Recipes (mostly dinners) with meat in them. Also included are some methods of dehydrating meat at home for use when in the woods.
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Using a commercial dehydrator, we dried out chicken that had been soaked in a flavored marinade (two kinds, actually, one soy-based and one Italian-style).
What we didn't realize was that poultry goes directly from being "squashy" (and thus still hydrated) to being, well, hard. We ended up with well-seasoned chicken-flavored rocks that were much too much effort to eat after a day of backpacking.
I imagine that if you can get the meat just right, so that it actually has a jerky-like texture to it, it wouldn't work that badly.
Oh, for those of you who are wondering why we didn't try to re-hydrate it... We did. Didn't work, even after 24 hours of soaking in warm water. Trust me, we had six months to play with it. It all boils down to one thing.-- TRY YOUR RECIPES AT HOME FIRST!!!
FROM pnsf01dw@UMASSD.EDU (Dennis J. Wilkinson)
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I dry largish quantities of hamburger before a trip. This is how I prepare it: Buy 1 lb lean or premium hamburger (find ground round or ground chuck on sale). Chop up 1 onion, 2-3 cloves of garlic. I like adding a bit of lemon grass (available fresh at many Asian grocers; dried is OK. 1 tbsp dried; maybe 1/4 cup fresh). Brown hamburger together with onion in a large frying pan; stir well to crumble things up. Cook until it's almost done (say, until there's almost no pink left). Tilt pan to collect liquid; drain it off (that'll get rid of a lot of the fat, which makes things go rancid). Add garlic & lemon grass; 1-2 tbsp flour, & soy sauce & black pepper to taste. Cook another minute or two. Remove from heat. Turn everything out onto a large baking sheet.
Pop baking sheet into a warm oven (120-140); dry until crunchy. Pat remaining grease off with a paper towel; put into a Ziploc bag. Keeps at least 2 weeks on the trail. Usage: Reconstitutes in warm water; cooks in about 5 minutes in boiling water. Makes a great addition to spaghetti sauces, soups, stews, etc.
from tran@sun-valley.stanford.edu
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Ingredients:
Before leaving the house, premix the oregano, parsley, rosemary, salt and olive oil and store in an appropriate container.
At camp, boil the rice for the required time (usually 10minutes). Remove from water and allow to cool while preparing the trout. Prepare a bed of coals to cook on.
To prepare the trout, slit them along the belly and remove the entrails. Make a small incision at the gills and remove them. Finally, use your thumbnail to remove the kidney, which is located inside the body cavity right next to the spine. Do not remove the slippery coating on the skin of the trout.
Open the rice packet, add the spices to it, and mix. Get a piece of aluminum of suitable size and put one spoonful of rice in the middle. Spread the rice to provide a bed which will protect the trout from burning. Stuff the trout with rice and place on the foil. Put another spoonful of rice on top of the trout and then make a rolled seam with the foil. Try to make the seams tight, and leave a little room inside the foil for expansion. You can put up to two trout in the same packet. Place the packets on the coals and let them cook undisturbed for about 10 minutes. Retrieve the packets, (careful!) open them and enjoy.
Larry Pyeatt
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Anyhow, I will make my token contribution here, two that I remember as being particularly successful with the other members of the group:
Amounts are sketchy as this is a very plastic base on which to improvise:
Cook 1 part bulgur (plus tomatoes, etc) to somewhat more than two parts water and when close to done, add the turkey and the gravy mix (half a package may do for two people) which should thicken the whole mess a bit.
Variations are endless, but it is hearty tasting and filling, and bulgur seems to cook faster than rice or the thicker varieties of pasta, is more compact than the latter, etc., and is closer to brown rice than white for those watching their nutrition (look out, there's nutrients in that pot!) Some very strange things can be done with cous-cous as well and it only needs the addition of boiling water.
Ian Kay
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Eduardo Santiago (santiago@lerad.pa.dec.com)
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Tastes GREAT!
To REALLY get all the fat out, put browned hamburger in a large
wire colander (like a large tea strainer), and then put the whole
thing into a large pot of water and let it sit for a while.
The fat will go to the top a harden. Take of the fat, remove you
colander
with meat, and let it drain a bit. Then go through the drying
process. Obviously, because the meat has been soaked, it will
take longer to dry, but the lowered fat content makes a BIG
difference in storage and rehydration time.
For really good results, buy or make a dehydrator :-)
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I got the idea from an AT hiker in the Smokies.
The main goal of the process is to extract as much grease as
possible from the meat. For blotting grease I used newspaper
covered with a couple layers of paper towels. Maybe someone has a
better suggestion.
