Trail Food Recipe: Indian Butter Chicken

This is Jamie's favorite dinner recipe. I created it when he was on the AT and I was in an Indian phase! It's calorically dense and tasty.

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup Instant Rice

3/4 cup Freeze Dried Chicken

1 Tbsp Tomato Powder

2 Tbsp Cream Powder

1 Tbsp Butter Powder

1/2 tsp Chili Powder

1/4 tsp Minced Garlic

1 tsp Minced Onion

1 tsp Minced Ginger

1 tsp Garam Masala

1/4 tsp Salt and Pepper

*2 Tbsp Olive Oil (Always added when preparing on the trail, not when packaging.)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine the ingredients (excluding olive oil) in a meal pouch or prep bowl, tossing to integrate all the ingredients better.

2. Remove as much air as possible and seal.

PREPARATION:

1. Add 1 1/4 cups boiling water and 2 Tbsp olive oil to the meal pouch.

2. Let sit in a meal cozy or other insulated container.

3. Stir well and dig in.

A Word or Two About the Ingredients

The freeze-dried chicken is, of course, a very prominent ingredient in many of the trail dinners and there are a lot of options out there. In general, they are all pretty similar in quality, so my purchasing decision has typically been based on price per ounce. Recently, there has been an addition to the slate of what is described as "Freeze-dried Grilled Chicken" rather than the typical diced chicken pieces. I'm very curious about this, but I haven't used it yet. I will do a comparison of these shortly and let you know what I think. For now, these are the types I've most recently bought and the prices I paid for a #10 can (approx. 1 pound).

Mountain House

17oz. #10 Can

$57.98 (Amazon)

$3.41 per ounce

Fresh and Honest

16.96oz. #10 Can

$49.99 (Amazon)

$2.95 per ounce

Nutristore

19.5oz. #10 Can

$69.99 (Amazon)

$3.59 per ounce

It's always worth checking the prices directly with the company on their sites, but sometimes it's hard to beat the shipping time with Amazon. That was the case for us initially since we had such a short time to prep before Jamie hit the trail.

This recipe also features a bunch of my favorites from Hoosier Hill Farm. Just like the tomato powder, the butter powder and heavy cream powder are just great, simple and clean. The company is just a great source for all kinds of dairy powders, even GOAT milk and OAT milk powders, but the butter, heavy cream, sour cream, and cream cheese powders are really useful in the trail food recipes, so they are staples for us.

A tasting note from Jamie:

I had originally made the first batch of these meals with 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne added. After having this for the first time on the CDT a few days ago, he did tell me "When in doubt, more salt rather than less and less spiciness rather than more." So I omitted the cayenne from the recipe above, but if your hiker loves the spicy stuff, go for it!

There must just be something about trail food in general, because I am NOT shy with salt in my cooking. I apply the same principles to the trail food, so I am pretty generous with the salt. But it is a challenging issue, because you don't want to over-salt and ruin a meal when someone is relying on it. I typically use a heaping 1/4 tsp of salt and then pepper based on what the food is.

I suppose Jamie's perception of the salt could be due the fact that he's sweating it all out and needs more, or it could be due to the salt itself. I am now on a Celtic salt kick, so that's what I'm using. I haven't personally noticed it being less salty than other types, but I suppose it's possible.

A discussion of the different types of salt is definitely worth having, but it will have to wait for another day...

Let me know what you think!

Weights and Measures