Looking for a rice-based one-pot recipe.

[Anonymous]

The Costco stuff i'm referring to is very basic and 'natural'. It's smoked and no chemical preservatives or colors added. Just a lot of sodium and the smoking process preserve it. It's also vacuum packed and refrigerated. Great price as it runs about an average of 15 to 17 dollars a pound, which for smoked stuff is pretty good. Costco has other cheaper varieties, but these are either farm raised, have preservatives, and/or extra coloring added–no thank you!

Speaking of preservatives, it's funny, but i've been noticing these showing up in even frozen foods now!??? Freezing is one of the best means of preserving to begin with, why the heck would they be adding preservatives…

[Delmar O’Donnell]

Thanks for all the great rice-based suggestions, time to start experimenting!

Regards the 99% vegetarian, this is funny. Thought I was unique in that respect, but I guess not. So out-of-fashion with the currently hot 'paleo' diet. People are always surprised that my vegetarianism doesn't come with a moral component, but I don't eat veg for moral reasons. I was raised that way, and never acquired a taste for meat. I will eat a little bird (chicken or turkey) when traveling, as long as it's bland and a small portion mixed in with other food. I figure other folks are welcome to eat as they please, no desire to recruit other people to my diet. Although…although… I'm well past life's halfway point, and I weigh the same I did in high school, so the diet is doing well by me, weight-wise. Of course, I'm sure plenty of carnivores can say the same, so not sure the diet is the cause. To each his own, or as Voltaire said it better: "Let us each cultivate our own garden."

So back to rice dishes: If dehydrated chicken is a recommended ingredient, how does one dehydrate precooked chicken? Not knowing anything about meat handling, I'm nervous about rotting the meat rather than dehydrating it.

[Edward Z]

I am a big fan of the santa fe beans, brown pre-dehydrated rice and sriracha. I am also super hip to a homemade batch of 10 bean lentil mix simmered in stock with romano cheese on it and some crushed red pepper with a squeeze of lemon. (Fellow 99%er) Lentils cream up nice, dehydrate like a BOSS and mix well with just about any type of rice/couscous/quinoa.

Cheers!

[Jim Colten]

would eat chicken on a pack trip. But how to dehydrate?

I dehydrate overnight (or a bit longer) at 125*F in dehydrator that circulates the air.

But, Important…While dehydrated cooked ground beef rehydrates pretty well, other meats do not unless they have been pressure cooked. Canned meats and meat in foil pouches has been pressure cooked. I imagine home pressure cooked meat would work also but I'm not equipped to try that.

Dehydrating ground beef: 1) cook thoroughly 2) rinse in HOT water to wash out fat. 3) spread on tray and dehydrate. The result looks a bit like grape nuts cereal but darker colored.

[Delmar O’Donnell]

Any reason to bring water to a boil BEFORE adding instant rice? On my last experiment, I just put rice, cool water, and a crushed bouillon cube into the pot, and put the whole thing on to boil. Seemed to cook up just fine. Mine was a variation on Kevin's recipe above, it was good:

1 c instant rice, 1 c water,
1 bouillon cube, into pot.
Boil. Add: 1/4 c Peas
1/4 c Meat (dehydrated chicken, soy)
Move to cozy. Add: 3T Sauce (BBQ), Walnuts

This is decent nutrition for regular eating, but I'm concerned it's not calorie dense enough for the trail, so I should probably add some butter or oil to the recipe.

[EDIT, was able to improve greatly on this recipe, see below.]

[Ben H.]

"Any reason to bring water to a boil BEFORE adding instant rice?…"

The reason would be texture. Cooking a starch like that you could end up with gooey overcooked rice on the outside by the time the inside is cooked. Your recipe uses a sauce which would probably cover up any texture issues. If you don't mind the texture, there is no reason not to do it like that.

[Daniel Collins]

I tried the Uncle Bens wild rice mix and was very impressed with the flavor.
I will be buying a bunch for backpacking. about 6 oz dry for "3 servings".

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

My Japanese friend makes a Japanese soup of dried green veggies and seaweed, chicken broth, a little arrowroot powder for thickening, a little toasted sesame oil for flavor, and various kinds of meats he finds in Japan (but here, tuna in a foil pouch or if you can find salmon or chicken breast in a foil pouch that would be similar). He just pours that hot over his instant rice and waits about 15 minutes. He let me taste it and I thought it was delicious!

He gets a special kind of rice that is a brown rice that is steamed, roasted, rolled and dehydrated. It resembles oats in appearance. Eden foods makes a similar product here in the US but I have never seen it in a store. I believe it is called flattened rice or something similar. I found Indian flattened rice in an Asian market. It's white rice that has been cooked and rolled flat. I have not tried it but it looks like it would be quite good.

