Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Food & Drink => Topic started by: Oscar's dad on 21 February, 2010, 01:47:43 pm
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We have just invested in a Trangia. So far (in the garden) I have boiled water very successfully. I have also tried frying bacon with less success, the pan didn't get hot enough, though I may have put in too much oil. I will try again when it isn't raining. So, two things ...
Firstly, do you have any Trangia cooking tips?
Secondly, do you have any favourite Trangia friendly recipes?
For the record we have a 25-6UL (the non-stick model)
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I'm not sure that cooking with a Trangia is all that different from any other camping stove.
As for recipes and suggestions; Couscous is good, and better than things like rice, since you only need to boil the water and pour it on, whereas rice and pasta needs to be boiled for 10-20 minutes and use up a lot more fuel.
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I'm not sure that cooking with a Trangia is all that different from any other camping stove.
Just an awful lot slower ;)
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Never had any problems cooking bacon myself.
Rotate the big holes in the base towards the wind. Don't use the simmer ring at all, and you've got a pretty good frying unit.
How many rashers were you trying to cook?
Get jars of duck confit. Then add the duck fat to everything else you cook, cous cous, baked potatoes you cooked in the fire/instant mash/batchelors rice etc, and everything tastes wonderful (as long as you like duck that is).
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Secondly, do you have any favourite Trangia friendly recipes?
Whole thread of them here (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=3567.0). :)
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Damn, I still haven't met any of the campsite groupies mentioned in that thread! ;D
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These campsite groupies, they wouldn't happen to be small, slow and snot-propelled, would they?
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Use methanol instead of meths, if you can get it. Yo wont have to scrub all that black soot off the bottom of the pans then. ;)
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Thick soups work really well.
Cook onion and garlic together, add a chicken stock cube cook up until it starts to get a bit dry, then add a can of chopped tomatoes, stir everything up, add a small can of kidney beans, chopped chorizo and finish off with some chopped basil.
Serve with soft rolls.
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Use methanol instead of meths, if you can get it. Yo wont have to scrub all that black soot off the bottom of the pans then. ;)
A cap full of water in the meths has a similar non-sooty effect as I recall.
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Use methanol instead of meths, if you can get it. Yo wont have to scrub all that black soot off the bottom of the pans then. ;)
I was wondering about this, on the basis that methanol won't have any of the foul-tasting purple stuff to get on your hands/pans/etc. There are plenty of ebay sellers selling it in sensible quantities for making biodiesel with, at prices that are comparable to 500ml bottles of meths from the average DIY shed.
It's got less energy than meths (which as the name doesn't suggest is 95% ethanol), though, so you'd use slightly more of it. May be worth it though.
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My basic chemistry is pretty rusty, but IIRC it's something to do with carbon-carbon bonds. Methanol doesn't have any (ethanol has 1) so it doesn't give off the carbon which creates the soot.
(someone please correct me if I'm wrong)
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...whereas rice ... needs to be boiled for 10-20 minutes and use up a lot more fuel.
The method I use for Basmati rice at home involves only 6 minutes of (gentle) boiling, and ~4 mins standing. I haven't tried it on a trangia yet, but with the simmer ring in place, it shouldn't be too bad.
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... I have also tried frying bacon with less success, the pan didn't get hot enough, though I may have put in too much oil.
I've never had problems with it not getting hot enough in the frying pan. The bacon I did on the FYBO was cooked pretty quickly. No oil was used though (but you can't do that with cheap bacon which oozes too much water).
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...whereas rice ... needs to be boiled for 10-20 minutes and use up a lot more fuel.
A lot of lightweight campers are using pot cosies so that their food doesn't need to be kept on the stove all the time.
Add pasta, return to the boil, put pot into pot cosy and leave for a bit over the normal simmering time. Rice may benefit from a reheat half way through.
For boil in the bag meals, it's just bring to the boil and pop the bag in a bag cosy, For dehydrated meals add boiling water and put bag in bag cosy. They are also good in cold weather for keeping your meal hot until you've finished eating it.
Most pot cosies are made from thermawrap (http://www.homebase.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=20001&partNumber=127033&c_3=3%7Ccat_14113424%7CLoft+insulation%7C14113427&c_2=2%7Ccat_16849207%7CInsulation%7C14113424&c_1=1%7Ccategory_root%7CBuilding+and+Hardware%7C16849207). You can get premade pot and bag cosies if you don't want to buy a full roll and make your own.
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We appear to have resolved the frying issue ...
(http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l160/stevenr_01/photo-9.jpg)
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Nice Trangia action there, OD :thumbsup:
I wonder it would offend our chooks if I did the same in the back garden?
On the subject of meths, I strongly recommend the capful of water method. We got some USAnean ethanol when we were camping in the states and although it burned cleaner than un-watered meths, it was no different once we'd added the requisite slosh of H2O.
