I don’t know about you but I’m tired of carrying cans, MRE pouches and other weighty and in most cases completely unhealthy meals when I’m out on the trail.
So in this series of John Walks trail food I’m looking at making hearty, filling nutritious meals that weigh next to nothing and only require you to add boiling water to enjoy. (or cold water if you’re in a pinch)
Last time we looked at the John Walks Homemade Beef Jerky, this episode is a staple classic Bolognese!
Total packed weight per meal only 100g
So first things first, your shopping list.
Now again, at this point remember that this is a BASIC foundation bolognese sauce recipe and you can add literally anything to this as long as it follows the same principles of No Oil, No Fat and must be able to be pureed and powdered as an end product.
So with that in mind here is a list of appliances and ingredients.
For this to work same as ours you will need a –
- Dehydrator
- Stick blender
- Stand up retort pouches (from eBay, link at the bottom of the page)
And the recipe ingredients as follows –
- 1 can of chopped tomatoes 400g
- 1 Carton of Pasata 500g
- 500g lean mince beef
- 1 regular onion
- 1 regular Carrot
- Pinch of Thyme
- Pinch of Parsley
- Pinch of Marjoram
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 1 nest of Rice noodles
- 1 teaspoon of corn flower
For this I don’t mind using the supermarkets value range, I’m certainly not a fan of the value ready meals etc but for chopped tomatoes and the like there is no reason these cheaper alternatives can’t be used.
Apologies if the first half of this is teaching some of you to suck eggs, but to give a more inclusive method of this recipe it’s necessary to teach a basic Bolognese
So to start with get your mince.
The leaner the better as we are removing all the fat we can, simply because fat doesn’t dehydrate it retains moisture and because of this will go rancid spoiling your meal.
Open your mince and add to a large pan over a medium heat, don’t use oil as any fat left will aid the pan’s lubrication efforts.
We’re just browning the mince and removing the fat as shown in the pictures.
Once nicely browned use a slotted spoon to remove the mince and place it on a absorbent piece of kitchen roll, leaving as much of the fat and moisture behind as possible.
Time to rack it up on the dehydrator racks, at this point I strongly recommend using grease proof paper as shown in the pictures.
Make sure your mince is crumbled up very fine and set your dehydrator to 70 degrees for 7 hours.
Moving on to the sauce.
The idea behind this is that we make a sauce powder, you can add literally anything to this like any amount of vegetables you want to really infuse this with some seriously good nutrients.
So first things first chop all the vegies nice and small and add them to a fresh pan over a high heat .
After everything has wilted a bit add in your chopped tomatoes and passata.
Now add your seasoning.
At this point you should have a big gloopy mess, bring it to a gentle simmer and leave it uncovered for about 30 mins to reduce its water content.
If there is some Bolognese specialists out there that are Michelin rated that do this sauce another way that’s absolutely fine too, there is no one right way to do this just make sure at the end the sauce is thick and has no oil in it.
Once the pan has reduced, it’s time to turn it into a smooth liquid with the use of the stick blender.
Keep going until the sauce has no chunks left in.
Now it’s time to rack it up in the same way as before with the mince using grease proof paper is mandatory here for obvious reasons.
But make sure the layers are evenly spread out to encourage even drying.
And add the racks to the dehydrator.
As the time progresses keep swapping the trays around periodically to ensure everything is drying well.
After 7 hours your mince will be crispy and completely dry, remove from the dehydrator and store in an air tight jar.
Add another 2 hours to your dehydrator for the remainder of the sauce.
When the time is up you will see that the sauce has completely solidified, if there are any wet parts put it on for another hour or so until it is brittle.
Start peeling the grease proof paper off the sauce sheet until its completely removed.
Add all the flakes to the pestle and motor and grind it in to a super fine powder, (this part smells the best)
After you’ve got a fine powder you are pretty much done, as prepper food or a pantry filler just add the powder to an air tight jar and add an oxygen absorber and that’s it.
For our backpacking meal we have chosen rice noodles as our base but you could easily swap out the noodles for Cous-Cous or any quick cook pasta.
So all we need to do now is add them to our stand up retort pouches.
You can use mylar bags too but we recommend the retort pouches because you can safely boil in the bag, they are completely food safe and have rip-to-open tops.
We added 5 teaspoons of powder to one teaspoon of corn flour.
Add a nest of noodles and a generous handful of your dried ground minced beef.
This is the point you would seal the bag with a heat sealer, these cost very little from ebay but hair straighteners do the same job.
Adding an oxygen absorber would make this pack last for years in a cool dark place.
So let’s say we’re on the trail, time to cook it up!
Add 300ml of boiling water to the mixture and fold the top over to help with the heat retention.
It will look quite soupy to start with just leave it for 5-10 mins for the noodles to soften and cook, then mix the entire package together thoroughly.
With this type of pouch you could just eat it straight out the packet which cuts down on time etc, or if you like the finer things of camping life you can pour it out after cooking, into a bowl.
Take some Parmesan cheese flakes for a luxury addition.
Hope you enjoy this, any questions please add them to the comments.
We got the stand up retort pouches from here – https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Retort-Stand-Up-Pouches-x20-great-for-home-made-meals-and-boil-in-the-bag-/173001400967?roken=cUgayN&soutkn=aQYs4S
Kind regards
John Walks
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