Managing with minimal equipment

You can see from the kit list that I recommend travelling light in terms of kit.

Every recipe on this site can be, and has been cooked on maximum of two hobs, with a maximum of three pans and a couple of bowls, or, on a gas BBQ.

With a few hints and tips and a bit of practice, you will soon learn that you can eat like a King from your campervan kitchen.

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The biggest and most important tip I can give you for campervan cooking is to clean as you go.

Not cleaning as you go results in having nowhere to dish up your wonderful meal once it is ready, nothing to put it on, nowhere to actually eat it and nowhere to put the pots to dry when you eventually decide to clear up. You must consider that every surface you can see and every pot that you have is multipurpose.

Clearing up as you go is the difference between A) calmly enjoying the experience of creating great food and B) turning into a screaming banshee, burning yourself, threatening to kill your partner and spilling dinner on the bed. When its bad, its really bad.

You HAVE to wash, dry and put away every step of the way.

My next tip is to plan your meals and take your time if you can.

Before I even consider turning on the hob I put some music on, pour a glass of wine (unless its breakfast) and gather all of my ingredients that need any kind of prepping. I sit in my swiveled passenger seat at the table and peel, slice, dice, chop, season, portion and plan. Everything goes in its respective pan, or in a bowl to add to the pan later. Anything I am not using goes away, the utensils I have used are washed, dried and away and I have a clear plan in my mind and a clear path to the kitchen.

I know what is going in which pan and when. I know I have time to saute my frozen peas while the meat rests, I know I have a bowl ready to mash my potatoes in, which means I can wilt my greens in the potato pan. I know that I can use the meat pan to make a sauce while Alex carves or serves…in short, I have an in-depth plan.

This will get easier as you get used to using your campervan kitchen.

Next, decide who is cooking.

Very few campervans have space for two people to be moving around it at once. Both Alex and I love to cook so we have, in the past, come to fisticuffs over the kitchen duties but eventually learned to take it in turns. We also decide diplomatically (using rock, paper, scissors) who will wash up AFTER dinner though generally the non-cook will concede. Afterall, the cook has washed most things by then, leaving only the plates and serving bowls.

Be aware that not cooking means not moving. It means sitting aside and keeping the cook entertained with witty, charming conversation and ensuring the wine glasses never drop below half full.

Seriously though, wine aside, not cooking means staying out of the way until it comes to dishing out, or taking over stirring / mashing/ de-glazing / whatever job needs doing that involves standing in one space. You have to get into a routine of not getting in each others way.

I also recommend you set your eating area before you start to cook, or at least get the fighting irons ready and near the table. It sounds ridiculous but it means you can just sit down and eat the minute you are finished cooking and dishing up. Until you have spent any time in a campervan you can’t know how happy you are to get sat down or how many potential hazards there are.

You shuffle around the table, banging your knee-cap or stubbing your toe on the leg. Then you whack your elbow on the corner of the cupboard or your head on the ceiling whilst turning to get comfy….then you realise you haven’t got the cutlery yet. Cue a lot of angry expletives generally aimed at your loved ones because they daren’t tell you you hadn’t set the table before you sat down in case you bit their head off and they daren’t try and do it themselves for fear of getting in the way….So, take heed or learn the hard way.

All of the above tips are about actually getting down to business and cooking good food but there are a lot of tips that should come before getting to that stage.

Portioning meat as you buy it, planning to cook double batches, buying local food on the fly to save carting it around with you, maintaining a ‘one out – one in’ shopping list, freezing herbs, bagging chopped vegetables to save space and time…I could go on forever, so tell me what you want to know?

Managing without the mod-cons

There will be times that you get pissed off with a recipe because you don’t have the ‘required equipment’ but don’t give up, get inventive.

No blender – just take the time with a glass of wine to chop shit up small or use a grater.

No squeezy bottle to pipe mash or make fancy patterns with jus – cut the corner off a ziplock bag or prick a hole in it.

