Dutch ovens are one of oldest cooking pots since late 1600s . The early Dutch people used dry sand to make their molds, giving their pots a smoother surface and pots were so great for slow cooking. Around early 1700s an Englishman named Abraham Darby decided to observe the Dutch system for making these cooking pot and later he patented a casting procedure similar to the Dutch process and began to produce cast metal cooking vessels for Britain and her new American Colonies. The cookware started being known as dutch oven in USA but is also known as french oven or casserole ovens in other part of world.

Dutch ovens are best suited for long, slow cooking, such as in making roasts, stews, and casseroles. Some dutch oven are used for camping and modern dutch ovens are designed to be used in cook top and oven. They are smooth and flat bottomed. Some older styles, such as the unglazed ovens by Lodge, CampChef, and Wagner, retain the bale handle, while others, such as the enameled versions by Staub, Sante, and le Creuset, have two loop handles. Modern ovens may also be made of thick cast aluminum or ceramic.

For many chefs and home cooks loves the enameled coated dutch oven as does not require seasoning or its maintainability without losing much of cast iron heat conducting property. However, deep frying in enamel based dutch oven is not recommended.

So What is the Best Dutch Oven used by Professional and Home Chefs?

Best Bare Cast Iron Dutch Oven

Best Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven

For more details, see ourLe Creuset 5.5 quart dutch oven for best dutch oven.

Dutch Oven CookBook: Recipes for What to Cook In Dutch Oven:

The Dutch Oven Cookbook: Recipes for the Best Pot in Your Kitchen
101 Things to Do with a Dutch Oven

What type of food usually can be cooked in a dutch ovens? You will be surprised to see one can cook amazingly diverse food in dutch ovens such as cake, souffle, beans, pancakes, cobblers, breads, sauces, pizza, soup, stew and lot of meat and potatoes dishes as well as vegetarian meals.

Right now, a few Dutch oven are on sale at Amazon at discounted price;

Lodge Logic EC6D43 Enameled Cast-Iron 6-Quart Dutch Oven, Island Spice Red
Le Creuset L2501-26-67 Enameled Cast-Iron 5-1/2-Quart Round French Oven, Red Le Crueset with Lifetime Warranty:
Lodge L Series Enamel 6 Quart Dutch Oven, Patriot Red Lodge:

What type of food usually can be cooked in a dutch ovens? You will be surprised to see one can cook amazingly diverse food in dutch ovens such as cake, souffle, beans, pancakes, cobblers, breads, sauces, pizza, soup, stew and lot of meat and potatoes dishes as well as vegetarian meals.

Check out Dutch oven cooking recipe book for more ideas.

Further Reading

Lodge Color Enameled Cast-Iron 6-Quart Dutch Oven
Le Creuset 5.5 quart dutch oven