Cooking Rice & Bacon for Camping & Hiking

Well, yesterday afternoon I was back at it again. Last week I cooked rice over the camping stove, and sliced some preserved Chinese-style bacon into it.


But last week the rice was not seasoned enough - I had figured that the bacon would do it.


So this time I followed some commenters' advice and added an OXO-type bouillon cube and some seasoning and pepper to the mix.


I grabbed a 1 liter Nalgene bottle full of water, my butane/propane camping stove, my Light My Fire scout model ferrocerium rod, a stainless steel bowl, a wooden spoon, my Mora knife and the ingredients.


All of this pretty light and you really don't need much more than this for a few days worth of meals - assuming that you have enough rice, and additional ingredients to build out the meals.


I crumbled the bouillon cube into the dry rice.


I crumbled it into 1 cup of dry rice, into which I had already mixed salt and pepper. In retrospect, I should only have used half a cube - the rice was too salty in the end.


I sliced up the bacon. It was a bit too fatty for me in the end - I think I would do well to cook the bacon over a fire to remove some of the fat, or fry it up a bit and save the fat on the side for other meals.


The stove is a good one, but of course I wouldn't want to bring it on an extended trip, just for an overnighter. The trouble with this type of stove is that it performs poorly in cold weather, and of course the canisters are not refillable, and the waste cylinder is bulky to trek out.


The bowl serves as a lid and eating surface. I'm not sure if it was because of the level of heat I had set the stove at, but I actually had to cook the rice for about 35 minutes instead of 20, before it was ready.


In the end, it was *alright* but not great: the bacon was too fatty, the rice was too salty. But at least I'm experimenting at home so that I'm not stuck with an unappetizing meal out in the bush.

That's all. Don't worry. I won't post about rice and bacon cooking next time.

Cheers,

Mungo

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