No shaping rings – use your cup measurers or ramekins

No mandolin – use a swivel peeler

No potato masher – use a fork

No cork screw – go home…no, seriously…or at least go to the store!

We have become so inventive that I can’t think of the many things that we live without because I am so used to managing without them. What can’t you live without?

Making the most of, or switching out ingredients

The list of essential ingredients for a tasty roadtrip is pretty lean already but here are a few things that you may be able to live without depending on what you like to cook and eat.

Oils –

Carrying several types of oil in a camper is ambitious, and if I’m honest, a little silly. When it spills, because trust me it will spill, it will leave an indelible grease stain, or at best be a slip hazard until you spot it and mop it up. 4+ years of cooking on the road means that we carry 4 types. Olive oil for dressings and (bbq) roasting, solidified coconut oil for pretty much everything else, sunflower oil for shallow and deep frying and sesame oil because we cook a lot of Asian inspired food, so I can definitely speak from stained experience.

When packing your oil think about your cooking plans. A miniature olive oil with a good tight lid will do you well for a couple weeks and a jar of refined coconut oil will do for everything else, even as butter, chopping block primer and hair conditioner replacement should you wish. Only pack sunflower oil if you intend to fry and sesame oil is just a luxury really but generally comes in small bottles…so its your call.

Vinegars –

As with the oil, this shit has a tendency to spill or leak and its stink penetrates everything. Its sods law. The lovely smelling stuff never leaks! I recommend packing a white wine vinegar and using it in all recipes that call for any kind of vinegar, ie. rice wine vinegar, sushi vinegar, apple vinegar, even red wine vinegar. In my opinion the vinegar is generally to add acid to the recipe, not necessarily the flavour of the vinegar. If you dont have any vinegar handy you can generally get away with replacing it with white wine….which, if you are like me you will ALWAYS have.

Flour –

All purpose flour is all you need. Pack a small tub of baking powder and cornflour and the sky is your limit.

I find I use flour over cornflour for thickening and sauces, for dredging and frying and any kind of ‘baking’ we do.

Lemons –

To get the most juice out of your lemon without your trusty microwave just pop your quarters or halves into the pan with whatever you’re cooking to help get the juices flowing.

For example, if you’re sautéing or frying fish or prawns put your cut lemon flesh side down and let it brown or even blacken. It will flavour the fish as it cooks and will squeeze caramalised lemony goodness like there is no tomorrow once served and cool enough to grab.

If you are steaming vegetables pop your lemon on the top for the last minute of cooking and be amazed how juicy it is when you squeeze it.

Spring Onions –

The little suckers re-grow. Use the onions as usual but leave an inch at the root, stick the roots in a jar and sit them in a bit of water and within 4-5 days you will have new shoots to dress the hell out of your meals with.

If it all goes belly up

The key to all of the above is to remember that you are not cooking FOR a King, you’re eating like one, so if it all goes belly up don’t worry about it.

Here is an ‘in-case of emergency break glass’ recipe made to avoid meltdown.

If ever your wonderfully planned meal should go Pete Tong (Translation – Wrong) you should make this immediately to avoid getting ‘Hangry‘. Once you have eaten, sit down with a glass of wine and think about what happened and how to avoid it next time, because ultimately there is nothing more disruptive than a recipe going wrong in a campervan, in the middle of nowhere, after the shops have shut and everyone around you is barbecuing hotdogs on rakes!

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What makes you panic about making good food on the move? Let me know what’s stopping you?

 

Your feedback on these recipes can help everyone that enjoys this site, including yourself.

Tell me how you coped in your tiny campervan kitchen? What went right? what went wrong? Share the good, the bad and the ugly and help me improve the recipes, improve the step by step directions and bulk up the hints and tips for great cooking in a campervan.

I would love this to become a community, us camping foodies need to work together to displace the myth that a campervan kitchen can’t produce great food!

So, get cooking! Xx