Top Round – Jerky, cont’d

Jerky was a big hit.

Protein is an excellent, yet slow-release, energy source. Jerky is almost all protein.

On our trip, I hauled it all the way up to Upper Boy Scout Lake. (Google it.)

We had an excellent group. I shared with the crew…

…and as we ascended, we shared with a ranger who used to be a meat cutter. He said some nice things.

Ranger approves

We didn’t wind up summiting, unfortunately, due to time constraints. But we did make it up to fourteen thousand feet. In case you were wondering, that looks like this:

(almost) on top of the contiguous 48

Next time.

Short Loin – Campfire New York Strip

I’m outside the Mt. Whitney trail trailhead. It’s a small campsite for trail hikers only, with a maximum one night stay Tomorrow, I go up.

Tonight, we eat. Steaks, NY Strip, over campfire.

I’ve grilled NY Strip before. Tonight, however, there are considerably more variables, so I’m counting this as a distinct application.

First, no oil. We’re camping, for Juniper’s sake. I don’t ordinarily tote Canola in my kit.

Second, salt and pepper changes. They don’t make camp kosher salt, unfortunately. So it’s generic granulated and pre-ground pepper.

That said, let’s dance.

Charcoal into a chimney starter. I want to make sure I have a sharp, hot center in the fire, without having to futz around with finicky firewood (alliteration!).

The coals take the better part of an hour to get going, because we’re camping at 85oo feet. There’s no air up here.

note: it's light.

When the coals are up, we throw foil-wrapped potatoes in, because they’re gonna take a while.

Granulated salt, but only a little. This stuff dissolves quickly, because it has less surface area than kosher granules. I don’t want to turn dinner into a salt lick.  A little pepper, but not too nuts.

When the potatoes are close, we ring them with firewood and light the kindling. We have a low, smouldering fire in about ten minutes.

Steaks.

The hot center coals do their job, and we rotate the meat between high heat in the center, and lower heat over the wood on the outside.

Note: It's dark.

You can never have too many photos of grilled meat.

Result?

Success, all in all. Nice medium rare, with one steak slightly rarer than the others. Happy happy.

The end products were slightly different than my previous experiment at home over gas. Without my kosher and pepper, the steaks didn’t ever really develop a deep mahogany crust like they did before. Also, I’m sure the lack of oil inhibited browning somewhat, leading to a paler surface.

Still, they were wonderful. Something about eating in a pine forest at elevation, with a mountain stream gurgling thirty feet away makes a meal remarkable, regardless of the technical details of the cooking process. Great way to start a hike.

However, my camp spork was completely inadequate.

*Special thanks to Zac, Uriah, and Natalie for the additional photographic help.