast iron cookware has some rust is to gently rub out the rust and oil it, but NO! Mine was crusty rust!

Chris came to my rescue. Dressed in heavy gear, he took the first step in restoring my treasured piece. On the day he was rescuing the hay rake that he acquired, he took my dreadful-looking Dutch oven and also sand-blasted it. That is an extreme rescue, but by the time I got the lid off, it was so bad inside and out that it had been rendered useless. Cast iron is a good investment and should last lifetimes, so we both knew this piece needed intervention if it would ever become an heirloom.

my cast iron Dutch oven after sand-blasting

Then came my part in the restoration. It had to be seasoned. Otherwise, it would become a rusty mess and would be unsuitable for cooking. I used regular vegetable oil and a cotton cloth and simply rubbed oil all over the inside and outside of the Dutch oven and its lid. Then I placed the pieces in my gas oven at 200 degrees F. for 2 hours. To be sure it was covered completely with oil but with no oil pooling that would gel, I took it out and reapplied a thin coating of the cooking oil to the entire surface. Then, back to the oven for an additional 5 hours.

ALMOST fully restored

This is how it looked after seasoning, a darker patina, ready for cooking again. After the next few uses, I will oil it each time and place the Dutch oven back in 200 degrees F. for 2 hours to complete the seasoning process. Then, eventually, it will have the even black color of my other vintage pieces.

10 comments:

Lisa @ Two Bears FarmApril 16, 2012 at 12:47 PM
Nice! I love your collection. We once ruined one trying to make popcorn in it over a fire.
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UnknownApril 16, 2012 at 1:18 PM
Oh, that's sad. It can happen so easily. I hope you held onto it. They can be fixed. You wouldn't believe what this one looked like.
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christa89April 16, 2012 at 2:08 PM
Ronda you haven't been camping in so long that you don't know the new technique.....we now use bee's wax.....much better than oil and healthier also.....just don't put it on the outside and then put it on an open fire (might I say flame) Kenny I need your help! You and Chris really need to come and hang with your old friends, just 2 time a year.....spring and fall.
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becky3086April 16, 2012 at 2:30 PM
I got a very nice little oval cast iron skillet the other day at the flea market for $4.
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Clint BakerApril 17, 2012 at 5:12 AM
That is all my wife uses to cook with as well. Food just doesn't taste the same if you use anything else!
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UnknownSeptember 30, 2018 at 5:44 PM
Thank you for the post. You may check =https://reviewkid.com/camp-chef-outdoor-camp-oven/ as well.
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Give Yourself the Fast Food Alternative: 1, 2, 3 makes 4 and More

For many people, late night ballgames, church, work and other events make fast food too convenient to resist, but what's in that stuff? I can't begin to answer. Big franchises such as Taco Bell say the 63% or so that isn't beef is made up of "the secret ingredient". If we consume their food, don't we have a right to know what that secret is? And more importantly, what's it doing to our bodies? My plan is worth the effort since meals eaten at home with the family benefit our physical and mental health.

Here's an alternative and my answer to Rachael Ray's A Week in a Day. I call it 1,2, 3 Makes 4 and More. On the fifth day, Friday, make a quick and easy pizza.
In one day, you can make a roast, a hearty soup, and a one-dish casserole to get you through most of the work week.
Meal 1: the roast with salad and a veggie.
Meal 2: the soup served with warm bread or in a bread bowl.
Meal 3: the casserole with a salad.
Meal 4: soup from Meal 2 served with sandwiches using the roast, Meal 1.
Meal 5: homemade pizza.

Plan meals and shop for it. Then take a few hours to prepare the entrees ahead. Start with a roast seasoned to taste. I'm talking real meat. While that's slow cooking, start chopping veggies and meat for a good, hearty soup, one that will be a meal in itself. Get it started and simmering away and then begin a one-pot meal that takes a little more attention.

This week my plan is Day 1, a slow roasted ham with salad and mashed potatoes; Day 2, minestrone; and Day 3, shepherd's pie. I'm making mashed potatoes for two days (meals 1 and 3) at one time on my cooking day. The fourth meal will be ham sandwiches with minestrone. Salads and breads round out the meals for the week. Fruits with cheese make a quick and good-for-you dessert. A truly delicious recipe for shepherd's pie is in my blog.

Be good to you. Be good to others. On days 6 and 7, change it up by going out, having a pot luck with friends and family or grilling out. Remember, live your life abundantly.

About Venison

Venison should taste really delicious! No kidding. It is my favorite meat, except for crab.

Some things to consider though:
*If you wouldn't think of eating a bull, then don't eat a deer that had huge antlers or was in rut. I don't. It affects the flavor and tenderness of the meat.
*Replace the deer fat with beef fat for your ground meat for an 80/20 ratio. Deer fat tends to be slightly bitter and leaves that thick coating in your mouth that, although edible, is not palatable.
*For roasts, sear with butter and olive oil. These impart a wonderful flavor.
*For sausage, use pork shoulder, at a ration of about 3 parts ground venison with 1 part ground pork shoulder.
*Venison by nature is a lean red meat. A good young deer processed properly will give you many delicious meals.
*Anything you would do with beef, except ribs, you can do with venison. Look for my recipe for Shepherd's Pie. Use either beef or venison. Enjoy, share, and live abundantly.

Plan Now for Maple Syrup

Maple syrup is cooked down from sap that you gather from sugar maple trees. There are no other ingredients, not even water. And it's incredibly good. On the market, maple syrups will often have corn syrup, gluten, color and other additives which can stretch profitability and decrease the steaming time required. Since it takes 35-45 gallons of the thin slightly sweet sap to make a gallon of pure maple syrup, doing it the old-fashioned way takes time but the result is pure YUM!

If you have the opportunity to tap into maple trees and decide you'd like to give this a try, plan ahead. If you steam off the sap inside your kitchen, it can strip your wall-paper! Been there, done that, at our old farmhouse. If you cook it down outside with a gas turkey fryer, the cost can end up being around $8 a pint. We began cooking over a wood fire a few years ago, using a tripod and kettle. Oh, and a large firewood supply. Whatever method you choose, proceed slowly and with caution.

Gather your supplies. We use food safe plastic jugs, buckets, and little water line spouts. Maple syrup production houses will collect into stainless steel vats using long water lines but we simply gather the jugs, pour into buckets and bring it to the kettle twice daily. I buy little pint jugs to store it in. Very fresh, very pure. Start tapping the trees when daytime temperatures are going to be above freezing but nights are still very cold. In Ohio, the sap will be running fast sometime in February.

Try my cousin Stephanie Krupla's recipe for Sticky Bun Tea Ring and you'll want to search for maple trees you can tap into yourself!