Lu Rou Fan for the Truck
Braised pork over rice, cooked in one pot on a camp stove with spices carried in a tea bag.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 56
- protein
- 28 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- 600 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
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Dairy free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Ground pork | 1 lb | kept in the cooler, cook it the first night |
|---|---|---|
| Light soy sauce | 3 tbsp | |
| Dark soy sauce | 2 tbsp | this is where the color comes from |
| Shaoxing wine | 3 tbsp | sake, mirin, or dry white wine all work |
| Brown sugar | 2 tbsp | |
| Minced garlic | 1 1/2 tbsp | jarred is fine |
| Minced ginger | 2 1/2 tbsp | jarred, or a knob sliced thin |
| Dried onion flakes | 1/3 cup | stands in for one diced yellow onion |
| Dried shiitake mushrooms | 4 | |
| Fried shallots | 1/4 cup | |
| Cinnamon stick | 1 | |
| Whole cloves | 4 | |
| Bay leaves | 2 | |
| Star anise | 3 pods | |
| MSG | 1 tsp | |
| Ground pepper | 1 tsp | |
| Neutral oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Instant rice | 2 cups dry | |
| Yellow pickled radish | a few slices per bowl | optional, keeps unopened without a cooler |
Method
- Boil about 250 ml of water and pour it over the dried shiitakes in a mug. Leave them 15 minutes. Keep the soaking liquid.
- Heat the oil in the pot and brown the pork, breaking it up as it goes.
- Stir in the garlic, ginger, and onion flakes. One minute, until they smell like something.
- Pour in both soy sauces and the wine. Add the cinnamon stick.
- Put the cloves, bay leaves, and star anise in a tea ball or a reusable tea bag and drop it in. Whole spices are miserable to fish out of a dark braise otherwise.
- Dice the softened mushrooms, add them, then pour in the soaking water, leaving the grit at the bottom of the mug.
- Add the fried shallots, brown sugar, pepper, and MSG. Bring to a boil, then drop to the lowest simmer your stove holds.
- Simmer uncovered 15 minutes until the sauce coats the back of the spoon. Pull the tea ball and the cinnamon stick.
- Cook the instant rice in a second pot or a lidded mug with boiling water. Spoon the pork and its sauce over the top. Pickled radish on the side.
Lu rou fan is a braise, which means it wants a long simmer and a sauce that reduces. Neither is a problem on a camp stove as long as the pot has a lid and the stove will hold a low flame. The whole spices are the part that goes wrong outdoors, so they ride in a tea ball. You pull one object out at the end instead of hunting star anise pods by headlamp.
The swaps are dried onion for the fresh yellow onion, jarred garlic and ginger for the knob and cloves, and instant rice for a second long boil. The mushroom soaking water does double duty as the braising liquid, so nothing is carried in just to be poured away. Pork is the one cooler item; cook it the first night out, or use the chicken pouch version and skip the cooler entirely.
Packing
Combine cloves, bay leaves, star anise, and the cinnamon stick in the tea ball at home so it goes straight into the pot. Soy sauces and wine premeasured into one small leakproof bottle. Sugar, pepper, and MSG in a second bag. Pork frozen flat, packed at the bottom of the cooler.
Variations
- No cooler: swap the pork for two 5 oz foil pouches of chicken, added after the sauce has thickened.
- Freeze-dried bok choy or a handful of dried spinach, dropped in for the last two minutes, gets a vegetable in the bowl.
https://www.xoverland.com/gon-cookin-recipes/taiwanese-fun-at-camp