Low Country Skillet
Shrimp, andouille, potatoes, and eggs in one cast iron pan over the fire.
- calories
- 680
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 62
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 22 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Breakfast
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Shrimp | 4, peeled | cooked and chilled works, add at the end |
|---|---|---|
| Andouille sausage | 1/2 cup, diced | vacuum-sealed, cured; keeps a few days in a cooler |
| Potatoes | 1/4 cup, parboiled and cut in 1/2 inch cubes | boil at home the night before |
| Bell pepper | 1/4 cup, diced | |
| Yellow onion | 1/3 cup, chopped | |
| Tomato | 2 tbsp, diced | |
| Butter | 4 tsp | ghee if the cooler is running warm |
| Creole seasoning | 1/2 tsp | |
| Eggs | 2 | |
| Cheddar | 1/4 cup, grated | |
| Green onion | 1, chopped | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Get a bed of coals going and set the skillet on the grate. You want steady medium heat, not flames.
- Toss the shrimp with the creole seasoning. Melt 2 tsp of butter and cook them until they turn opaque, about two minutes. Pull them out onto a plate.
- Add the rest of the butter, then the sausage, potatoes, pepper, and onion. Cook until the potatoes take on color and the onion goes soft, six to eight minutes. Stir when it starts to stick.
- Push the mix to one side. Crack the eggs into the clear space and scramble them there, then fold everything together.
- Add the tomato and the shrimp, scatter the cheddar over the top, and pull the pan off the heat. Cover for a minute so the cheese melts.
- Salt, pepper, green onion on top. Eat out of the pan.
This is a car-camping breakfast because it depends on a cooler and a real skillet. Both are worth carrying when you sleep next to the truck. The parboiling is the part that matters: raw potato cubes take twenty minutes over uneven coals and will still be hard in the middle. Boiled at home, they only need to brown.
Order of operations does the rest. Shrimp cook in two minutes and turn to rubber in three, so they come out first and go back in last. The sausage renders fat that the potatoes and onion cook in, which means less butter and better browning. Everything happens in one pan, so cleanup is a scrape and a wipe.
Packing
Dice the sausage, pepper, onion, and tomato at home and bag them together. Parboil and cube the potatoes the night before so they only need browning. Eggs travel in a hard case or pre-cracked in a leakproof bottle.
Variations
- Skip the shrimp and double the sausage if the cooler is a day past reliable.
- Dehydrated hash browns rehydrated in the pan replace the parboiled potatoes and cut the home prep.
- A splash of hot sauce at the table does what the creole seasoning cannot.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/low-country-skillet