Dehydrated Moroccan Lamb Curry and Couscous
This satisfying curry is packed with peas, lamb (or TVP or chickpeas for vegan options), eggplant and Middle Eastern spices, while currants, pistachios, dried coriander and lemon zest add bling to the couscous. In camp, these are rehydrated separately and then recombined so you get a wonderful mix of textures with the rich sauce, fluffy couscous and crunchy nuts.
If you need to take your meals interstate or overseas, add the lemon zest and coriander to the meat mix towards the end of cooking time rather than dehydrating separately so as not to fall foul of customs; some countries won’t allow the import of home dehydrated meals at all, so check before you prepare too many! You may need to omit the nuts too, and buy them later to add.
As always, this recipe is for folk who love cooking, but we include cheat hacks for those who are time poor (below). This recipe is for a large batch of 12-16 serves depending on your appetite, and packaging is for two people. Halve for solo hikers.
Use non-stick cookware if you have it. Non-stick is much easier because we use so little oil that ingredients otherwise catch. If you’re using an ordinary frypan, scrape the bottom to prevent food catching.
Moroccan Lamb Ingredients (for about 14 generous serves):
1.5 kg lean lamb mince (or TVP or tinned chickpeas)
1 kg frozen peas
3 large eggplants (aubergine) in 1cm dice
2 large onions, finely diced
12 cloves garlic, minced
3 thumbs ginger, grated
Fresh chillies to taste, chopped
12 dates, chopped
350g tomato paste
2 tbspn olive oil
2 bunches coriander (cilantro)
6 tbspn of your favourite Middle Eastern Spice (Moroccan, Ras El Hanout, Bharat, etc).
Juice of 1 lemon or to taste
Salt and pepper
1 cup currants
The couscous:
2 kg couscous approx.
Zest of 3 large lemons
2 bunches chopped coriander (keep chopped stems separate)
140g Currants
155g shelled, coarsely chopped pistachios
salt to taste
Method
Place the diced eggplant in a colander, sprinkle with 2 tspn salt and mix well. Leave to drain for 15 minutes and rinse.
Spread on a tea towel, cover with a second tea towel and roll tightly to blot dry.
Meanwhile, in a large non-stick pan, fry lamb over medium-high heat in 1 tbspn of the oil until browned, stirring regularly to prevent burning. Tip the meat into a sieve and rinse with hot water to remove the oil, which will eventually go rancid ( no need to rinse TVP). Reserve the rinse water.
Deglaze the pan with your rinse water, reserving it in a jug: it has lots of flavour! Spoon or blot all the fat from the top of the water. If you let the liquid cool, the fat will solidify on top and is easily removed.
Wipe the pan clean and heat ½ tbspn of oil.
Add eggplant and stir-fry over high heat until beginning to brown; a few charred bits are good for that smoky flavour. You may need 2 batches. Remove from pan.
Add final ½ tbspn oil and fry onion over medium heat until soft and just starting to colour, then add ginger, garlic and spices. Stir well and fry until fragrant.
Add tomato paste and stir another minute or two, then return meat and eggplant to the pan. Add peas, dates and the reserved rinse water (I usually have about 1.5 L). Mix well. If everything won’t fit into your frypan, transfer ingredients to a deep, heavy-bottomed pot and continue cooking in it instead.
Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered 30-45 minutes. The sauce will thicken; top up if it starts to catch.
If using canned chickpeas, add them in the last 30 minutes of cooking time.
When the sauce is richly coloured, thick and the flavours have blended, add lemon juice to taste. Season well with salt and pepper. Add more fresh chili now if you like, too. There should be very little liquid left.
Place one serve in a bowl and weigh; remember you’ll be adding couscous to the meal later. Place double that one serve on a dehydrator tray – this is your WET MIX WEIGHT FOR TWO SERVES (A). Mark tray with a teaspoon.
Fill remaining trays with meat and veg. Dehydrate at 145 F (63 C) until completely dry.
