Hobo Stew
Sausage, potatoes, and cabbage in a dutch oven over coals. Two hours, one pot, no attention.
- calories
- 540
- weight
- 14 oz
- cal / oz
- 39
- protein
- 22 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 120 min
- total time
- 135 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
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Potatoes | 3 medium | waxy ones hold their shape |
|---|---|---|
| Carrots | 3 | |
| Celery | 3 stalks | |
| Cabbage | 1/4 head | keeps a week without ice |
| Smoked sausage | 1 lb | fully cooked, so nothing here is undercooked-dangerous |
| Lemon pepper | 1/8 tsp | |
| Black pepper | 1/8 tsp | |
| Water | enough to just cover |
Method
- Build a fire early and let it burn down. You want coals, not flame.
- Dice the potatoes, carrots, and celery to roughly the same size. Shred the cabbage. Cut the sausage into 1 inch rounds.
- Put everything in a 10 inch dutch oven and add water until it barely covers the top of the vegetables. No more.
- Set the oven on a bed of coals, lid on, and leave it two hours. Rotate it a quarter turn every twenty minutes so one side does not scorch.
- Test a carrot with a fork. If it goes in clean, it is done. Potatoes will be soft well before the carrots are.
This is a stew that cooks itself. Everything goes in cold, gets barely covered, and sits on coals until the hardest vegetable gives. Carrots are the timer — they take the longest, so when they are soft, nothing else is undercooked.
The water level is the whole technique. Just covering means the vegetables release their own liquid into a small volume instead of thinning out into a broth, and the sausage fat floats up and stays in the pot. Add a cup too much and you get soup that tastes like water. This one needs a cooler for the sausage, so it belongs at a car camp or basecamp, not in a pack.
Packing
Cut the sausage and vegetables at home and carry them in two bags: sausage in the cooler, everything else in a mesh sack. Whole cabbage and carrots survive a weekend out of the cooler if you keep them shaded.
Variations
- A 12 inch oven with doubled ingredients feeds six to eight at the same time and temperature.
- A bouillon cube in the water gives it more backbone than pepper alone.
- Swap the sausage for a can of white beans and a spoon of smoked paprika to make it vegetarian.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/hobo_stew-2007.asp