[Daniel Collins]

I grew fond of Miso when I lived overseas and it's good for you also.
Rice cooked with Miso broth and seaweed strips with chicken sounds pretty good, and I bet your Japanese friend would approve. For seaweed – kelp or nori, dried, weighs next to nothing. The problem is the miso is somewhat heavy, weighing about 2 ounces in the dough form, per meal. I found powdered miso soup mix at one time, but I'm not sure if it has the same nutrients that fresh miso has.

Japanese soldiers in World War 2 lived almost entirely on white rice cooked in a mess kit over charcoal, flavored with fish sauce and miso, with canned crab meat or canned sardines, or canned mackeral.

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

My Japanese friend has a lot of pictures of his food mixed in with his hiking pictures.
https://plus.google.com/photos/104620544810418955412/albums?banner=pwa

He also has a hiking tips site (mostly in Japanese) with a recipe for JMT bread. It weighs a TON, like a brick, but it's really good and probably has a lot of calories. He's not ultralight. His pack weighs between 50 and 80lbs. I tried it on and it was pretty comfortable for such a heavy pack.
https://sites.google.com/site/completewalkerequipment/home/4-cooking/jmt-bread

[Dean F.]

Oddly, I also make a rice dish by flavoring it with a miso soup packet. You can basically do this with any dry instant soup packet, though you may have to divide the soup into smaller servings to keep it from being too strong.

Another of my favorites is cooking the instant rice with a packet of coconut milk powder from packitgourmet, add a mini-box of raisins and a pinch of red pepper powder for a Thai-like meal.

[Delmar O’Donnell]

So, for the last week and a half, I have been cooking various versions of one-pot rice dishes for my noon meal. I've been "dialing it in" on the following recipe. My wife is a good cook, and discerning, and if she ever admits she would eat one of my dishes again, that's success (particularly for a recipe with all dry ingredients). She likes this one; and after 10 iterations, so do I, but it's too "spicy hot" for my 9-year-old.

Kung Pao Rice & "Pork" (given here as a vegetarian recipe, but doesn't have to be)

Into pot: 1 c water
2 heaping t Kung Pao powder (been using "Sun Bird Seasonings" brand)
1/4 t salt
2 t sugar
2 t dried onion
1/4 c dried peas
1/4 c “Pork” soy. (This is a dry, soy-based pork substitute in granules that needs rehydration; use whatever meat you want.)
Light stove (I'm using a SuperCat with 3/4 oz alcohol) and bring to a boil. Then add:
1 c Instant rice.
At end of boil, add:
4 t peanuts (or slivered almonds)
4 t chopped dried pineapple (can add candied ginger, too).
Cover and place in cozy for 5-10 minutes.

The downside of this recipe is that it packs up in three bags, which is more complex than I like: the pre-boil mix, the rice, and the post-boil mix. Oh well.

If you like a hotter and spicier dish, add a little more of the Kung Pao powder (maybe an extra half teaspoon). As written, this dish is merely "spice warm" not "spice hot," regardless of what my kid thinks.

If you want to use brown rice, you need to add a little more alcohol to the stove, in SuperCat terms, maybe 1 oz instead of 3/4 oz. That way you can boil the brown rice for a few minutes (instructions say +10 but I've done far less using the cozy with success). The white rice doesn't need any additional boiling, and with an efficient alcohol stove, I bet you could make this recipe on 1/2 oz of alcohol.

[Daniel Collins]

I finally found the instant miso soup (Kikkoman brand) but am disappointed in the amount of MSG in it. Looking further for other alternatives.

[Rick M]

del

[Mark]

I don't have a dehydrator, it's also rare to come across fresh water in many of the places i hike here in Greece, so rehydrating food tends to be a bit tough on many hikes i'll need to carry in whatever water i cook with.

Saying that though i do tend to cook a lot of rice, usually use uncle Ben's quick rice.

For flavouring it really depends on my mood.
Sometimes i'll cut up some peppers, spring onions and mushrooms and put then in a bag (not dehydrated), other times in cooler weather i'll crack a couple of eggs into a bag and have egg fried rice without the frying.

Tastiest is usually Chorizo though, it saves really well pretty much in any conditions, and has a great flavour, the paprika also gives the rice a nice colour.

I'll hardly ever eat straight rice, usually i'll just throw in whatever i have in the cupboard before i leave.
Dehydrated mushroom soup with rice was nice :)

[Greg F]

I like to make Tacos with Rice and TVP (Textured Vegatable Protien) or dehydrated black beans instead of meat. Jusat mix up your own seasoning or buy one. Bring Tortillas, a hard cheese and you are done. It is really filling after a day on the trail. Everything can be made in freezer bags and doesnt require plates, forks or bowls.

[Author]

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