Chai-Spiced Apple Pear Sauce
Dried fruit and spice rehydrated in one pot. Eat it warm or stir it into oatmeal.
- calories
- 320
- weight
- 2.6 oz
- cal / oz
- 123
- protein
- 2 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 3 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 13 min
- water
- 300 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.
- Dessert
- Breakfast
- Snack
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Bikepacking
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Dried apple rings | 1/2 cup | chopped small at home so they rehydrate faster |
|---|---|---|
| Dried pears | 1/3 cup | chopped to the same size |
| Brown sugar | 2 tsp | |
| Ground cinnamon | 1/2 tsp | |
| Ground ginger | 1/4 tsp | |
| Ground cardamom | 1/4 tsp | |
| Ground cloves | 1/8 tsp | a pinch is plenty, cloves take over |
| Citric acid or powdered lemon | 1/8 tsp | stands in for the lemon juice |
| Salt | a pinch | |
| Vanilla | 1/4 tsp | optional, a dropper bottle or a scrape of vanilla sugar |
Method
- Dump the bag into the pot and add 300 ml of water. Stir once so nothing sits dry on top.
- Bring it to a boil, then drop to the lowest flame you can hold and simmer eight minutes. Stir every couple of minutes or the sugar scorches on the bottom.
- Kill the heat and let it sit covered for five minutes. The fruit keeps drinking water after the stove is off.
- Mash it against the side of the pot with your spoon. Stop early for chunks, keep going for sauce.
- Add vanilla now if you carried it. Heat cooks it off.
The original runs on fresh fruit and a pressure cooker, neither of which fits in a pack. Dried apples and pears do the same job in reverse: instead of cooking water out of fruit, you cook water back in. The result is thicker than stovetop applesauce because dried fruit only takes up so much liquid, which is the point when you are eating out of the pot you cooked in.
The lemon juice becomes citric acid powder. It is not for flavor so much as for keeping the fruit tasting like fruit rather than like sugar. Cloves are the ingredient to underdo. Half the listed amount is still noticeable and the full amount in a small pot goes medicinal fast.
Packing
Fruit, sugar, spices, citric acid, and salt all go into one snack bag at home. Chop the fruit before you leave, not in camp with a pocket knife.
Variations
- Pour it over a bowl of instant oats and skip the sugar in the oats.
- Add 2 tbsp of instant milk powder at the end for something closer to a pudding.
- A tablespoon of couscous stirred in while it simmers thickens it and adds calories.
https://ohmyveggies.com/recipe-chai-spiced-instant-pot-pear-applesauce