Learn how to cook meat in a wood-burning oven.

Many people build earthen ovens to obtain the crunchy crust and chewy crumb texture that only a high-temperature, holding oven can provide. But wood-burning ovens are much more than bread. Cooking meat in wood-burning ovens requires some practice, but soon you will be able to bake, roast, steam or stew.

After an oven manufacturing workshop, some new owners wrote: "Roasted sweet potatoes, zucchini and onions in a cumin orange glaze with roasted garlic pork tenderloin (for meat eaters). Roast apples, then roast eggplants, pumpkins and leeks to make fans. Rosemary polenta, vanilla grilled salmon and peach pie. This morning: cinnamon rolls."

Remember the time, energy and firewood you put into the oven, you will want to make the most of it. Consciousness, attention and experience will be your best teacher.

Through practice, you will have a reliable sense of the correct temperature. For example, when I can hold my fist in the oven for a full 8 seconds, or when I throw a handful of flour on the oven floor, it takes 10 to 20 seconds to turn dark brown. A thermometer is fine, but a very hot oven will destroy a typical oven thermometer that can only reach 500 degrees.

The following is a specific example from our own tandoor feast, to provide you with a brief idea, we hope that this is a good cooking inspiration for the oven. They are roughly the same order in which you bake them, although in a medium-sized oven (plus or minus 27 inches in diameter), you are unlikely to get all of these foods in one baking. You may need to add more light, unless your oven is particularly thick and well insulated:

• Three-minute pizza with oven-baked vegetables (winter roots or summer murmurs of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and zucchini) at a temperature of 600 to 700 degrees. This is the highest heat of the oven and can only last for the duration of one or two pizzas, unless you maintain a small flame in the oven to ensure the heat at the top of the pizza. • Sourdough bread (see Making Homemade Sourdough Bread with Leavening Agent), croissants, raisin yeast bread, sticky rolls. • Whole garlic roast chicken, dried apples and Asian pears, roasted with ginger wine sauce. • Cakes, biscuits, vegetable stew, fish stew, roasted parsnips and potatoes with rosemary and garlic. • Baked beans or soup, rice pudding (can be left to cook overnight), steamed whole-wheat sprouted rye bread, steamed Christmas pudding or fruit cake, oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow. If your oven is large enough, you can try cooking the flan on a covered steamed bread tray to provide a Bain-marie (water bath) effect. • Finally, when the oven is too cold to cook but it is still warm, you can incubate yogurt, dried herbs or fruit, or dry your next batch of wood, which will help make your next oven faster and more efficient combustion.

If the oven floor looks too hot compared to other parts of the oven, place the flipped bakeware on the floor to retain a layer of insulating air and prevent the bottom of the pan from burning. Remember, the burnt offering is part of this process. As you experiment, you will get used to your own oven and the unpredictability of time. Start with less demanding wet vegetables, such as soups, stews, and braised vegetables, which are all cooked very well in a clay pot. Put a lid on the pot to keep moisture.

Once you understand how hot your oven is under the combustion, it is easy to switch to roasts, pies, and cakes.

Something that takes a long time in an ordinary oven may cook faster in an earth oven. In a restaurant where I built the oven, the chef tested it with whole eggplants. A few minutes later, when he went to turn it, he was surprised to find that it was completely cooked. ("Faster than a fucking microwave!" he said.) Bread that takes 35 minutes at 450 degrees can also be cooked at 350 degrees or even 250 degrees, but it takes more time to complete. (When the internal temperature reaches 195 to 200 degrees, the bread is considered cooked.)

Kiko Denzer is a sculptor and oven manufacturer living in Oregon. His book "Building Your Own Earth Furnace" provides detailed information on the construction and use of wood-burning earthen stoves, including selection of soil, firing techniques, insulation materials, chimneys, sculptures and beautifully finished stucco, as well as oven photos and references material. You can buy your own earthen stove in our online store. 

Read more about how to cook in a wood-burning oven: roasting and roasting in a wood-burning oven.

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