Curried Bush Prawns

Those of you unfortunate enough not to have access to real yabbies can substitute King Prawns or some other unworthy crustacean. The other ingredients for this recipe are bound to be in your camp kit so it usually becomes something of a staple around bush camps.

What you need

1. 10 yabby’s per man (cooked)
2. 1 onion per man
3. Half a capsicum per man
4. 1 spud per man chopped small
5. Some peas 
6. Some cabbage chopped
7. A dash of soy sauce if you have it
8. A couple of tablespoons of curry powder
9. A packet of prawn flavoured noodles 
   (Maggi noodles come with different flavoured sachets inside)

What you do

De claw yabby’s and put claws on ice. Peel tails and chuck with everything else in the camp oven except for the noodles and prawn flavouring cover with water and bring to the boil then add flavouring and stir in. Then add the noodles by crushing them in your hand and letting them fall into the oven. Give it a stir and let simmer for twenty minutes.

Tricks & Tips

While you are preparing the meal drop the claws on ice then while the meal is cooking eat the icy cold claws with an icy cold beer for an entree.

Rating:

Excellent, Better than cat chow mien anyway.

Road Kill Roo Roast

A few years ago, Ron was shooting rabbits for a living out in the North West of N.S.W with a couple of other blokes. When they were preparing to go, funds were very low so they spent most of their money on fuel and bullets. The only food they took with them was what they already had laying about the place. This consisted of a fifty kilo bag of spuds, a twenty kilo bag of onions a big bag of dried peas and a box full of sauces and herbs. For meat they lived entirely on what they shot and trapped.

Because of the naturally low fat content of wild meat the fat just dripped off all of them so that when they returned a few months later they were all a lot slimmer and healthier than ever before. You will notice in this recipe that I use cooking fat, If you don’t the roast will be very dry and not as nice to eat, because of the lack of natural fat in the meat.

What you need:

• Roo leg or beef or lamb
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Garlic cloves
• Mixed herbs
• Half a cup of cooking fat if using roo leg
• Bottle of favourite Australian Red Wine
• Cup of water

What you do

Stab knife into leg, (the Roo’s leg not your leg), and slip garlic cloves down the slits as close to the bone as you can get. Do this in about four places.

Splash Worcestershire sauce all over meat and pour some down into the slits as well. Sprinkle mixed herbs over the top and down the slits also.

Chuck roast in camp oven, then pour in the water, and add the lump of fat to one side of the meat. Throw the oven on the coals and get it simmering steadily but not too fast, if you cook it too quick it will be tough. Once it has settled down to a good cooking rate, lift the lid and splash a liberal amount of the red wine over the whole show. Don’t lift the lid for another hour and a half. When the time is up lift the lid and have a bit of a gander at your masterpiece. The aroma alone will be fantastic.

If you bought the meat from a butchers shop it will no doubt be falling off the bone by now, so remove the camp oven from the coals and put a big heap of really hot ones on the lid for about ten minutes, just to brown the top off.

If using roadkill then check progress of cooking by inspecting one of the slits, when it is cooked right down to the bone you know its getting close. Normally it will need cooking for at least another hour to be done properly. Remember you’re in the bush now so just relax and enjoy a bottle or two of Australian red and a bit of bush poetry reciting, the longer your roast cooks for the better the eating will be.

Tricks & Tips

Serve with baked vegies.

We usually throw in a couple of peeled whole onions right at the start, there will be nothing left of them by the time it is cooked but they always impart that little bit of extra flavour.

Also I like to start the cooking early in the afternoon, it only takes a few minutes to throw it together and once it is in the oven the less the lid is removed and the longer it cooks the better. It doesnt even matter if you dont go near it for a few hours and the coals die down so that it is barely cooking, just stoke it back up and continue fishing or whatever your doing.

Probably not a good idea to go around picking up road kills at random.

