Trail Carbonara
Pasta, egg powder, and hard cheese pulled into a sauce with the starchy cooking water.
- calories
- 730
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 133
- protein
- 31 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 17 min
- water
- 700 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
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Canoe / raft
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Spaghetti, broken in half | 8 oz | thin strands cook faster and use less fuel |
|---|---|---|
| Whole egg powder | 6 tbsp | equals 4 eggs; freeze-dried, not egg white powder |
| Grated parmesan | 1 cup | the shelf-stable green-can kind works and does not need a cooler |
| Shelf-stable bacon or pancetta bits | 3 oz | precooked, vacuum-sealed |
| Freeze-dried peas | 1/2 cup | |
| Black pepper | 1 tsp, coarse | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp |
Method
- Whisk the egg powder and parmesan with 6 tbsp of cold water in a mug or a spare bag. Set it aside so the powder hydrates while the pasta cooks.
- Bring 700 ml of salted water to a boil. Add the spaghetti and the peas and cook 8 to 10 minutes, stirring so nothing welds to the bottom.
- Do not drain. Cook until only a shallow layer of cloudy water is left, maybe half a cup. That starch is the sauce.
- Kill the heat and let the pot sit off the flame for a full minute. Stir in the oil and the bacon bits.
- Pour in the egg and cheese slurry and stir hard and fast. It should turn glossy in about thirty seconds. If it stays thin, put the pot back over the lowest flame for ten seconds at a time, stirring the whole while.
- Crack the pepper over the top and eat straight from the pot.
Carbonara is a sauce made of egg, cheese, and starchy water, held together by heat that is high enough to thicken the egg and low enough not to cook it. That balance is harder on a stove with one flame setting, so the fix here is to take the pot off the heat and wait a minute before the egg goes in. Residual heat in the pasta does the work. Rush it and you get scrambled eggs in noodles.
The trail changes are the perishables. Fresh eggs and a fridge do not travel, so whole egg powder rehydrated with a little cold water stands in, and grated shelf-stable parmesan replaces a wedge that would sweat in a pack. Frozen peas become freeze-dried ones, which soften in the pasta boil for free. Draining is skipped entirely: you cook the pasta down to about half a cup of water and that becomes the sauce base, which saves fuel, water, and a second dish.
Packing
Pasta, peas, and pepper in one bag. Egg powder and parmesan premixed in a second bag so the cheese never touches hot water directly. Bacon and oil ride separately.
Variations
- No peas on hand: a handful of dried mushrooms, soaked in the pasta water, does the same job.
- Skip the bacon and add a teaspoon of smoked paprika for a meatless version. It still has egg and cheese in it.
- Half a packet of instant broth in the boil covers the salt if you forgot to pack any.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/spaghetti-carbonara