Cooking Good Things on the road

[simonineaston]

Hi Folks,
I'm curious to know what folks' favourite on-the-road meals are... I'm trying to make a Top Ten for taking with me myself or recommending to anyone else. The rules for inclusion would be something like: Really should be cooked - i.e. sandwiches don't count. Probably should be cooked-from-fresh, i.e. heating (or not!) a tin of beans, and tipping the contents into a bowl, doesn't count. Probably will be hot food, but I would be interested in hearing about cold Top Tips, like clever salad ideas. I'm particularly interested in clever ways of saving space / time but still ending up with a quality eating experience.
My offering is: Tuoni e Lampi, which is a posh name for pasta & chick peas (actually the proper Italian dish has more ingredients than I describe, but what's interesting about just pasta & chick peas is that it sounds like it's going to be dull & uninteresting, but actually tastes Good! The secret is to add as big a lump of butter as you can bring yourself to... and a pinch of freshly ground black pepper, too.Another Good Tip is my friend Michèle's simple way to make a salad - she tears up lettuce leaves, adds a little oil, a pinch of salt and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Again, it sound plain but it works. Why it's of interest to me is that it's entirely practical to take with me a sliver-foil twist of salt, a tiny bottle of oil, and a lemon, with which to adourn the freshly-bought lettuce leaves...
Any other ideas, folks?

[Winkeladvokat]

I dislike cooking pasta on the road - takes ages and a lot of fuel to get the water up to boil, then I either scald myself or tip pasta over the floor trying to drain the stuff

My top tip is to use bulghur wheat as a carb of choice. It's delicious, cooks quickly and with minimal added liquid. (You can even just soak it in cold water, drain, and add directly to a salad). And nutritious (complex carbs rather than refined pasta or rice).

Easy bulghur wheat and veg recipe:

Soften onions, garlic, and a bunch of vegetables of choice (e.g. peppers, aubergine, courgettes, mushroons,... you name it, it works!) in some oil/butter.
Add dry bulghur wheat. A mug's worth does two people.
Add a tin of tomatoes or pasata.
Cook for 5-10 minutes until bulghur is soft.
Add a generous squeeze of lemon.
Chilli sauce optional

Super quick and tasty, and can be augmented with whatever you like!

[stoobs]

I'd also recommend taking a few spices or curry powder to liven up otherwise-drab meals.

[thirdcrank]

Chicken marengo* à la thirdcrank:

Some chicken (joints are usually more convenient but the original version was a whole chicken, I believe.)
Mushrooms
Onions, chopped (optional)
Garlic, crushed (vital for gallic authenticity )
Tomatoes (tinned OK)
The amounts of the above are flexible, within reason and can be substituted or omitted but if you don't use chicken you'll have to call it something else.

For the sauce:
1/2 pint wine (cheap enough so that you don't mind cooking with it, but drinkable for consumption with the meal or while waiting for it to finish cooking.)
1/4 pint chicken stock of similar (from a cube OK)
1 oz butter or olive oil may be more authentic (Approx 30 g in €s)
1 oz flour

For anybody who slavishly follows instructions these quantities are a bit more important, to ensure the sauce thickens. I find I always do best with equal quantiites of butter and flour.

Fry the chicken, garlic and onions till the chicken is nice and brown, using the butter or oil. It's then easier to put the chicken on one side. Off the heat, mix the flour into the butter / oil to form a sort of paste. (The official term for this is a roux, but I don't dignify my offerings with posh lingo.) Mix in the wine and stock, stirring well to ensure it doesn't go lumpy. If all goes well, the sauce will thicken almost magically. (Magic to me, anyway.) Put the chicken back in and add the tomatoes. Cover (if you have a lid) and simmer gently for 45 mins, stirring occasionally to stop it sticking to the pan, adding the mushrooms after half an hour.

Serve with whatever you like. I find rice goes well with it.

* There are loads of supposedly genuine recipes for the meal said to have been rustled up for Napoleon in a hurry from locally pillaged ingredients after the eponymous battle. This is mine. It's more of a campfire recipe than one for a primus. They do say that Napoleon was so famished after a hard day of slaughter and pillaging that he had fried bread and fried eggs on top.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Marengo

[John-D]

Yeah, I like chick peas and pasta (and I'm pretty keen on adding chilli, too).

This is my typical evening meal http://lejogbacktoyorkshire.blogspot.com/2010/01/food-and-drink.html. With the 'variations' it takes a long tour to have the same thing twice.

[james01]

Don't forget hedgerow ingredients. For example wild garlic (including the leaves) is a delicious addition to wayside cooking, easy to spot (and smell) in shaded dampish wooded areas. Try Googling "wild food"/"hedgerow food" etc, loads of info. Has anyone tried roadkill ? I'm a squeamish townie so I'd need to be desperate, but I like the idea of dining free off the land when on tour.

[stoobs]

Don't forget hedgerow ingredients.

Or, for that matter, hedgehog ingredients

[Tako]

For the meat eaters: Spanish chorizo is king! Whole sausages not sliced and preferably from a authentic Spanish deli. Supremely tasty and versatile. Gently fry diced chorizo to release its smokey, brick red oils, squish in a few cherry tomatoes and toss with pasta/cous-cous. Serve with spinach or other salad leaves. Hits the spot. A chick pea+chorizo stew is also very hearty fare. In fact, l picked up a couple of sausages today for a weekend wild camp!

