Old Fashioned Pork and Rice
Bourbon-braised pork over rice, rebuilt around shelf-stable pork so it works out of a dutch oven at camp.
- calories
- 760
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 84
- protein
- 30 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 60 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
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Canned pork or canned ham | 2 cans, about 12 oz each | drained, cut into cubes |
|---|---|---|
| Vegetable oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried chopped onion | 1/4 cup | |
| Garlic powder | 1 tsp | |
| Instant chicken bouillon | 2 tsp | makes the broth |
| Bourbon | 1/2 cup | carried in a flask, some of it for you |
| Brown sugar | 1/4 cup | |
| Powdered orange drink mix or dried orange peel | 2 tbsp | |
| Soy sauce | 3 tbsp | packets from a takeout drawer |
| Dijon mustard | 2 tbsp | squeeze tube or packets |
| Apple cider vinegar | 2 tbsp | |
| Cinnamon stick | 1 | |
| Whole cloves | 3 | |
| Bay leaves | 2 | |
| Instant rice | 3 cups dry | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Build a bed of coals or set the dutch oven on a grate over a low fire.
- Heat the oil and brown the pork cubes on all sides. They are already cooked, so you are after color, not doneness. Ten minutes.
- Add the dried onion, garlic powder, and 1 1/2 cups of water. Stir in the bouillon and scrape the bottom of the pot.
- Pour in the bourbon, then the brown sugar, orange, soy sauce, mustard, and vinegar. Drop in the cinnamon stick, cloves, and bay leaves.
- Lid on. Simmer over low coals for 30 minutes, stirring every ten so the sugar does not scorch. The sauce should coat a spoon.
- Fish out the cinnamon, cloves, and bay leaves. Salt and pepper.
- Push the pork to one side, add 3 cups of boiling water and the instant rice, cover, and pull off the heat for five minutes. Stir the sauce through and serve.
The original is a two and a half hour oven braise on skin-on pork belly, which is not a thing you carry to a campsite. Canned pork is the substitution that makes it portable: it is already cooked, so the long braise collapses into a 30-minute simmer whose only job is reducing the sauce and getting it into the meat.
The sauce is the recipe. Brown sugar, vinegar, mustard, and soy give you sweet, sharp, and salty in one pot, and the bourbon carries the orange and whole spices into everything. Pull the cinnamon stick and cloves before serving or someone bites one. Instant rice goes in at the end so it soaks up the reduction instead of diluting it.
Packing
Onion, garlic, bouillon, brown sugar, and orange go in one bag as a spice mix. Soy, mustard, and vinegar in packets or small squeeze bottles. Whole spices in a film canister. Rice in its own bag.
Variations
- No bourbon: 1/2 cup water plus an extra tablespoon of vinegar. The sauce is thinner but still works.
- Swap the rice for instant mashed potatoes if you want the sauce to have something blunter to sit on.
- A foil pouch of bacon crumbles browned with the pork adds fat the canned meat is missing.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/old-fashion-infused-pork-belly