Bugeoguk - Korean Dried Pollock Soup

This soup works great as a backcountry food as the main ingredient is a dried white fish called pollock. Bugeoguk is a light yet filling brothy soup that is very easy to make.  It is traditionally served with short grain rice but works well on its own too.

You can find dried pollock at Korean grocery stores.  Eden brand foods are usually available at health food stores.  There are many brands of fish sauce, each with a variation in flavor.  I used Double Parrot, a vietnamese brand, but any will do.


1 1/2 cup   Dried Pollock
3/4   cup   Dried Daikon Radish
1/2   tsp   Granulated Garlic
2     tsp   Dried Onion
4     cups  Water
1     Tb    Fish Sauce
2     Tb    Egg Powder
4     Tb    Water

Add the fish, garlic, onion and 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.

Bring the heat down to a simmer and cook covered for 10 minutes.

Add in the daikon, return the lid and cook another 10 minutes.  The daikon adds a delicious sweet aroma and taste to the soup.

Add in the fish sauce and cook covered for another 3 minutes.  

In a separate bowl mix the egg powder and 4 Tb water.  Pour the egg into the soup and let it cook on top for 2 minutes without stirring.

When the egg is cooked stir it into the soup.

Enjoy!

Haemul Pajeon - Korean Seafood Pancake

This is a dish I have enjoyed at Korean restaurants and cooking at home in the kitchen.  A thick eggy pancake filled with a variety of seafood.  I thought I'd give a shot at a backcountry version.  My first try, though tasty, was a little dry and needed some refinements in ratios and cooking method.  As I was writing the first draft of this post I realized that I had only used half the water needed to reconstitute the powdered egg.  So I stopped writing, pulled out the stove and tried it again with the correct amount of water and other alterations to my recipe.  The result was an incredibly tasty pancake with a nice glutinous eggy texture.

You can buy dried shrimp and sweet rice four from most Asian grocery stores.  Sweet rice flour has a glutinous chewy texture when cooked.  Dried onion is available at many stores and in many forms.  I bought mine at the Asian super market.   I got powdered eggs from Honeyville Farms online.

1/3     cup  Dried Shrimp
4       Tb   Egg Powder
2 + 2/3 Tb   White Flour
2 + 2/3 Tb   Sweet Rice Flour
3       tsp  Oil
1       tsp  Dried Onion
1/4     tsp  Salt
1/2     cup  Water

Add the egg, both types of flour, salt, onion and water and mix together.

The first time I tried the recipe I didn't mix the onion in with the batter and cooked some of them with the shrimp and pressed the rest on the out side of the pancake.  I found that the onions cooked way too fast and wound up burt.  I also lowered amount of shrimp from 1/2 cup to 1/3 cup.  This is a better ratio of shrimp to batter.

Add a tsp of the Oil and on very low heat gently fry the shrimp for 2 minutes.  This makes the shells a little crispy.  If they are overcooked they become too crispy and disintegrate when mixed in with the batter.

Add the shrimp to the batter.

Add 2 tsp of oil with very low heat.  When the oil is hot, add the batter and cook covered for 4 or so minutes before flipping.

Flip!

Continue flipping every 2-3 minutes until both sides are nice and brown.  Keep the pan covered between flips.  Around 12 minutes total cooking time.

Enjoy!

This pancake is delicious and has a great texture.  Lots of protein from the egg and shrimp and carbs from the flours.  The batter alone has incredible potential for a variety of recipes.  It could be great mixed with an assortment of sweet or savory ingredients or just cooked by itself.


Freeze dried blue berries come to mind.  Rehydrated and sautéed shiitake mushrooms sounds good.  Or just dipped in maple syrup!

Masoor Dahl with Basmati Rice

In the interest of furthering backcountry cuisine, eating tasty food and having fun, this blog comes into existence.  I'll be creating and adapting recipes for wilderness travel.  If you like what you see,  please try it out.

I first wanted a stove that could simmer.  I have the Whisper Lite which is a good stove but not the best at simmering and the Reactor which is awesome at boiling water but also not the best at simmering.  The Wind Pro advertised itself as having great simmering ability and I found that it is so.  It also boils water with alacrity.

Just to see if the stove could really simmer I prepared some basmati rice.  

1/2 cup Rice 

2/3 cup Water

The rice turned out great except for being slightly dry.  I'll try it with an extra 1/3 cup of water next time.

I haven't gotten backpacking cookware yet.  For now I'll just use what I have. This is a 1 quart pot.


Masoor Dahl
Masoor Dahl is red lintels.  Red lintels taste great and cook really fast.  Every time I cook this dish I do it a little differently.  Adding spinach or potatoes, replacing ginger with garlic, changing the amounts of the spices, etc...  Feel free to experiment.


This is how I prepared this dahl...


1/2 cup   Red Lintels
2   cups  Water
1   Tbl   Vegetable Oil
1   tsp   Black Mustard Seed
1   tsp   Fresh Ginger
1 pinch   Chile Flakes
1/4 tsp   Ground Turmeric
1/4 tsp   Ground Cumin
1/4 tsp   Ground Coriander
1/4 tsp   Ground Cayenne Pepper
1/4 tsp   Salt

In the oil, fry the ginger, chile flakes and mustard seeds.  Be careful not to burn the mustard seeds by keeping the stove on a lower setting.  You should hear them popping like popcorn.

First, add the lintels and then the water.  Adding in this order prevents an oil/water explosion.

Bring to a rapid boil for 3-5 minutes before adding all the other ingredients.

With the lid on, simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.

If you want the spices a little more integrated cook another 5 minutes.  

This dahl turned out great.  With the rice it was plenty of food for two people.  Very rich.  It was a little spicy.  I may cut back on the chiles next time.  Could have used a little more salt, but I like to let people salt to taste.

Possibilities for next time:

 •  Using 1/4 tsp powdered ginger instead of fresh

 •  Adding fresh or powered garlic

 •  Varying the amount of hot chile

 •  Adding all of the spices at the frying stage also works well to release their flavor.  Add them after the mustard begins to pop.  Just be careful not to burn them.

Would be great with some Indian bread!  I'll have to get on that.

Update: One thing that I have tried recently is throwing a 1/2 tea spoon of curry powder (S&B brand) into the frying oil at the beginning instead of the ginger.  Then doing the rest of the recipe as written above. This alteration is very tasty!