Chipotle Meatballs, Freeze-Dried
Beef meatballs simmered in a smoky chipotle sauce, rebuilt from powder and a foil pouch.
- calories
- 760
- weight
- 7 oz
- cal / oz
- 109
- protein
- 42 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 25 min
- water
- 700 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
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Freeze-dried ground beef | 4 oz | crumbles, not chunks |
|---|---|---|
| Powdered whole egg | 2 tbsp | the binder; do not skip |
| Instant white rice | 1/4 cup | goes into the meatballs, uncooked |
| Dried minced onion | 2 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1 tbsp | |
| Chicken bouillon powder | 2 tbsp | split between meatballs and sauce |
| Dried oregano | a pinch | |
| Salt | 1 tsp, then to taste | |
| Ground black pepper | 1 tsp | |
| Tomato powder | 1/3 cup | or 4 sun-dried tomato halves, crushed |
| Chipotle powder | 1 tsp | a foil pouch of chipotle in adobo if you are willing to carry it |
| Neutral oil | 2 tbsp | in a dropper bottle; not olive |
| Instant rice for serving | 1 cup | optional, cooked separately or after |
Method
- Put the freeze-dried beef, egg powder, quarter cup of instant rice, onion, garlic powder, 1 tbsp bouillon, oregano, salt, and pepper in a freezer bag. Add 150 ml of hot water, seal, and squeeze it together. Let it sit ten minutes.
- Squeeze the bag into six lumps and roll them out one at a time. They will feel loose. Press hard.
- Heat 1 tbsp oil in the pot until it thins out and moves fast. Brown the meatballs in two batches, turning once, about two minutes a side. Crowding them steams them and they fall apart.
- Set the meatballs on a lid. Off the heat, stir the tomato powder, chipotle powder, and remaining bouillon into 400 ml of hot water in the same pot. Whisk out the lumps.
- Return the meatballs, bring the sauce to a bubble, then drop to the lowest flame you can hold. Simmer uncovered 10 minutes, turning once, until the sauce thickens and coats them.
- Taste for salt. Eat as is, or spoon over instant rice.
The original is a skillet dish: fresh beef, eggs, charred tomatoes and onion blackened in a pan and blended into salsa. None of that survives three days in a pack, so this version rebuilds each part from a powder. Freeze-dried beef takes the place of ground chuck, powdered egg does the binding, and tomato powder plus chipotle powder stand in for the blender step. You lose the char. You keep the shape of the dish.
The uncooked instant rice in the meatball mix is doing more than it looks like. Rehydrated beef has no fat holding it together, and the rice swells during the simmer, gripping the crumbles from the inside. Brown them hard before the sauce goes in or they will dissolve into a chipotle hash, which still eats fine but is not what you came for. Simmering uncovered is deliberate: the sauce has to lose water to cling.
Packing
Meatball mix goes in one quart freezer bag at home, sauce powders in a second. Oil rides in a dropper bottle inside a ziplock. Doing it in that order means the mixing bag is also the bowl you soak in.
Variations
- Instant potato flakes in place of the rice bind faster and need less soak time.
- A foil pouch of chipotle in adobo instead of the powder gets you closer to the original, at the cost of a wet item in your pack.
- Fold leftovers into a tortilla in the morning.
https://www.xoverland.com/gon-cookin-recipes/albondigas-en-chipotle