Portable Soup

Just received the Sept/Oct issue of the Backwoodsman Magazine which had an interesting article on making portable soup. Being a Pilgrim, I didn’t know what it was. The article was written by Timothy Murphy with a reference to a U Tube video by James Townsend on the making of the soup.
I found the article and video interesting and informative. My question to the group about portable soup is has anyone of our experienced members made it and used it and is it difficult to make. It seems the dehydration process takes a lot of time and if NOT done properly your initial work is wasted. Any and all comments welcome. Thanks Art

Look at the James Townsend video, AND (iirc) there is a follow-up to the first video on "pocket" or "portable" soup. The key is..., you can't get it too hot or you break the protein molecules and it never sets up right. :wink:

I found by happy accident that jowl muscles from the cow are excellent sources for the beef to make pocket soup. The jowls are often called "beef cheeks" and are used to make Barbacoa meat.

LD

At first glace I thought the title said "Portobello Soup", and I got excited... :haha:


I tried making portable soup once....It ended poorly. I love making soups, I'll take a vegetable type of soup any day....easy to make and delicious.

I've made it and it is fairly stupid-proof. Make a stock from meat/bones/vegetables, strain to remove the chunks, reduce the stock to a syrup, place on a tray and dry. Don't add salt to the initial stock. Took 3-4 days from beginning to end.

Final product:

:shocked2: ....Wow!, I'm impressed. :thumbsup:

Do you have a picture of it reconstituted? and what did it taste like?

Did you use a crockpot?

Colorado Clyde said:

:shocked2: ....Wow!, I'm impressed. :thumbsup:

Do you have a picture of it reconstituted? and what did it taste like?

Did you use a crockpot?

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Reconstituted it looks like brown water - I haven't figured out how many squares to use for a cup of water yet. The flavor is good, tasting like stock, though a little thin since I hadn't added enough.

The bones/meat/vegetables were simmered in a pot just like when I make stock - the foam was skimmed at the beginning and the resultant liquid was strained through several layers of cheesecloth to remove sediment. The bones are an important source of gelatin - I used chicken carcasses (ribs, backbones, necks and others) which replaced the split pig & calf feet listed in the original recipe. I added celery, carrots and onions. The resulting stock was simmered until just a few cups of liquid remained of the original 2-3 gallons. I poured the remainder into a small tray, allowed it to gel, cut the gel into squares and dried the squares. The consistency is like (very) hard caramel. The squares you see in the image are ~1/2" square and ~1/4" thick.

The bones are an important source of gelatin

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I have wondered if one could add gelatin to cheat a little.

Next question is, How safe and stable is it? I assume the amount of water is low enough to prevent bacterial infection like botulism....but what about mold?

Townsend said if dry was unchanged over several years. I don’t know but I’ve had three year old jerky and year old salt pork I’ve got bouillon cubes that are over a two years old that are still good.
I would think all bets are off if you see any thing that gets your attention on it.

I have it stored in a cloth bag - low moisture, no mold. The image is of the portable soup 8-10 years (or more) after its production.

The botulism bacteria requires anaerobic conditions to produce the toxin and the toxin is inactivated by heat.

tenngun said:

I’ve got bouillon cubes that are over a two years old that are still good.

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Commercial bouillon cubes are mostly salt (I have some around 15 or more years old that work just fine) - they will last longer than Twinkies and Cockroaches....

Black Hand said:

The botulism bacteria requires anaerobic conditions to produce the toxin and the toxin is inactivated by heat.

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Oh ya....I didn't think that through did I....

Everyone's brain vapor-locks on occasion...

Twinkies I believe have a 100 year shelf life. Whenever I think bullion cubes I recall salt, salt/sugar always been good preservative. You can use a dehydrator to reduce things quicker without boiling to death.

https://youtu.be/2fE5KzvOZRk

Dragonsfire said:

You can use a dehydrator to reduce things quicker without boiling to death.

https://youtu.be/2fE5KzvOZRk

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True - but what takes 5 minutes on the stove takes hours in the dehydrator. The point of the portable soup is to concentrate the essence of meat/vegetables to a less runny form. It wasn't valued for its fine-dining qualities, rather helped fill the spaces between the random bits of meat/greens collected during the day.

I’m sorry, I gotta call you on that one, they have found Twinkies in the pyramids four thousand years old that are still fresh...ofcorse that’s because of the magic power of pyramids :rotf:

The first time I encountered the term "portable soup" was when reading the account of the L&C expedition. What they described had a high iron content. It sounded horrid and possibly dangerous to me. But they did survive. I'll read the account, don't care to try it myself.

Rifleman1776 said:

The first time I encountered the term "portable soup" was when reading the account of the L&C expedition. What they described had a high iron content. It sounded horrid and possibly dangerous to me. But they did survive. I'll read the account, don't care to try it myself.

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It's soup with the water removed - less dangerous than your average can of Campbell's...

tenngun said:

I’m sorry, I gotta call you on that one, they have found Twinkies in the pyramids four thousand years old that are still fresh...ofcorse that’s because of the magic power of pyramids :rotf:

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:thumbsup:

It reminds me of Canned chicken from the 70's, whole chicken in a can, was great, used them allot on outings, add a can of V8 and you had a great soup. Wouldn't touch any of that stuff today.

Rifleman1776 said:

The first time I encountered the term "portable soup" was when reading the account of the L&C expedition. What they described had a high iron content. It sounded horrid and possibly dangerous to me. But they did survive. I'll read the account, don't care to try it myself.

Click to expand...

When you said "Iron" I immediately thought of blood soup. There are many old variations of blood soup from many different cultures.

I have made bone broth a few times, 1st was a tiny test batch in 2014 or so, then from my 2015 Bear(still have a bit left) then :hmm: my elk or the wife"s so 2016 or 2017 still have quite a bit.

I use it to add complexity to dishes more then as a stand alone dish.

Just lots of bones and connective tissue covered in water, a few days in the crock pot,




strain, simmer down until a sample will gel hard (think jello) in the refrigerator, then I pour cooled from the crock but not quite jelled yet on in dehydrator trays and dry it. My new dehydrator has square trays and I can just line them with parchment paper and pour the thickened broth on the tray that way.