"kingsley" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news
[email protected]...
> On Sun, 01 Aug 2004 09:31:04 +0000, Around Australia Recumbent Style
> wrote:
>
> >> You don't need a commercial dehydrator if you just want to experiment,
> >> you can dry the stuff in the oven. Low heat, door open.
> >
> > That's a great idea. We did some dehydrating before we left Atherton and
had
> > steak, corned beef, chicken, vegetables and of course, dried Mango for
our
> > mid morning snacks. We found we didn't have to re-hydrate the food, just
> > boiled it up on the Trangia and there it was, a great meal fit for two
> > hungry touring cyclists, and the Mango was just divine as a mid morning
> > snack.
>
> How do you do meat - cook before dehydrating or dry it raw ?
You can cook it first, or turn it into jerky by either marianating it and
then dehyrating, or make a salt and herbs mixture, coat all the bits and
dehydrating it that way. The trick is to semi-freeze it first, cut into
stips no bigger than 1/2" wide and then do it. Freezing it helps the cutting
and the thin strips makes the drying easier.
>
> Last major tour we basically cooked dinner most nights in the Trangia,
> even managed to re-heat a fresh Alsacation 'family-size'
> wine+pork+mushroom pie perfectly (if you're ever in Erstien[1], France
> goto the little deli' in the town and get one, they're to die for).
Thanks for the tip.
>
> We lived mainly on <something> with rice or pasta. Always carried
> a few onions and a head o' garlic. We usually bought some fresh chicken
> or pork late in the day (beef too expensive in Europe), or used tinned
> tuna. Fried up the onion & garlic & meat, took it off the heat and
> cooked the rice/pasta. Folded the former into the latter and served.
> Was frying in butter during early spring, but by June it was getting
> a bit to melted during the day to keep.
Nothing wrong with that.
>
> I think if weight permitted I'd like to carry a 2nd burner, so I could
> cook both simultaneously, since most times the meat was cold when added
> to the rice.
We always put the meat back on for a few seconds to get some heat back into
it which saves a second burner.
One burner can be a pain though.
>
> It can be difficult to find good burning alcohol in Europe. The the
> Netherlands, all we could get was this horrible blue[2] 75% "methodus
> spiritus" (IIRC) that left rich black soot over everything. Managed to
> find 85% alc/vol stuff in France, was yellow, heaps less soot. Didn't
> really get to camp much in Germany[3], so never ran out of metho.
Well, the soot helps form carbon on the pots which then heats the pot
quicker and uses less fuel (so we found out) but maybe the type of soot your
produced is not so helpful. We just wiped the pot over with a wet rag to get
the excess off and then dried it. Worked a charm
>
> -kt
>
> [1] Erstien (possible sp?) is about 20k south of Strasbourg
> on an absolutely beautiful bikepath beside a canal. Fantastic
> municipal campground, cost about 10 euro a night for the 4 of us
> (2 adults, 2 kids - 3 & 1 yrs)
Sounds okay to me.
> [2] NL metho' is blue like kerosine is here.
Thanks for the tip.
>
> [3] According to what a German campervan owning lady told us, it's
> legal to camp wild for one night if you're passing though.
> We guessed that makes it near impossible to find the little
> farm campings that dot NL and F. Ended up staying in guest-houses
> which are about 8-10x the cost of camping. Anyway I guess I'm
> digressing, in a foot-note what's more, so I better be off.
We will be looking for as much "wild" camping as possible so it sounds like
we could be in for an interesting time when we go O/S.
Thanks for sharing. Hope you try the dehydration thing.