Rating:

Bush tucker at its best

Bull Dusted Road Kill

The theory of “Bush Ingenuity” is legendary throughout our vast land and has been used to solve problems on the run by stockmen, drovers, miners and swaggies since the pioneering days. However there is no supernatural powers involved, nor any in-bred instinct born only to country people. It comes from not having the hardware store a few minutes down the road, or not having the money to visit the hardware store in the first place.

Often a solution or a substitute can be found right under your nose, it only takes a bit of imagination and some good old “Bush Ingenuity”. It’s like the inventions we have all seen and thought, now why didn’t I think of that?, it’s simplicity in it’s self. The inventor saw a problem and then went about solving it in the simplest way. Camp oven cooking can be aligned with the same principles, “keep it simple”. Along this line of thought, here is a recipe that is simple to make and uses what is at hand.

What you need

• Your left over meat from the Road Kill Roo Roast recipe, chopped into small bits
• Couple of tablespoons of oil
• Heaps of onions
• Big heaps of roughly chopped tomatoes, really ripe ones
• A couple of cloves of garlic chopped or crushed
• A fair dash of chilli sauce or chilli powder
• Worcestershire sauce 
• Plain flour

What you do

Get the floor of your camp oven really hot and add the oil, toss in the meat, garlic, chilli and onions and splash a bit of Worcestershire sauce over it then stir it all up until the meat is browned on the outside. Keep the oven hot and cooking fast, and add the tomatoes. Don’t put the lid on, you want to let some of the liquid from the tomatoes evaporate out so that the finished product is a thick tomato type sauce not a runny one.

Stir regularly, and when cooked if it is still a bit runny add some flour, premixed with the sauce in a cup to the pot and stir in until it is nice and thick. Keep the oven on the point of burning for the whole time and you will end up with a deliciously braised flavour that just can’t be imitated in any gourmet kitchen.

Tricks & Tips:

Tinned Tomatoes can be substituted if you don’t think fresh tomatoes are going to last the distance. This recipe is also really good using chops instead of roast meat. For that touch of “bush ingenuity” why not open a bottle of Australian red wine and add a splash to the recipe to impart that extra bit of flavouring? Don’t forget to save some for breakfast the next morning, it will be even better by then. The food, not the wine.

Rating

With the colour, texture and flavour reflecting the landscape of much of inland Australia, red, sun scorched and hot, you will be going back for more.

It doesn’t take much in the outback for an interesting story to become, myth, legend and folklore, even before it has come full circle. The bush telegraph was founded on Chinese whispers and communications broke down from there. A boss with a bad temper could be an axe murderer before the next job begins.

Pigs in the Pineapple Patch

It may seem a touch extravagant to be preparing a pork roast whilst camping but this no frills recipe is a sure winner. Besides, you never know when you are going to catch a wild pig, (or hit one in your car) and opportunism is the first law of the outback.

What you need:

• 1 Pork leg roast
• 1 Pineapple
• Salt

What you do

Place roast into oven sprinkle crackling with salt. Skin pineapple and chop into 4 pieces. Place these in camp oven around the pork. Add a coffee cup full of water. Bake at a steady even heat for one hour with the lid on. Then baste with the sauce in bottom of oven and bake for another hour at a real slow simmer. Ten minutes before you want to serve the meal shovel a good helping of hot coals onto the lid so the crackling will crackle.

Tricks & Tips

For that tender effect always put a coffee cup of water in the oven 
with whatever meat you are roasting.
If you aren’t scared of a few hardened arteries, you will get better crackling by 
rubbing the salt into the skin before you begin cooking.

Rating

Porker. Great meal, don’t forget your vegies

Pineapple Hog

If you had the foresight to bring a tin of pineapples on a camping trip, then you probably are prepared to go to the trouble of making this recipe. It’s not difficult if you can hold the pig down long enough to cut the little bits of pork off him.

