Campstove Cuisine: Pad Thai

Cooking in the wilderness has its challenges. Limited storage space, lack of refrigeration, and a finite amount of cooking fuel all limit your choices in menu planning. However, meals in the back country don't have to be boring or repetitive.

Each month, we'll bring you a new field-tested recipe to add to your repertoire. My principles for backcountry cuisine: any meal should be simple to prepare, lightweight, nutritionally balanced, take little space*, require a minimum of stove fuel, and should result in a little waste. And most importantly, it should taste good!

This month's recipe: Pad Thai. This Thai rice noodle dish is flavorful, contains plenty of protein, and is wheat and gluten free.



Ingredients

Main dish
- 8 oz. package Pad Thai (wide rice) noodles
- 4 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 1 package extra-firm tofu (in non-perishable, aseptic packaging)
- 2 cloves garlic - minced
- 4-6 scallions - thinly sliced and the green ends reserved.
- 1/2 cup crushed peanuts

Sauce
- 1 lime
- 3 to 4 tbsp fish sauce (available at Asian foods markets & most grocery stores)
- 3 tbsp sugar (or 4 packets sugar in the raw)
- 1 to 2 pinches red pepper flakes.
- 2 tbsp. cilantro (from tube)

Directions:

- Bring 1.5 liters (that's 1-1/2 Nalgene bottles, or 48 oz) of water to a boil. Remove from heat and add 8 oz. package of rice noodles. Soak noodles for 7 minutes, then drain and set aside.

- While noodles are soaking, make the Pad Thai sauce by combining fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, red pepper flakes, and cilantro. Stir and set aside.

- Heat tofu on a non-stick frying pan to draw water out and toughen the proteins. After browning on both sides, slice the tofu into 1/2" cubes.

- Heat approximately 2 tbsp of vegetable oil to the pan. Add minced garlic and scallions and sautee with the tofu. Toss well.

- Reduce heat to low, then add noodles, sauce, and half of the peanuts and toss well with tongs. Cook for approximately 2 minutes over low heat.

- Garnish with remaining peanuts and chopped greens from the scallions.

Serves 3-4 (or 2 really hungry guys!). A good side dish for this meal is an iceberg lettuce and cucumber salad, tossed with rice vinegar.


Notes:

I keep a "kitchen" pantry of spices, oils, and other cooking condiments. Pre-package liquids (oil, fish sauce, vinegars, etc.) in Nalgene bottles (stored in a ziploc bag for extra leak security). I bring packets of sugar in the raw.

Minced herbs are now available minced and packaged in tubes...these make for easy dispensing, last longer than fresh herbs, and taste much better than dried herbs.

Do as much pre-packaging as you can. This will save time and waste. Remember, whatever you pack in has to be packed out.

On trips I carry a small soft cooler with vegetables. In cold water climates, the bottom of your kayak will remain cold and keep vegetables and other perishables cool. However, you need to time your trips to make certain that perishable items are being used.

* When I say "take little space," I generally aim to fit all the contents for a meal for 4 adults into one quart-sized Ziploc bag.