Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Cocotte along with all the recipes employing Cocotte presented on this site, with 88 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cocotte recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Cocotte as a major wild food ingredient.

The origins of metal casserole cookware (Dutch ovens in the US) are Dutch and British. During the 17th century metal cookware tended to be brass, very expensive and manufactured in sand moulds in the Netherlands. Studying the manufacture of these items, the Iron founder Abraham Derby reasoned that they cold be produced much more cheaply using cast iron. In 1706, with the of aid James Thomas, a Welshman he managed to cast iron cookware in sand using the Dutch process and was granted a patent in 1707. As a result, the resultant cookware became known as Dutch Ovens (from Dutch process ovens) and are known as such in the US even today (they are actually known as braadpan in the Netherlands).

As these cast iron pots were typically made to cook casseroles, they became known as French Casseroles and then just casseroles throughout the remainder of the world. Later advancements let to the basic cast iron cookware being enamelled on the inside, and became known as cocottes in France (French ovens in the US).

Similar vessels are the South African potjie which is more a cast iron pot-bellied pot with a round base and three legs (though in South Africa cast iron casseroles also tend to be called potjies) the Japanese tetsunabe and the sač, a traditional Balkan cast-iron oven along with the Australian Bedourie oven and Spanish cazuela.