Best meal in the field

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gspn

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Like the title says…whats the best you've eaten in the field. The only rule is that it can't have been cooked on a stove…lots of people have cabins with a normal kitchen but that doesn't count for this evolution.

It can be a prepackaged deal, it can be something you whipped up on your own. I'll start.

Best overall was a venison tenderloin cooked on a big wood burning heater we had in the barn/shop at the hunting camp. A buddy of mine was with me, he was an armorer in the Marine Corps so it never crossed my mind that he might be able to cook. In fact I'd have lost a bet on that if the question had ever come up. He can shoot, he can fix guns, and he can pick up some really heavy stuff…but cooking wasn't even on the radar.

Mid day we were all sitting around trying not to freeze and he breaks out a bag with the tenderloin from the day before. I suggested we could cook it in a pan on the heater and he created a dynamite dish from it. I have no idea what he did but it was magic. The three of us sat around stabbing at perfectly seasoned and cooked bits of tenderloin with our knives. It was nice to get a little hot chow in us before the afternoon hunt.

Second best was a dehydrated Pad Thai meal that i had on a solo fishing trip. After 15 minutes in some hot water I was eating Pad Thai by my campfire. Pretty neat…way better than any MRE I ever had.

I got to thinking about this today because I'm thinking of "upping my game" so to speak on this years outings. I have hours to kill after the sun goes down and nothing to do but tend the campfire…might as well pass the time by preparing a top notch meal.
 
My brother and I were hunting small game near Lincoln, Montana and camping out in a 3 man pop-up tent. We had killed a few Hungarian partridge and cooked them on a willow spit over an open fire. It was quite late by the time they were done but the wait was soooo worth it.

Second best was camping with my wife and 2 kids in New Brunswick, Canada. We caught 4 big brookies and planked 2 and fried the other 2. Man, were we stuffed.
 
My fav especially when solo is campfire cooked baked potatoes and a can of chili dumped on top.

The slightly overcooked skins are the best part. Goes great with cold PBR (after the guns are put away)
 
Small trout rolled in butter and cornmeal wrapped in foil and tossed in the coals. Burritos made the night before, wrapped in foil and left on the intake manifold. When you get there they are good and done....
 
Fresh Walleye filets rubbed with a garlic clove in butter & new baby red potatoes cooked in butter in a tinfoil pan over an open campfire.
With maybe some wild Morel mushrooms you found along the bank while catching the Walleye.

Seems that all comes together only once or twice in a lifetime though.

Fresh pheasant breasts or quail ain't too bad roasted on a stick either.

For that matter, a package of hotdogs, or scrambled eggs & bacon over a campfire after a long day in the field tastes like the best thing you ever ate at the finest restaurant!

rc
 
rcmodel said:
Fresh Walleye filets rubbed with a garlic clove in butter & new baby red potatoes cooked in butter in a tinfoil pan over an open campfire.
With maybe some wild Morel mushrooms you found along the bank while catching the Walleye.

rc
Click to expand...

I imagine that would work equally well with bass, catfish, or crappie…that it going into my playbook!
 
i had forgotten about the times I used to bring eggs and bacon to the duck blind. I'd pack it all in and cook breakfast for everyone on my little Peak 1 camp stove. Later in the morning I'd cook fresh mallard breasts in the bacon grease from breakfast…mmmmmm.
 
Heres another quick & easy one for a back-up plan if you don't kill or catch anything.

Get an aluminum throw-away pan.
A package of Johnsonville brats.
Two large Vidalia red onions.
A half bottle of beer.
And enough tinfoil to cover and seal the pan.

Chop or slice the onions, place on top and under the brats, then pour the beer in.
Cover & seal the pan and place in hot coals for an hour or so.

They will be ready when you are!

Good on buns, good on bread, or good just the way you scoop them out of the pan with your hunting knife.
The juice is good enough to drink when it cools off enough to sip it!

Red potato's quartered in salt, pepper & butter in a tinfoil packet in the coals is real good to go with it too!

And fresh ear corn from a field when in season.
Almost forgot that!

rc
 
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Fresh dolphin (mahi-mahi) filets dredged in melted butter, then breaded in instant mashed potato flakes (Ore-Ida, I think) then pan fried in butter over a driftwood fire on the beach in Pt. Aransas with potatoes/ onion/ tomatoes/ mushrooms wrapped in foil buried by the campfire. (Mahi-mahi caught off-shore on a cattle-boat fishing expedition). Yummilicious!!!!
 
