Camp Grouse and Rice, Dutch Oven
Breasted-out birds baked into rice with mushroom gravy. Feeds a whole camp off one lid.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 7 oz
- cal / oz
- 89
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 60 min
- water
- 900 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Grouse breasts, boneless | 5 birds' worth | cut into bite-size pieces; chicken thigh works if the hunting went badly |
|---|---|---|
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | |
| Condensed cream of mushroom soup | 2 cans | the garlic version is better |
| Canned mushrooms | 1 small can | drained |
| Long-grain white rice | 3 cups | not instant, not brown |
| Powdered whole milk | 1 cup powder | reconstitutes to about 5 cups |
| Sour cream powder | 1/2 cup | or an 8 oz tub if you have a cooler |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Get a bed of coals going. Set the oven over 8 to 10 coals and pour in the oil.
- Brown the meat in the hot oil. Two or three minutes, turning once. Pull it off the heat while it is still pink in the middle; it finishes in the bake. Leave every bit of the oil in the pot.
- Whisk the milk powder and sour cream powder into 900 ml of warm water until there are no lumps. Lumps do not dissolve later.
- Add the soup, mushrooms, rice, and the milk mixture to the oven. Stir until the rice is evenly spread and nothing is stuck to the bottom.
- Lid on. 6 coals underneath, 14 on the lid. Rotate the oven and the lid a quarter turn every 20 minutes so it does not scorch on one side.
- At 30 minutes, pull two coals off the lid and let the rest burn down. Do not lift the lid to check. The rice is cooking on trapped steam and you only get it once.
- Give it 15 more minutes. The top should be browned and the rice soft all the way through.
This is a camp casserole built around whatever came out of the brush. Grouse breast is lean and dries out fast, so it gets a quick sear and then finishes gently in the rice, surrounded by liquid. Browning first is not about doneness. It is about the fond left in the oil, which is most of the flavor in the finished pot.
The original used fresh sour cream and a half gallon of milk, which is a cooler problem. Powdered milk and sour cream powder do the same job and travel in a bag. Ratio matters more than technique here: three cups of dry rice needs roughly five cups of liquid plus what the soup brings, and the lid has to stay shut for the whole bake or the steam that cooks the rice walks off into the fire.
Packing
Rice, milk powder, and sour cream powder go into one bag at home, labeled with the water amount. Cans and oil ride in the food box. Meat stays in the cooler until the coals are ready.
Variations
- No birds: two cans of chicken, added with the soup instead of browned first.
- A cup of dehydrated onion in with the rice adds body without another cooler item.
- Cut the milk to 4 cups if you want it closer to a casserole than a porridge.
https://www.hunttalk.com/threads/cooking-grouse.209490