Venison and Potatoes, Dried
Dried ground meat, shredded potatoes, corn, and a flour gravy. Rehydrates into a real dinner.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 138
- protein
- 34 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 17 min
- water
- 500 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
- Canoe / raft
- Basecamp
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dried ground venison or turkey | 3 oz | cook it lean first, blot the fat, then dry it |
|---|---|---|
| Dried shredded potatoes | 3/4 cup | shredded rehydrates faster than cubed |
| Dried corn | 1/4 cup | |
| Dried onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Flour | 1 tbsp | for the gravy |
| Dried thyme and rosemary | 1/2 tsp total | |
| Garlic powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | single-serve packet or dropper bottle |
Method
- Pour 500 ml of water into the pot with the meat, potatoes, corn, and onion. Let it sit ten minutes off the stove. Dried meat is slow and this soak does most of the work.
- Bring it to a boil, then drop to the lowest flame you can hold and simmer eight minutes. Stir often or the potatoes weld to the bottom.
- Whisk the flour into two tablespoons of cold water in your cup, then stir that slurry into the pot. Adding flour dry gives you lumps.
- Simmer two more minutes until it thickens. Kill the heat, stir in the herbs, garlic powder, and oil, and salt it hard.
This is a home dehydrator recipe, not a store-bought one. The meat has to be cooked lean and blotted before it dries, because fat left in ground meat goes rancid in a pack within weeks. The oil packet puts the calories back at camp, where they are not sitting in a hot car for a month.
The flour is doing the work that a long stovetop reduction would do at home. Slurried into cold water first, it thickens 500 ml into gravy in about two minutes, which is all the fuel this deserves. Without it you get meat and potatoes floating in salty water.
Packing
Everything dry except the oil goes in one bag. Flour rides in its own small bag so you can slurry it separately. Oil packet in a side pocket.
Variations
- Swap the flour gravy for a tablespoon of instant potato flakes if you want it thicker without the whisking.
- Dried mushrooms and a splash of vinegar from a packet turn it sharper.
https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/dehydrated-recipes-anyone-got-some-good-ones.885