Have Wok, Will Travel

By Jerrold Paul Shelton

When I’m in the field, time is a luxury that I can’t afford to waste when there is game to be harvested or fish to be caught, and I don’t want to spent too much of it preparing meals or doing clean-up duties after they are consumed.  Another luxury that I don’t have is the space required for transporting large ice chests filled with perishable food or a vast assortment of cookware.  There is, after all, only so much that one can fit in or on a TJ –series Jeep, which is my preferred method of mechanized backcountry conveyance.

            The space dilemma –or the lack of it, to be more precise- is magnified many times over when my wife and children come along with me on my outdoors adventures.  Trying to cram enough grub in and on the little Jeep for a family of four to live on during a trek into the backcountry is no easy thing.  My son is in the first grade now, while my daughter is still in diapers.  They need toys to play with in camp, books to read or have read to them before bedtime, and plenty of clean clothes to change into.  When my wife and I add in our quail hunting paraphernalia or fly fishing tackle into the mix, there isn’t much room left over for ice chests and cookware.  The space in the ice chest that fits on the rack above the rear-mounted spare tire of our beloved Jeep is pretty much spoken for by a couple of pounds of frozen meat, the gallon of milk required to keep the children happy for the duration, and the ice required to keep it from spoiling.  As for cookware, I need a few versatile pieces that can perform a variety of tasks.

            Enter the wok –the humble, ingenious and versatile tool that is most often associated with Asian cuisine.  The advantages to cookery with a wok are manifold, with the primary one among them being the speed with which foods can be cooked with the stir-fry technique that is commonly associated with it.  The utility of the wok isn’t just limited to stir-frying, though.  It can also be pressed into service as a pot for boiling or stewing.  “Have wok, will travel” is my motto when it comes to campfire cuisine.  Because of that, the meals that my family and I enjoy are often far more daring and tasty than the typical campfire fare.

            Here, then, for your outdoors dining enjoyment, are some of my favorite wok-compatible dishes for consumption around the campfire.  They are quick and easy to prepare, and the end results are greater than the sum of the parts that go into each dish.  These are all such a hit with my family –particularly my children- that I find myself cooking them in the workaday world from time to time in a effort to keep all of the diners in Tribe Shelton happy campers, even when we’re stuck at home.

Quick and Dirty Rice

            “Dirty Rice” is a staple item in some households, particularly those with roots in Louisiana.  Around the campfire, it can be used as a main course, though I typically press it into service as a side dish.  It is a fine compliment to other Cajun or Creole foods as well as barbequed meats.  It also works very well as a stuffing for game birds such as quail or pheasant.

Ingredients:

            One can condensed Cream of Mushroom with Roasted Garlic soup

            Two cups of water, divided

            Two cups of “instant” white rice, packed

            One tablespoon of cooking oil

            Six breakfast sausage links with “sheepskin” or “gut” casings

            Three-quarters of a cup of dried chopped onion, loose

            One-quarter of a cup of dried parsley flakes, loose

            One tablespoon of garlic powder

            One tablespoon of onion powder

            Two tablespoons of “Emeril’s Essence” Creole Seasoning (see following instructions for ingredients)

Directions:

            I cook this dish in my wok in two phases, starting with cooking the rice.  Bring one and one-half cups of water to a rolling boil.  Add in the condensed Cream of Mushroom soup, stir thoroughly, and keep boiling.  Add in two cups of instant white rice, stir thoroughly, remove from heat, and keep covered for 5 minutes.  Remove the rice mixture from the wok and set aside in a bowl or on a plate.

            Let the wok cool and give it a wipe-down with a damp sponge, followed by a pass with a paper towel to dry it.  Add 1 tablespoon of cooking oil and distribute it evenly over the surface of the pan before applying medium-high heat.  Push the sausage out of the casings and deposit in the pan crumbled when the oil is hot.  Stir the crumbled sausage frequently until it is thoroughly browned.  Add one-half of a cup of water to the pan, then add in the dried chopped onion.  Continue stirring until the onion starts to clarify.  Add in spices and stir thoroughly.  Add in rice component and stir thoroughly for two minutes on medium high heat if you’re going to use the end result as a stuffing for game birds.  Otherwise, keep on stirring until most of the moisture is gone for a more authentic result.  If used as a stuffing, you want the end result to fairly damp, but if used as a side dish or main course, you want it fairly dry –similar to the Spanish rice served in Mexican restaurants.

            This recipe will serve two as a main course, four as a side dish, and is more than sufficient for stuffing a limit of ten quail.

Emeril’s Essence

            Back in the old days, before Emeril Lagasse’s face was scattered throughout your local neighborhood supermarket, if you wanted to use “Emeril’s Essence” while following along at home to his cookery program on the Food Network, you had no choice but to “roll your own”.  Even though you can buy “Emeril’s Essence” in stores now, the do-it-yourself mix listed here provides a more authentic and satisfactory Creole result –there is simply far more “pow” in the homebrewed concoction than in the store-bought version.

Ingredients:

            Two tablespoons of salt

            Two tablespoons of garlic powder

            One tablespoon of onion powder

            One tablespoon of black pepper

            One tablespoon of cayenne pepper

            One tablespoon of dried leaf oregano

            One tablespoon of dried thyme

            Combine all ingredients thoroughly and store in an airtight jar or container.

