Trail Laab Moo
Pork, chili, lime, and toasted rice powder, rebuilt around a freeze-dried protein and one pot.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 116
- protein
- 34 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 8 min
- total time
- 13 min
- water
- 300 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
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Bikepacking
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Freeze-dried or home-dehydrated cooked pork | 2.5 oz | lean loin, diced small before drying |
|---|---|---|
| Jasmine rice | 1 tbsp | toasted and ground at home into powder |
| Fish sauce | 1.5 tbsp | in a leakproof dropper bottle, double-bagged |
| Coarse chili powder | 1/2 tbsp | Thai style, adjust down if you value your morning |
| Dried mint | 1.5 tbsp | |
| Dried shallot | 1.5 tbsp | minced and dried, or fried shallot |
| Dried green onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Lime juice powder | 1 tbsp | or one packet of true lime |
| Instant rice | 1/2 cup | optional, if you want it as a full meal |
| Dried green beans | 1/4 cup | long beans, sliced and dried |
Method
- Put the pork, shallot, green onion, and green beans in the pot with 300 ml of water. Bring it to a boil.
- Boil two minutes, then kill the heat and cover. Let it sit ten minutes so the meat and beans rehydrate.
- Stir in the fish sauce, chili powder, mint, and lime powder. Most of the water should be gone; if not, leave the lid off a minute.
- Add the toasted rice powder last and stir. It thickens the liquid and coats the meat.
- If you carried instant rice, cook it separately or add it now with another 100 ml of hot water and let it stand five minutes.
Laab is normally a salad: hot meat tossed with raw herbs and a sour dressing, eaten cold-ish. That does not survive a pack, so this version becomes a skillet-in-a-pot instead. The shallot, green onion, mint, and lime all go in dried, and the boiling water does the rehydrating that a fresh kitchen would not need.
The toasted rice powder is the part worth carrying. Grind it at home, keep it dry, and add it off the heat. It soaks up the fish sauce and lime so the dish clings to the meat rather than pooling in the bottom of the pot. Without it you have salty wet pork. Iceberg lettuce is gone for obvious reasons; the dried long beans do the job of something crunchy on the side.
Packing
Everything dry goes in one bag except the fish sauce and the rice powder. Fish sauce leaks and smells like a tide pool, so it rides in its own bag. Rice powder stays separate because it clumps if it gets damp early.
Variations
- Swap the pork for freeze-dried chicken or a foil packet of tuna. Add the tuna at the end, off heat.
- Skip the pork entirely and use rehydrated soy curls with soy sauce in place of the fish sauce.
- Toast the rice powder darker at home for more smoke.
https://www.matprat.no/oppskrifter/sunn/laab-moo---svinekjott-med-chili-og-mynte