If sauce is a bit runny for mesh trays, you can either
drain sauce in a colander first, place separately onto a silicone sheet to dry, then blitz to powder in a spice grinder and return after dehydrating OR
drain sauce via a colander and blitz with a few spoonfuls of the meat and veg to thicken it, before returning it to the rest of the mix and dehydrating OR
spread meat and veg mix onto silicone or baking paper sheets initially, before flipping onto mesh
Place chopped coriander on a separate tray lined with baking paper or a silicone sheet, with the lemon zest in one corner.
Dehydrate at 145 F (63 C) until completely dry.
Weigh your marked tray: this is your DRY WEIGHT MIX FOR TWO SERVES (B).
Place all dry mix into a bowl, add 1 cup currants, and mix well.
Preparation and Packaging
Weigh out B into temporary takeaway containers and line them up. You’ll have 6-8 meals for two (12-16 individual serves, depending on your appetite and portion sizes. If you’ve dried runny sauce separately, powder it and divide evenly between the containers.
In front of each container put two small pieces of clingwrap or baking paper. On each one put:*
20-25g roughly chopped pistachios
20-30g currants
Wrap the clingfilm or baking paper around the pistachios and currants*.
In a sandwich ziploc bag place
two serves of couscous (¾ cup is about right for us, you may prefer more or less)
a pinch of salt
a pinch of Moroccan spice and
the dehydrated lemon zest and coriander, divided evenly between the ziplocs. We find it’s about ½ tspn dried lemon zest and 1 tbspn coriander, but it depends on your serving sizes.
the wrapped clingfilm packs of nuts and currants.
Close the Ziploc.
*The pistachios and currants are wrapped separately because the currants have a higher moisture content than the couscous for long term storage and pistachios can go rancid if stored for a long time. Taste test old batches before adding them to the couscous.
Get your vacuum bags. Into each
decant one takeaway container of B (DRY MIX TWO SERVES ) meat/veg mix.
Add one ziploc of couscous/nuts/currants
Vac seal the vac bags, but not too much as the lamb mix is sharp and can poke holes in the bag.
On the outside write W ml (A – B ie water needed to reconstitute sauce), as well as dish, number of serves and date. You’ll need more water for the couscous, but it’s rehydrated separately.
You can also package directly into ziplocs and rehydrate your meal in the pot in camp
In Camp:
Open vac bag and remove Ziploc. Pour W ml boiling water into the meat mix left behind, stir well, close and place in a cosy for 20-25 minutes. Open and, if you carry olive oil, add a few squirts and mix well before serving.
T
en minutes before the meat mix is ready, put the amount of water needed to reconstitute the couscous (usually a ratio of ¾ cup couscous:1 cup/250 ml water) in your pot and bring to the boil. Add the couscous, stir well, replace lid and place into a cosy for 6-7 minutes.
Open pot, add currants and pistachios and fluff couscous with a fork or spork.
To share between two when you have no bowls, with one eating out of the pot and the other eating out of the bag as we do, place half the couscous into a cup or on the pot lid. Push remaining couscous to one side in the pot, and decant half the sauce from the bag into the pot. Then tip the couscous from the cup or pot lid into the bag.
Rehydrating the couscous separately like this is a bit of faffing around but it’s worth doing because rehydrating everything together turns the couscous into a soggy, gluggy mess. It doesn’t actually take any longer in camp, as it all happens while the sauce is rehydrating. Rehydrating the couscous separately means the lemon zest and coriander also retain their fresh, bright notes.
You will be amazed at how authentic this meal tastes: it’s as good as anything you’d make at home! Yum!
Cheats No Dehydrating Hacks
Mix together dry TVP, freeze dried peas, dried fried onions, onion and garlic powder, tomato powder and Moroccan spice powder sachet.
Add chopped dates, dried apricots or other dried fruit to your TVP mix either beforehand or in camp before rehydrating
Add commercial dried coriander instead of home dried coriander to your couscous
Use pre-spiced Moroccan or Middle Eastern flavoured couscous
In camp, add peanuts, scroggin (fruit and nuts) or GORP (good ol’ raisins and peanuts) instead of pistachios and currants to the couscous