What you need

• Leftover meat from the “Pigs in the Pineapple Patch” recipe
• Mince 
• 1 tin of pineapple pieces finely chopped
• Sprinkling of Sultanas
• Egg and milk
• Flour or breadcrumbs

What you do

Chop roast pork into tiny bits, add equal parts of mince, add the pineapple pieces and the sultanas. Beat eggs and a dash milk together then add to brew. Give the whole show a good stir until it reaches a nice, sticky consistency, then squeeze into rissoles and roll onto the flour or bread crumbs. Cook in half an inch of oil till golden brown on each side.

Tricks & Tips

Put the lot into a pie dish sprinkle with bread crumbs and call it Sweet Meatloaf. I’m sure all you bush cooks know that the best way to roll a rissole is in your armpit.

Rating

Eyebrow raiser.

Baked Vegies

Making baked veggie’s in a camp oven can be enjoyable or infuriating, depending on your disposition. The best advice is to not get yourself all stressed out over having your veggies turning out a bit mushy. Because I can guarantee that even though you might end up needing a spoon to eat them, the flavour is going to be unbelievable. Anyway, your eating by the light of a fire and the food on the plates will be partly obscured by shadows, so what you can’t see cant hurt you.

The camp ovens do such a great job of baking the veggie’s, they literally melt when cooked. Hopefully the hints below might help you to cook them and still have them hold together long enough to get them onto a plate.

What you need

• Spuds
• Pumpkin
• Onions
• Carrots or Zucchinis
• Cooking Oil

What you do

Make sure your meat is cooked and ready to go, just leave it in the oven by the fire to keep hot. 
In another camp oven, cover the floor of the oven with about half to three-quarters of an inch of oil. Get the oven fairly hot, testing with chips of potato. When the chips start frying like they should, throw in your veggie’s, leaving the softer one’s like zucchini until the last few minutes of cooking time before they go in. Now as soon as the veggies hit the bottom. Roll them around and around so that they get completely covered in the hot oil. This will just seal off the surface of the veggie’s enough so that they won’t stick to the bottom. Now you can put the lid on, lifting regularly to roll veggie’s over to cook on a new side. Once the veggies are golden all over you can serve them up with your meat.

Tricks & Tips

Try leaving the skin on your pumpkin pieces if you are using the old “QLD Blue” or “Jarradale” varieties, and don’t be afraid to eat it as well, baked pumpkin skin is bloody good tucker.
Try cooking the veggie’s in the same oven as the roast meat, to take on that extra flavour. But be warned, veggies cooked in this way are more easily broken and mashed up as you try and juggle it around the meat.

Rating

Nearly good enough to make a vegetarian out of a bloke.

Vegetarian Soup

This one sorts out the men from the politically correct, sensitive new age boys.

What you need

• 1 juicy giant rump steak per man
• Worcestershire sauce 
• 1 stubby
• Road map

What you do

Drop steaks in hot camp oven, splash with sauce, put lid on and drink half a stubby. Then turn steaks over splash with sauce, put lid on and drink other half of stubby.

Tricks & Tips

If anyone in the camp won’t eat it give them the road map and show them where to go.

Rating

Excellent, unless you actually are a vegetarian.

Kentucky Fried Rabbit

This is one recipe we don’t recommend you substitute meat. Healthy rabbits are getting harder and harder to come across, but the meat has a ‘gamey’ flavour which is fairly unique and well worth the effort of catching one. Use neighbours cat if you like but only use chicken as a last resort. Thanks to John the rabbit shooter for teaching us this one all those years ago.
What you need

• 1 Rabbit per man
• Eggs (1 per rabbit) and milk mixed together
• Cornflour or plain it doesn’t matter that much
• Crumbs
• Oil
• Newspaper

What you do

• Shoot rabbit’s
• Clean rabbit’s
• Cut legs off
• Cut the “Backstrap” off, (the bit that is on each side of the back bone)
• Sprinkle cornflour on a sheet of newspaper
• Sprinkle crumbs on a sheet of newspaper
• Mix eggs and milk
• Roll rabbit pieces in cornflour by dropping on to newspaper and rolling it around by holding the sides of the newspaper
• Dip in eggs and milk till wet
• Roll around on the crumbs till covered
• Bake in 1 or 2cm of oil that is simmering gently for about 10 min each side

Tricks & Tips

Get your oven to the right temperature before you start, once again,
it’s better to be too hot than not hot enough. Try adding curry powder, chilli powder, mixed herbs, garlic or all of the above with the crumbs.