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Nice Trangia action there, OD :thumbsup:
I wonder it would offend our chooks if I did the same in the back garden?
On the subject of meths, I strongly recommend the capful of water method. We got some USAnean ethanol when we were camping in the states and although it burned cleaner than un-watered meths, it was no different once we'd added the requisite slosh of H2O.
I haven't tried watered down meths yet, I thought I would try without to see first hand what the sooting problem looks like. So far my pan bottoms are pretty clean.
I am feeling a bit guilty about forsaking the White Box Stove in favour of a Trangia. I decided that in regular family use with pans as opposed to Ti kettles it was too inclined to fall over. Also, the foil wind shield is a bit of a faff. What do you and Liz use when you are camping together?
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On the subject of meths, I strongly recommend the capful of water method. We got some USAnean ethanol when we were camping in the states and although it burned cleaner than un-watered meths, it was no different once we'd added the requisite slosh of H2O.
I haven't tried watered down meths yet, I thought I would try without to see first hand what the sooting problem looks like. So far my pan bottoms are pretty clean.
The frying pans don't seem to get as dirty as the saucepans - probably because they're further from the burner. Definitely try the water though - it does make a big difference.
No need for guilt - I'm about to give up on Trangias (for a while, at least) - I'm getting a Primus ETA Express to use instead of my mini Trangia.
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A mix of stuff, really. It all depends on how light we want to go.
I have a Snowpeak Ti gas stove for overnighters and lightweight stuff with a set of Snowpeak mithril pots to go with it - they really are lovely. I also have a Clikstand and Tatonka meths burner, with an REI Ti pot which is what we took to the USA in '08.
Julian now has a full-sized Trangia setup for heavier duty trips and when we're on the tandem with a trailer, we take that. If we're doing the gourmet cooking thing, we have been known to take two cookers - it's really handy to do rice on one and sauce/sausages on the other.
My White Box stove is reserved for ultralighting and the Zombocalypse. It's a marvellous bit of kit, but it's for heating water on, not doing cooking.
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I think you've hit the nail, the White Box isn't a cooker and I don't think it's designed to be one. We need a cooker for our two week tour en France particularly as me and Twinkle Toes are taking our own chef aka The Current Mrs R.
Thus far the chef is regarding the Trangia with a significant degree of scepticism ;D
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If you want to do cooking (rather than food preparation!) and you've got the space, definitely take two stoves. If you can deal with the weight, I'd recommend one meths and one gas. That way, you can put stuff that needs to cook slowly on the Trangia (remember your simmering ring!) and use the gas for cooking meat or other things that need more heat.
Remember that with a Trangia, air flow (or lack of it) is vital. Given time, you can boil huge kettles of water with a tiny sip of meths if you're out of the wind, but with enough air getting to the burner.
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Two stoves sounds tempting but I am trying to keep weight and pack size down. Tina the Tandem will be carrying most of the gear with TT as stoker. I am not relying on her doing loads of work so I am trying to avoid killing myself by having to power a tandem weighed down by two stoves and the inevitable kitchen sink.
I guess we will eat out some nights and I am also hoping we can pick up disposable BBQs on other nights to supplement our kitchen equipment. What we really need is nice weather!
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Why anything other than a Primus Gravity? ???
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Given my recent failure to fry bacon, offering to cook The Current Mrs R a bacon sandwich for lunch on said Trangia was perhaps a trifle rash. Whilst my good lady is at work I have conducted a one rasher trial run - SUCCESS!
As she gets out of her car there will be the smell of frying bacon billowing from the garden.
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More Trangia porn featuring successful bacon frying - at last.
(http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l160/stevenr_01/photo-13.jpg)
What should my next Trangia challenge be?
PS: I have had a sooty bottom, I'm assuming that's some sort of rite of passage. I will water down my meths next time.
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What should my next Trangia challenge be?
Full roast? ;D
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What should my next Trangia challenge be?
Full roast? ;D
That was my first thought, however ...
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More Trangia porn featuring successful bacon frying - at last.
(http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l160/stevenr_01/photo-13.jpg)
Hm. I've got the unsexy non-teflon version. I wonder if that impedes the bacon-fryiing ability? Should probably give it a test, in the interests of SCIENCE.
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What should my next Trangia challenge be?
Full roast? ;D
That was my first thought, however ...
omelette and frites
I have actually cooked both of those items on a trangia, although the frites were cheaty "fry from frozen" ones which had been mostly defrosted first and they did come out a bit limp and oily - mor boiled in oil than fried TBH, but it had to be tried. The omelette was nice though, although it did stick a bit (I don't have the posh non-stick version).
BTW, your Trangia is way too clean! Dirty it up before you go, or everyone will laugh at you!