Cooking with cast iron: how to light a campfire

Fire. There's something about it that hooks into us as humans, deep down in our DNA. It's probably the fact that we instinctively and subconsciously associate it with warmth and food and connection.

But these days, plenty of us are pretty disconnected from basic fire as a way of cooking food. What with the ease of modern stoves and barbeques and even camping kit, it's not surprising. Making a fire and cooking over it is, well, mostly seen as too hard.

We want to help change that. To help bring us back to the goodness of some of the basic things our modern world has moved away from - like rugging up in wool and cooking over an open fire.

Because there's a pure pleasure and simple satisfaction that comes from cooking on a campfire. Particularly when you have the right tools.

This is the essence of our collaboration with Ironclad. A partnership forged through a shared love of the outdoors, of getting back to the classics, and of rugging up around the campfire to cook a feed and share a yarn.

Together, we've created a limited-edition cast iron cook set. While you can cook with Ironclad's high-quality cast iron on anything from induction to gas, we reckon there's nothing quite like cooking with it over a campfire.

But first, of course, we need to light the fire. Thankfully, we thought about this too when creating the cook set, and have packed it up in a recycled timber box filled with wood wool that's the perfect starter kit for your campfire.

What you need:

• Flint, lighter or matches
• Small axe or hatchet
• Shovel, fire extinguisher or bucket of water

How to light your campfire:

• Clear a space and prep a fire pit - if possible dig down to the dark soil.
• Put a pile of wood wool from the Swanndri x Ironclad cook set packaging in the base of the pit.
• Break the cook set box down into its separate sides, then use your axe or hatchet to slice about half of it into thin sticks, chopping with the grain.
• Lie the thinly cut sticks over your wood wool in a way that forms a cone or tee-pee over the wood wool.
• Light the wood wool. Give it a blow for some extra oxygen if necessary.
• When the thin sticks have caught, add the rest of the box.
• When that's all caught, add the rest of your dry, untreated wood or coals to get your campfire to a suitable size.

Once you've got a good base of glowing embers, you're good to cook. So grab your limited edition Swanndri x Ironclad Dutch Oven, gather everyone around and get started.

Whether you're cooking straight on the coals or on a stand or grill, remember that your Ironclad handle will get hot - so use the mitt! It also pays to remove the pan from the campfire to stir it, otherwise you risk unsettling the embers and ending up with ash in your food. Then again, some say ash adds flavour anyway.

And that's about it. Get out there, give it a go, and let the good food and good yarns flow.

P.S. before you go and blame us for your bonfire getting out of hand - some essential safety stuff:

• Don't be an idiot. Fire is awesome. But fire is also dangerous - to people and our environment. So take care to keep it always under control.
• Check the local fire danger in the region, and check if you need a permit at checkitsalright.nz
• Set up your campfire a good distance from anything flammable - tents, bush, vehicles etc. Clear a space around your campfire - at least 3 metres is good.
• You don't need three-metre-high flames to heat your beans. So keep it small - less than half a metre high and wide.
• Look while you cook. Never leave your campfire unattended. Once it's lit, stay with it.
• Put it out. Always keep something on hand to put the fire out at once if necessary, like a bucket of water. And when you're done, don't just let it die out, douse it with lots of water and then dig the embers in with some soil.