Inaugural Dutch Oven Cook Off at Roundup Arts Festival - KOTA Territory News

Inaugural Dutch Oven Cook Off at Roundup Arts Festival

The Buffalo Roundup at Custer State Park offers much more then the herding of bison.

The 19th annual Buffalo Roundup Arts Festival features 150 vendors, selling many South Dakota made products.

But on Saturday the festival played host to an inaugural event that showcases an age old form of cooking, the 'Cabela's Challenge Dutch Oven Cook Off'.

It's a method of cooking that's been used for hundreds of years.

"Anything that you can cook in your oven, or you bake in your oven you can cook in a Dutch oven," said Corri Bliese, a ‘Dutcher'.

A Dutch oven is a cast iron cooking pot with a tight – fitting lid.

Corri Bliese and her husband Mike are members of the 'Black Hills Dutchers'.

She says learning to cook with the oven takes practice and precision.

"We have charts that we follow for example this is a 12 inch pot and if I wanted to cook something at 350 degrees I would put 8 coals on the bottom and 17 coals on the top," said Bliese.

15 teams competed in the cook off, which was held for the first time at the Buffalo Roundup Arts Festival.

"We cooked sticky buns to start the day off with some sweets. We did an enchilada manicotti casserole for our main and right now we are working on a pumpkin pecan upside down cake," said Bliese.

Besides all the delicious food, the cook off is all about a little friendly competition.

"You get points for the difficulty of your recipe if you take everything and just put it in, dump cans it in you're not going to get as high a score," said Bliese.

As the Bliese's prepare their final dish, people gather to taste their creation.

"The spoon's pretty clean when it comes out so we're going to be ready to take it into the judging tent in just a few minutes," said Bliese.

The judges (including our own Eric Gardner!) taste the dishes first , then it's off to the masses.

As the samples are dished out, it's another chance to showcase the age old tradition of Dutch oven cooking.

The Bliese's pumpkin pecan upside down cake didn't win, but the team that did win gets to compete in the World Dutch Oven Competition in Salt Lake City.

Saturday's competition almost didn't happen at all. With the burn ban in place there needed to be extra steps taken to prevent a fire.

Officials in Pierre gave the green light to use charcoal, as long as a fire truck was available on scene.