Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 358 kcal | 102 kcal |
| Protein | 34.7 g | 9.8 g |
| Fat | 2.6 g | 0.7 g |
| saturated | 0.6 g | 0.2 g |
| Carbohydrate | 46.3 g | 13.1 g |
| sugars | 0.5 g | 0.1 g |
| Fibre | 1.6 g | 0.5 g |
| Sodium | 955 mg | 271 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 810 g canned chicken
- 7/8 cup of chimichurri seasoning
- 3 1/2 cups of dried prawn
- 7 1/4 cups cooked instant rice
- Olive oil
Instructions
- Drain the canned chicken and press it against the lid until nothing more runs out. Whatever stays in that tin is water the machine has to remove instead, and there is a surprising amount of it.
- Flake the chicken with a fork until no piece is thicker than a match. It is packed in compressed chunks, and a chunk dries hard on the outside while staying wet at its core.
- Spread the flakes thinly over a mesh liner. They are small enough to fall through an open tray and light enough for the fan to move around.
- Dehydrate at 71 °C for 6 hours. The setting is high because this meat is going into a bag that will travel unrefrigerated, and that is not a place to be gentle.
- It is done when a flake snaps under a fingernail with no darker band through the break. Cool it first — warm meat always feels drier than it is, and chicken jarred slightly damp smells wrong within a week.
- Combine the cooled chicken with the rice, prawn and chimichurri seasoning in a zip-top bag and squeeze the air out. Everything in there must be equally dry, because the wettest item decides how long the meal lasts.
- Carry the olive oil separately in a sachet or a small bottle. Oil packed in with the dry goods coats the rice and stops it taking water back in the field.
- In camp, stir boiling water through the mixture, then the oil, and leave it covered for ten minutes. The prawn are the slowest thing in the bag — if they still squeak against your teeth, give it another five.
- Sealed and kept cool the packed meal is good for a month, or three months in a freezer. It is a dried food rather than a preserved one, and a hot car will cut that to days.