What! :D

YOU ATE FLIPPER, dredged in instant mashed potato's! :eek:

Never mind, not that kind of Dolphin. :banghead:

Sounds delicious!!!!

rc
 
Four of us pheasant hunting the second day of the first time I carried a shotgun. First day (1962) we took full limits of 6 birds per gun. Mom baked 5 pheasant for us and put them in the cooler. By 10:30 we had another 24 birds and quit hunting to set down and eat a whole cold baked pheasant apiece. The 5th pheasant was for our dog. All of us home by 1:30 and the days birds were cleaned and in the freezer by three. I was 14 on Nov 11, my birthday.

blindhari
 
Blindhari...youre bringing back some fond memories with all this talk about limits of pheasants. Classy touch cooking a bird for the dog too!
 
Some of my best meals in the woods have been surprise finds of wild blueberries, raspberries or black caps while trout fishing or cool crisp apples or grapes found in a long deserted orchard somewhere while hunting grouse, or a batch of morels found while turkey hunting in the spring.


One of my youngest son's favorite snacks while deer hunting is what he calls "Jerky Bacon". Strips of Homemade Jerky heated by laying them over the grate of the Mr. Heater in the deer blind. Not only are they better warm, but the warm meat is appreciated on a cold November day after several hours in the blind. Also tends to remove a bit of the boredom while waiting for game to appear and quenches the persistent rumblings in your stomach.
 
Small brown trout wrapped in foil and buried in coals. A little butter, bacon or salt pork added (if you have it). Irish tators and sweet corn are great buried in coals too.

If you pack an onion, leave the peel on it and split in half. Remove much on the inner rings and set aside for something else. Chop up fresh kill (inner tenderloins(!)) and place in onion halves. You can chop and add some of the inner onion to the mix if wanted. Secure with some small hardwood (something that won't add nasty taste) skewers and bury in coals. Yum.
 
One that I only did once because of the ashes: dress and pluck a large duck (mallard, can, pintail) and rub with Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning, wrap a river rock the size of the gut cavity in foil and put it in the hot campfire coals overnight. In the morning dig out the hot rock, unwrap it and put it in the duck's gut cavity and wrap in 2 layers of foil. Go duck hunting.
When you get back, unwrap the the foil, toss the rock, and eat a delicious meal.
 
What!

YOU ATE FLIPPER, dredged in instant mashed potato's!

Never mind, not that kind of Dolphin.

Sounds delicious!!!!
Click to expand...

Known locally as Dolphin in Texas, same fish is known as "Dorado" or "El Dorado" south of the river. Mahi mahi is the trendy name, Hawaiian I guess, but I've never been to Hawaii and ain't very trendy, just a dull old man. :D
 
We've eaten everything from venison tenderloins, quail, pheasant, fish, you name it.
I think one the most memorable meals was out quail hunting with one of my boys a couple years ago, and by 10 am we were both pretty famished, didn't eat breakfast yet. So I grabbed some mesquite sticks, built a fire and proceeded to have quail for brunch. We had our cooler in the back of the truck with bacon, so I wrapped the quail with small strips, so it would cook faster and not get insulated by the bacon. I found some scrap barb wire pieces so we used those to skewer them, tasty treat.

In South Dakota we've done something similar, but with pheasant. No mesquite though, but oak isn't bad either.

Now tenderloins, that's probably the best meal we do, and fairly often during deer season. But it's not as spur of the moment, more of a days end traditional meal. Back strap, bacon wrapped, mesquite cooked. Oh man, I'm hungry now. It's about time to cook up those wild turkey in the freezer.

GS
 
A can of sardines in hot sauce between two slices of German rye bread is just about the best meal in the field I ever ate.

That and a buffalo chicken MRE. Those are good.
 
I think my favorite meals were when I lived in Colorado, and my buddy and I would 4 wheel to a little place we found up on top of Elk Mountain in the Routt Nat Forest. Dinner was usually a steak over the campfire coals and foil wrapped potatoes cooked in the ashes. Along with plenty of adult beverages.

We always cooked a couple of extra potatoes, and the next morning we would wake up in that clear, cold air and throw a package of Chorizo in one skillet and scramble a dozen eggs in another. Take a large, fresh tortilla, put some left over diced baked potatos, chorizo, scrambled eggs, shredded cheese and just the right amount of hot sauce and roll up the best breakfast burrito I have ever had the pleasure to eat. Along with a steaming mug of coffee......
 
Let me see, first would be the "hobo stew," which is onion, stew meat, carrots, garlic, salt, pepper, and a little butter all wraped in aluminum foil and droped in the coals. Next would be fresh caught speckled trout, red fish, flounder, lemon fish, or red snapper, after that would be a can of wolf brand chili with crushed up saltine crackers.
 
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