1) get some ground beef. The leaner the better
2) cook it up and drain off as much grease as possible
3) spread the hamburger out in a cookie sheet on something to
blot the grease. Put this in the oven at ~100 F for ~8
hours. There is a significant color change (darkening) to
let you know when its done. You'll need to change the grease
blotter a couple times and stir the hamburger around to make
sure it all gets dried.
4) spread the hamburger out on a grease blotter and let it sit
out and dry at room temperature for a few days. You'll need
to keep it covered and you'll also need to periodically
change the blotter and mix up the hamburger. I found that
after a day or so it was sufficient to just change the paper
towels as not much grease was getting through to the
newspaper any more.
Now, what you have closely resembles gravel, but don't worry it
becomes edible if you just boil it for ~5 minutes. We mainly used
it for Hamburger helper:
1) boil the water (hopefully purifying it)
2) add the gravel and wait 5 minutes
3) add the Hamburger Helper noodles & let them cook
4) add the Hamburger Helper seasoning and cook to your own
taste I also used the stuff to make some pretty good taco's
once. We found we could get 2 meals for two people out of a
single box (but then we always had a substantial dessert
with it - pudding or cheesecake)
We packaged the gravel up, using a Seal-A-Meal, into 1/2 pound
(original weight) packets. A pound of hamburger turns into about
a cup of gravel after drying. I don't know the weight off hand,
it isn't much, maybe 8 ounces. All this will vary greatly depending
on how finely you break up the hamburger and how lean it is to
start with.
Peter B. Trail Information:
Time: 15 minutes Water: 3 cups Equipment: 1 pot, 1 frying pan, and a spatula Servings 4
Ingredients:
two 2 1/2 ounce pkgs. cooked pressed beef, dried and crushed 1Tbl.dry milk 2 tsp. Butter Buds 2 TBL. dried minced onion 1/2 c. French's instant mashed potato powder, or 2 c. potato buds 3 to 4 TBL. butter or margarine 1 pkg. instant brown gravy mix
Trail Directions:
Trail Information:
time 15 min. water 1 1/2-2 cups equipment 1 pot servings 4
Making and Drying the Chili:
1 pound ground chuck 1/2 cup finely chopped onion 2 cloves garlic, minced 1/3 c. finely chopped green pepper Big pinch of oregano small pinch of powdered cumin 1 TBL. chili powder 1/2 tsp. salt 6-ounce can tomato paste
Brown the meat and spoon the fat off. Add the onion, garlic, green-pepper, spices, salt, and tomato paste. Stir and cook for 15 min. Let it sit for an hour if you can- this enhances the flavor. Spread chili on a greased shallow pan and dry in the oven at 140F with door propped open.
Trail Directions:
1. Add 2 cups water to the 2 cups dried mix, stir, cover, and
bring to a boil.
2. Cook slowly for 10 minutes.
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Trail Information: Time 1 hour soaking, 45 min. to 1 hr. cooking Water 2 to 3 cups Equipment 1 pot (2 if cooking rice) Serving 3 (easily expanded by doubling or tripling the recipe)Prepare Ahead Ingredients:
have attached some recipes using an exciting new product developed in Australia. It is a dried ground beef (not jerky!!!) which when water is added reconstitutes to a cooked ground beef. The process allows premium beef to be dried so that meat protein is preserved. Only the flavorings, pasta, vegetables or rice need to be added to produce a convenient meal.
regards,
Robyn Donovan
(donovar@dpi.qld.gov.au)
Mexican Mix (DRIED GROUND BEEF RECIPES from Australia)
Add all ingredients together. If a little dry, add water to make
it the consistency you like. Should not be sloppy. Can also take
more than one bottle of tomato pasta sauce.
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Thai Green Curry (DRIED GROUND BEEF RECIPES from Australia)
add water if necessary after cooking.
Brown onions in a pan for 3 minutes, add garlic, curry powder
beef stock and all other ingredients. Bring to the boil and
simmer for 10 minutes. Vary curry powder if too hot!
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Rices of the World- Sate (DRIED GROUND BEEF RECIPES from Australia)
In a bowl place 1 cup water, dried beef, peas, contents of rice packet and water according to their directions. Cook for the time suggested on the packet, stir and let stand for 5 - 10 mins.
Note: SETTLERS IS NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH JERKY. SETTLERS IS A NEW COOKED DRIED GROUND BEEF PRODUCT AVAILABLE IN AUSTRALIA FROM PO Box 88,MORNINGSIDE 4170 AUSTRALIA Tel: 61 7 899 2857 fax: 61 7 988 0542
Editors Note: So as not to endorse any products specifically, it s perfectly acceptable to substitute dried hamburger or beef jerky for SETTLERS.