Make more than you need because it is also delicious to eat cold for lunch the next day.

You might be able to practise this recipe on your neighbour’s cats so that when you head bush you will have it down to a fine art already.

Skinning rabbits is the easiest job in the bush. Simply cut a small nick in the skin of the back, put a finger of each hand in the hole and pull it apart. The skin will come clean away from the flesh and you need only cut off the extremities and remove the innards to have a dish ready for the pot.

Rating

Unbloodyreal, one of the best bush recipe’s I’ve ever eaten. 
(The rabbit that is, don’t know about the cat)

Underground Mutton Maryland (Rabbit)

Rabbits turn fodder into protein that can be consumed by humans, faster and more efficiently than any other animal on the planet. They also breed fast and can adapt to extraordinary climatic changes. They are also bloody good to eat.

What you need

• One rabbit per man
• Or you can just buy some chicken Maryland pieces from the butchers
• Tin of tomatoes, or preferably some nice ripe fresh ones
• A couple of onions, sliced
• A couple of Zucchinis, chopped
• Garlic cloves, crushed
• Chilli Powder or chilli sauce
• Couple of tablespoons of oil
• Australian red wine
• Water or tomato juice

What you do

Cut rabbits into four pieces. Drop garlic, chilli, onions and rabbit pieces into a hot camp oven and stir while it browns a little. Splash in some red wine when nice and hot, chuck in all of the rest of the ingredients along with a cup of water, or better still tomato juice, and throw on the lid. For this one you want all of the juices to stay in the pot and boil out, so keep the lid lifting to a minimum and use your ear to keep the oven simmering at a nice steady pace.
When half cooked have a sip of the juice to make sure it is spicy enough, if not add more chilli.
It’s ready when the meat is falling off the bone, usually takes a sixpack or so to get this affect.

Tricks & Tips

The trick with rabbits is getting a good one. Make sure it has nice clear eyes and generally looks young and healthy and it usually will be. 
Don’t be frightened to let it all marinate for a day before cooking, it will only make it even better.

Rating

A great feed, bursting with spicy flavours.

Burnt Duck

On the big jobs in the bush, tempers can be measured in direct correlation to temperature and hours of work. The longer and hotter it is, the shorter the tempers become. Usually there is no problems, everyone is doing it as tough as the man beside him, but there is one thing that can bring total anarchy in a bush camp, and that is a bad cook.

Where a good camp cook will have a tired but nourished and happy crew, a bad one will have the whole crew plotting cruel and slow methods of murdering him during the entire working day. It some how seems to work out that the worse the cook the better the bloody fighter he is.

Sometimes a small riot can be started simply from a poor old honest cook making a simple mistake and stuffing up the main meal for a camp full of tired hungry tough bushies.

What you need

• A camp full of tired hungry tough bushies
• A big heap of fat juicy black ducks
• A fire
• A camp oven 
• A pub near by

What you do

Go to great lengths to prepare the duck, arrange them into the camp ovens, shovel heaps of coals around them and “duck in” (no pun intended) to the local pub for a “quick one” before the men knock off.

On arrival at the pub, promptly forget the time and get plastered. Arrive home two and a half hours late and lift the camp oven lids to find what resembles bush fire victims where the ducks used to be.
Then run like hell and don’t go back, ever!

Tricks & Tips

When you first realise how late you are, stay in the pub, don’t even go back for your pay, just look for another job and be thankful your still alive and not nailed to a tree with your skinning knifes.

Rating

Better to do ten rounds with Tyson.

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