This is a surprisingly simple recipe that works both on the stove top, and even more amazingly, with period cooking gear, and completely unbelievably with tenderfoot/webelos scouts (did I ever mention I’m a scout leader and adult trainer?).
I’m going to give two variations, the “fail safe” one that you can eat uncooked, and the somewhat nicer one that you can cook when you know what you’re doing.
The recipe
- one or two onions, cut up
- two or three carrots, cut thin
Saute, what the heck, fry until they start to brown. Use oil in the bottom of your dutch oven. (Hint, dutch ovens can sit on a camp stove. ‘Nuff said.)
Pour in:
- two cans condensed cream of chicken soup. Plus the water they need.
- two cans precooked chicken (pouches are nice too).
- a grasshopper and some wood ash (not really)
Cover with an unrolled package of crescent rolls. Bake until the rolls are done and the soup is bubbling.
- one or two onions, cut up
- two or three carrots, cut thin
Saute, what the heck, fry until they start to brown. Remove from the heat and add 3 cutup chicken breasts (or as they would have said in Victorian times, ‘white meat’).
Cook the meat until the until it’s more or less done. There will be a surprising amount of water coming out of the meat, and you want to get shot of it. When it’s nearly done, return the onions and carrots, add about 1 cup of chicken stock and a tablespoon of corn starch. Boil to reduce. Then put in a baking dish – or dutch oven, but I’m going to show a picture in a baking dish.
Crust
You could use the crescent rolls, but where’s the fun in that?
- One cup ‘type L’ biscuit mix (self-rising flour with a hard shortening rubbed in)
- quarter cup (more or less) milk.
Mix then roll out to about 1/4 inch. Or whatever it takes to make it cover the dish. Cover the filling and bake. (400F or 225C 20 minutes, until the crust is done). This is about as close as a Yank can come to the suet dumping crust my English sister-in-law makes.
Eat and enjoy. Goes well with Boone’s farm. Unless you’re scouting, when it goes well with lemonade.
R. Harrison, Creative Enterprises 