House Special Beef (or pork, or venison)

            This dish is very similar to one of my favorites served at a popular upscale Southern California Chinese Take-Out chain, but it uses “off-the-shelf” ingredients available virtually anywhere, rather than stuff you would find in the “International Aisle” of big-city supermarkets.   You still need a wok to do this right, though.  I’ve got a stainless steel one, and I don’t camp without it.  This recipe serves two very hungry and carnivorous campers, though it can serve four with more modest appetites when combined with side dishes like the Quick and Dirty Rice mentioned previously.

Ingredients:

Two tablespoons of cooking oil

            Two pounds of beef steak (New York Strip, Skirt, Flap, or whatever) or pork shoulder “country strips”, partially frozen.

            One tablespoon of Worcestershire Sauce

            One tablespoon of garlic powder

            One tablespoon of onion powder

            Two tablespoons of “Emeril’s Essence” 

One-quarter of a cup of water

One-quarter of a cup of dried chopped onion

One cup of “Hunt’s Hickory & Brown Sugar” barbeque sauce (this is the only barbeque sauce I’ve tried that when combined with the added seasoning of the meat matches the flavor and consistency of the restaurant version of this dish)

Instructions:

            In cooking this dish, you want the meat to be at least partially frozen, preferably thawed just enough to allow you to slice it into thin “wafers” or “chips” with a serrated-edge “Ginsu” knife.  The wafers of partially frozen meat will then be steamed in the stir-fry process, making them tender. This also insures that you’ll have enough moisture in the pan at the right time when you add the spices to prevent them from scorching in the pan.  If you try this with thoroughly thawed meat, you’ll have difficulty cutting the meat thin enough to stir-fry properly and the overall end result won’t be anything like it’s supposed to be.  And yes, you can stir-fry frozen meats.  That very thing is done every day at “Mongolian Barbeque” restaurants all over Southern California.

Add two tablespoons of oil to a cold wok and spread it over the cooking surface evenly with a paper towel.  Bring the heat up to medium high / high.  Add in partially frozen meat chips when the oil starts to smoke and stir rapidly, browning the meat.  When the meat is almost completely browned, add in one tablespoon of Worcestershire Sauce while continuing to stir the meat.  Add in the tablespoon of garlic powder, one table-spoon of onion powder, and two tablespoons of “Emeril’s Essence” immediately after stirring in the Worcestershire Sauce.  When the meat is fully browned, add the ¼ cup of water and the quarter cup of dried chopped onion.  When the onion is clarified, add the cup of barbeque sauce. Continue stirring on medium high / high heat while the barbeque sauce partially “carameliszes”.  Serve when hot and sizzling. 

Chicken and Dumplings

This dish tastes exactly like the chicken and dumplings a favored aunt of mine makes, but she starts by boiling a chicken.  Then she makes the sauce.  Then she combines the chicken, sauce, and vegetables.  Then she adds the dumplings. In other words, she takes pride in her chicken and dumplings and she is willing to put some effort into proving that fact.  I’m not willing to put out that kind of effort in the preparation of “comfort food” when I’m in the wilderness, though, so everything in my camp-friendly version of this dish comes out of a box or a can, except the milk used to make the dumplings.  Cookery doesn’t get faster or simpler than this.  You basically just heat and serve.

            Four cans of Marie Callender’s Chicken a la King soup

            One can of chunked chicken

            Two cups of Bisquick

            One and two-thirds of a cup of milk, divided

            Two tablespoons of dried parsley flakes

Instructions:

            I cook this in my trusty wok, because I always bring it along when I’m “car camping” and it’s big enough and deep enough to do the job, but any big pot that is large enough to keep the dumplings from direct contact with the bottom will do.  Pour the cans of soup into the pot, add in one cup of milk, and bring to a boil.  While you’re waiting for the soup to boil, pour two cups of Bisquick and two tablespoons of dried parsley flakes into a large mixing bowl and stir thoroughly.  Add in two-thirds of a cup of milk and stir until smooth.  When the soup reaches a rolling boil, drop the dumpling dough into the soup by the large spoonful.  Cook covered for 10 minutes and uncovered for 10 minutes, reducing heat as required for preventing boil-over.  This dish feeds 4 very hungry fishers or 6 with more modest appetites.

            None of these three dishes takes over 30 minutes to prepare from beginning to end and as I mentioned previously, the end result is far greater than the humble ingredients used to prepare them would lead you to believe.

            Efficiency in camp cooking gives the cook more time to enjoy the totality of the outdoors experience and efficiency is one of the reasons why I don’t camp out of my Jeep without my trusty wok.  “Stir frying” is a very fast means of food preparation, but it is one that yields very tasty results that rise above ordinary camping fare.  The secret, though, is all in the design of the humble-looking wok, which allows one to cook quickly with very high temperatures without scorching foods and making them unfit for human consumption.  A wok is also versatile.  You can fry with it, boil with it, or stew with it.  It will do everything a skillet or decently-sized pot will do, and many things neither can. I’ll admit that a wok seems like a cumbersome piece of kit, and one that seems out of place in the equipment list of a guy like me who camps out of a ragtop Jeep, but it is actually a space-saver. Because it is so versatile, my trusty wok allows me to cook a variety of foods without having to use a multiplicity of individual pieces of cookware to do it. With a wok, a cast-iron griddle, and a Dutch oven, I have all of the cookware I need to make culinary magic happen in some of the wildest country you’ll find in the Golden State, and if there is a better “backcountry microwave” than a wok, I haven’t found it yet.

"Have Wok, Will Travel" originally appeared in California Fly Fisher Magazine, for which the author is currently a contributing editor.