Cheyenne-Style Camp Chili
Ground beef, chiles, and oregano in one heavy pot over a fire.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 55 min
- water
- 400 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
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Freeze-dried ground beef | 6 oz | stands in for 1 kg fresh; rehydrates in the pot |
|---|---|---|
| Cooking oil | 2 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Dried minced onion | 3 tbsp | one medium onion's worth |
| Garlic granules | 1 tsp | one clove |
| Sun-dried tomato halves | 1/2 cup | replaces three peeled fresh tomatoes |
| Tomato powder | 2 tbsp | |
| Chili flakes or ground chile | 1 tsp | more if you want it hot |
| Dried oregano | 1 tsp | |
| Curry powder | 1 tsp | |
| Black pepper | 1 tsp | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Instant refried bean flakes | 1 cup | body and thickening |
Method
- Get a bed of coals under the grate, or run a liquid-fuel stove on low. This cooks 45 minutes, so it needs heat you can hold steady.
- Heat the oil in a heavy pot. Toss the tomato halves and dried onion in the hot oil for a minute until they smell like something.
- Add 400 ml of water, the beef, garlic, tomato powder, chile, oregano, curry, pepper, and salt. Bring it to a boil, then pull it to the edge of the coals.
- Simmer 30 to 40 minutes with the lid on, stirring every few minutes. Scrape the bottom. A heavy pot over a fire scorches fast.
- Kill the heat and stir in the bean flakes a little at a time until it holds a spoon. Wait five minutes before eating; it keeps thickening.
The original is a fresh-meat, fresh-tomato chili browned in a heavy kettle over a hard fire. Everything perishable here is dried instead: freeze-dried beef, sun-dried tomato, minced onion, garlic granules. The long simmer is what makes that work. Forty minutes over coals gives dried meat and tomato time to come back and give up flavor to the pot, which a ten-minute boil never does.
The spice line is unusual and worth keeping — oregano and curry powder alongside the chile. Curry powder is mostly cumin, coriander, and turmeric, which is not far from a chili blend anyway, and it darkens the whole thing. Bean flakes at the end do the thickening a real fire-braise would have done by evaporation, so you can pull the pot before the bottom burns.
Packing
Spices, dried onion, garlic, and tomato powder go in one small bag mixed at home. Beef, tomato halves, and bean flakes ride separately. Oil in a leakproof dropper bottle inside a second bag.
Variations
- Cook it over a canister stove instead if you cut the simmer to 15 minutes and use more tomato powder in place of the halves.
- A handful of instant rice added at the 30-minute mark stretches it to five servings.
- Swap the beef for textured vegetable protein and it goes vegan, at about 20 g of protein.
https://www.horydoly.cz/jidlo-a-piti/drsne-westernove-recepty.html