Camp Skillet Creamed Asparagus
Tough asparagus, bacon fat, and cream, cooked slow in a cast-iron pan until the stalks give up.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 47
- protein
- 13 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 60 min
- total time
- 75 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Dutch oven
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Asparagus | 1 lb | thick, woody spears are the point here |
|---|---|---|
| Bacon | 3 slices | diced before you leave home |
| Heavy cream or half and half | 1 1/2 cups | cooler item; shelf-stable boxed cream also works |
| Shredded parmesan | 1 cup | |
| Salt | 1 1/2 tsp | |
| Cracked black pepper | 1 tsp |
Method
- Set a cast-iron skillet over the grate on a bed of coals, not open flame. Cook the diced bacon until crisp.
- Lift the bacon out with a spoon and leave every bit of the grease behind.
- Snap the tough ends off the asparagus, lay the spears in the fat, and turn them for five minutes until they take on color.
- Pour in the cream, scatter the parmesan over the top, add the salt and pepper, and return the bacon.
- Cover the skillet, pull most of the coals to a ring around the edge, and let it sit an hour. Check every twenty minutes and add a coal or two if it stops bubbling.
- It is done when a spear bends under a fork without a fight and the cream has pulled together into a sauce.
This is a recipe for asparagus you found too late. Spears that went woody in the field will never soften on a quick sear, so the whole method is aimed at time: an hour in fat and cream, covered, over low coals. The cream keeps the pan from scorching while the heat works through the fibers, and the parmesan thickens what would otherwise stay thin.
Coals, not flame. Cast iron over direct fire will burn the bottom of the cream long before the stalks give up. Pull a ring of coals around the skillet and feed it slowly. This one needs a cooler for the cream and bacon, which puts it at car camp or basecamp — the boxed-cream variation is the version that goes further from the truck.
Packing
Dice the bacon and grate the parmesan at home in separate bags. Cream and bacon ride in the cooler. Salt and pepper premixed in one small tin saves you two containers.
Variations
- Shelf-stable boxed cream and a hard aged parmesan wedge make this a cooler-free basecamp dish.
- Cook it in a lidded dutch oven with coals on the lid if you want the top to brown.
- Green beans take the same treatment and the same hour.
https://realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/traeger-grilled-creamed-wild-asparagus-recipe