Cook Real Food on One Burner

Camp food gets bad when people try to cook the way they cook at home with a tenth of the equipment. The fix is to move the work forward. Chopping, marinating and measuring happen in your kitchen, and on site you are only applying heat in the right order.

How to do it

1. Do the prep at home

   Dice the onion, mince the garlic, mix the spice blend, marinate the protein, portion the rice. Everything arrives ready. This is the whole technique and it takes twenty minutes at home.

2. Cook in order of what takes longest

   Anything dense first, then aromatics, then quick items, then the acid and fresh herbs off heat at the end. Building flavor in layers is what separates good camp food from boiled camp food.

3. Use the lid and the residual heat

   Bring rice or pasta to a boil, cook it a couple of minutes, then kill the flame and leave the lid on. It finishes on stored heat and you save a meaningful amount of fuel.

4. Cook once, eat twice

   Make extra of anything grain or bean based. Tomorrow it becomes a wrap, a hash with an egg on it, or a cold salad with dressing. Two meals, one fuel burn, one cleanup.

5. Bring one acid and one fat

   A lemon, a lime or a small bottle of vinegar plus decent olive oil will rescue almost anything. Camp food fails flat far more often than it fails burnt.

6. Clean while the pot is still warm

   Water in, scrape while warm, and it takes thirty seconds. Let it cool and set and it is a job. Strain the water and pack out the food solids.

Where people go wrong

• Cooking a recipe with five components on one burner. Pick things that layer into one pot.
• Prepping at camp. You are chopping onions in the dark on your knee and it shows.
• Boiling everything the whole time. Wastes fuel and overcooks the food.
• Dumping dishwater at camp. It attracts animals. Strain, pack out solids, scatter the gray water well away from camp and water.