Kayak Camp Sausage and Cabbage Skillet
Chorizo, cabbage, and potatoes in one pan. Everything in it keeps for days without ice.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 65
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- 150 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
- Campfire coals
- Canoe / raft
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dry-cured chorizo or hard salami | 6 oz | the shelf-stable kind, not fresh sausage |
|---|---|---|
| Green cabbage | 1/2 small head | a whole head keeps a week uncut |
| Yellow onion | 1 medium | |
| Waxy potatoes | 3 medium | cut small so they cook through |
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | |
| Smoked paprika | 1 tsp | |
| Caraway seed | 1/2 tsp | optional, but it makes the cabbage taste like a plan |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Mustard | 1 tbsp | squeeze tube |
Method
- Cut the potatoes into half-inch cubes. Slice the onion, shred the cabbage roughly, and cut the chorizo into coins.
- Heat the oil in your largest pot and fry the chorizo coins until the edges curl and the fat runs red. Scoop them out, leave the fat.
- Add potatoes and onion to that fat. Stir now and then for about eight minutes, until the potatoes take color.
- Pour in 150 ml of boiled water, cover, and let it steam until a potato gives to a spoon. Roughly ten minutes.
- Pile the cabbage on top, cover again, and steam five minutes. Then stir it down through the potatoes.
- Return the chorizo, add paprika, caraway, salt, and pepper. Cook uncovered until the last of the water is gone.
- Stir the mustard in off the heat.
This is the standard big camp dinner built out of things that do not need ice. Root vegetables, onions, and cabbage last a whole trip in a hatch, and dry-cured sausage lasts nearly as long. That means you can put it on day four when the cooler is warm water and disappointment.
The chorizo is the cooking fat, not a garnish. Frying it first and cooking the potatoes in the rendered fat is where the paprika flavor comes from. The lid matters too: half a cup of water plus a lid steams the potatoes through in a fraction of the fuel it takes to boil them.
Packing
Cabbage, onion, and potatoes ride loose in the hull or a dry bag, not the cooler, and last most of a week. Chorizo goes in the cooler if you have one and is fine out of it for four or five days.
Variations
- Two eggs cracked over the top at the end make it breakfast. Eggs keep unrefrigerated for a week.
- Grate hard cheese over the finished pan for another 100 calories a serving.
- No stove: cook the whole thing in a cast iron pan on a fire grate. Add five minutes.
https://www.dothenorth.com/guides-and-articles/guides/food-planning-kayaking