Lamb Ragu, Frozen Flat
A slow-cooked shoulder ragu made at home, frozen in portions, and carried out as the first night's dinner.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 56
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 9, scales
- prep
- 30 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 50 min
- water
- 1500 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
- Car camping
- Bikepacking
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Lamb shoulder | 4.5 lb | whole or diced; leg is too lean and will go stringy |
|---|---|---|
| Brown onion | 1 large | peeled and diced |
| Celery | 3 stalks | finely diced |
| Carrots | 2 | peeled, small dice |
| Garlic | 3 cloves | crushed |
| Tomato paste | 2 tbsp | |
| Canned tomatoes | 1 large can | |
| Chicken stock cube | 1 | |
| Rosemary | 1 tbsp | |
| Bay leaf | 1 | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Dried pasta | 3 oz per person | packed separately, carried dry |
Method
- At home: get a heavy pot hot and sear the lamb hard on every side. Pull it out and set it aside.
- Drop the heat to medium. Cook the onion, celery, carrot, and garlic until soft and just colored.
- Stir in the tomato paste and give it a minute, then add the tomatoes, stock cube, rosemary, and bay leaf.
- Move everything to a slow cooker with the lamb on the bottom. Season, add water to barely cover, lid on, 6-8 hours on low. Or keep it in the pot, lid on, 3-4 hours in a low oven.
- Lift the lamb out. Boil the sauce down by about a third. Shred the meat off the bone and stir it back in. Taste and fix the salt.
- Chill it overnight in the fridge, then scrape the hard fat off the top. Divide into meal-sized freezer bags and freeze flat.
- In camp: boil salted water, cook the pasta, drain off most of it and keep a splash back.
- Sit the frozen bag in the hot drained water for a few minutes to loosen it, then tip the ragu into the pot over low heat until it steams through. Stir it into the pasta.
This is a home recipe that travels because you do all the work in your kitchen. Shoulder is the whole point: it has enough collagen and fat that six hours on low turns it silky instead of dry. Reducing the sauce after the meat comes out is what keeps it from being soup, and chilling it overnight lets you lift off the set fat, which is both the greasy part and the part most likely to go off in a cooler.
Frozen flat, a bag of this is its own ice pack for the first day out. In camp there is no cooking left, only reheating, so one pot and one boil covers pasta and sauce both. Nothing here is shelf-stable, so eat it the first night and plan dry food after that.
Packing
Freeze the bags flat so they stack and thaw evenly. Wrap them in newspaper and bury them in the middle of a cooler or a pannier; a flat frozen brick holds a day easily and doubles as your ice. This is a night-one dinner, not a day-four dinner.
Variations
- Stewing beef instead of lamb, same method and same times.
- Skip the pasta and stir the ragu into instant polenta or potato flakes for a lighter carry.
- Add a handful of dried mushrooms to the pot at home for more body in the sauce.
https://www.advrider.com/recipe-for-the-road-lamb-ragu