I was given a wild food cook book and the recipes looks great - but l don't trust myself enough to know exactly what l am picking unless they're raspberries!

[bodach]

I have picked up the odd pheasant and dismembered it for carraige and an addition to the evening meal.I don't usually "cook" nowadays but use the pasta or rice packets from Aldi or Lidl which are quick and taste good.In the past I have snared rabbits and the odd fish has appeared as by magic but I had a country upbringing where I learned some skills not common nowadays.For breakfast porridge is essential of course made with medium oatmeal for speed. Brose which is simply boiling water poured over oatmeal I often use for speed.

[simonineaston]

I have picked up the odd pheasant and dismembered it for carraige and an addition to the evening meal.I don't usually "cook" nowadays but use the pasta or rice packets from Aldi or Lidl which are quick and taste good.In the past I have snared rabbits and the odd fish has appeared as by magic but I had a country upbringing where I learned some skills not common nowadays.For breakfast porridge is essential of course made with medium oatmeal for speed. Brose which is simply boiling water poured over oatmeal I often use for speed.

Wow - don't think I'd have the nerve to try the road-side pheasant thing - sounds good, though! I'll check out those 2 German supermarkets for the rice packs Bodach mentions. They're good for tinned fish, too.
I like porridge, and I'll try the medium oatmeal mentioned - I'd got it in my head you need either a double saucepan, like my Dad used to use, or a microwave, to cook porridge!
Like the sound of that chicken marengo, too...
Am off camping with chum and her 6 year old next week-end so will try out some ideas.

[bodach]

Cooking porridge is the simplest thing ever. A pan,water,oatmeal and salt to taste.Boil till it starts to "plop" then leave to cool and eat with preferably milk but in the days when the cow had no milk we used treacle(not really recommended).Best to appear a little on the thin side as it thickens on cooling.Experiment to get the proportions which suit you.Boiling for medium oatmeal is less than 5 mins but coarse takes about 10 mins. There is no need for any fancy double pans etc. If you keep it a bit in the thin side while boiling it does not stick to the pan either

[Tako]

Just returned from a lovely weekend trip to the Lake District. Wild garlic is out in force!! Dead tasty mixed with chorizo. Made a pasta dish using the wild garlic as a base for a rough pesto (WG mixed with mature cheese, crushed peanuts, olive oil). Also made a really nice tea using wild mint. These two flowers are unmistakable.

[simonineaston]

Just returned from a lovely weekend trip to the Lake District. Wild garlic is out in force!! Dead tasty mixed with chorizo. Made a pasta dish using the wild garlic as a base for a rough pesto (WG mixed with mature cheese, crushed peanuts, olive oil). Also made a really nice tea using wild mint. These two flowers are unmistakable.

Mmmm, sounds Good... I'll add that to my list of recipes to try.
I agree about chorizo, it's very tasty. I buy a similar french sausage when I'm in Brittany, although I nearly always take the trouble to peel it, 'cos I don't like the chewy 'rind' that's left, if you don't.

[thirdcrank]

Here's another simple recipe, this time for fish. I don't know if some admiral had it dished up after a hard-fought battle but it won't have been Nelson after Trafalgar.

For anybody not used to boiling milk, this may be one to try at home first. Get the boiling wrong and there's milk all over the place.

Ingredients.

Smoked haddock is ideal (flaky with plenty of flavour) but any flaky fish should do, get plain fish if you don't like it smoked.
Chopped onion.
Potatoes. (Either small new ones or ordinary potatoes chopped up into chunks so they cook more quickly.)
Milk.
Oil or butter for frying.
Parsley (or any herb you like.)
Salt/ pepper

Gently fry the onion and potatoes. The idea is to soften them a bit. If you like garlic, wild or tame, it could also be added at this stage.
Add the fish and cover with milk.
Gently, bring to the boil then simmer gently for about 10 minutes. If you are confident about the simmering, do it with the lid on. If you are like me, watch it like a hawk and stir it gently.
It should all now be soft enough to eat. Try a bit to see.
If the fish has not been flaked by the stirring, fish it out and flake it. This is the time to deal with the skin - eat it, throw it to the ship's cat or whatever.
Put the fish back in with the parsley / herbs and season.

[hartleymartin]

I suppose that if you are talking about a touring context, where you are doing camp food a cyclist does need a good amount of carbohydrates. Scrub small potatoes clean, cut them in half and boil those (smaller bits of potato cook quicker). Water can then be used to cook rice (basmati has the lowest glycaemic index). Or the water can be used to make gravy, or steam vegetables. If you are clever, you can actually make a nice risotto on the road.

Various recipes for vegetable soup work well on the road, but carrying fresh vegies can be a problem, unless you stop every day at a local green grocer that you might be passing. This is easier in Europe, because there are towns and villages everywhere, but in Australia you can often be at least a full-day's cycling between towns, and quite a few no longer have any shops.

In the colder weather in Australia it is possible to carry meat in a cooler bag or a small eski with ice without the meat going bad. In the Spring and Summer FORGET CARRYING FRESH MEAT! Sausage, Bacon, Eggs, Beans and Toast is a hearty breakfast, but perhaps not the best for you when cycling. Vegie sausages and vegie patties keep well and can be tasty. If you are well-prepared in advance, there is nothing stopping you from making nice meals.