When I recently made some pemmican, one of my thoughts was that I could perhaps add some pemmican to portions of dried or freeze dried foods to increase flavor and calories. This morning I made my first attempt.

I took a single serving packet of off-the-supermarket dried vegan black bean soup, dumped it into a bowl (think freezer bag), and added half a chunk of pemmican plus a few home made dried veggies. I broke the pemmican into smallish chunks to encourage dissolving/melting. I added some boiling water, stirred things around, and let it sit.

Five minutes later, I stirred it again, and searched for any undissolved pemmican chunks - none found!

Taste test time: Dang! This is good!!! My wife tasted it, and also liked it! Success!

The pemmican-bean soup was tasty and filling (though no longer vegan!). There was no sensation of greasiness. The dried meat bits were often discernible as slightly crunchy bits - longer soaking time might solve that if one finds it objectionable - I don't.

Adding pemmican definitely upped the calories - it's basically fat and dried meat, with some spices in my case. Flavor improved as well. I can see this as a regular addition to dried or freeze dried soups, stews, chili, etc. Using pemmican, I also plan to split the typical "two person" freeze dried meals in half and add a good chunk of pemmican - should be just right and much tastier than the norm!

YMMV

My mouth is watering. Got to make some pemmican.

Stephen, your posts inspired me to make my own pemmican a couple months back. While I think I added too much rendered fat, the stuff turned out pretty good!

So far, I've mainly tried adding pemmican to instant mashed potatoes. The pemmican really adds a ton of flavor. I've also thrown in some fried onions to the mix, and this past weekend, I added chunks of cheddar cheese for a truly delicious meal:



Have you tried adding pemmican to anything else?

Ok...what the heck is pemmican?? I googled it and it sounds nasty... Not just jerky, right??

Basically, just dried meat and tallow, mixed about 50/50. It tends to keep pretty well. All sorts of recipies, look it up. I like to use dehydrated veggies, dry (seriosly dry) beef and tallow to make a soup or stew base. Just add water and boil for 15 minutes... I figure about 5oz per soup with an ounce (about a tablespoon+) of rice for about 1000C for supper. A cup of cocoa and a broken up wrap to use as crackers completes the meal at about 1200C.
(2.5*250 fat) + (2.5*100 meat/veggies) + (100C rice) + (140C cocoa) + (120C wrap)

Over Thanksgiving weekend I brought home dehydrated vegetables and pemmican. I made two kinds of pemmican. One was the normal kind with beef and tallow. I melted that into my vegetables for a very tasty meal. The vegetables were dehydrated cooked sweet potatoes, beets and beet greens, carrots and corn. The other kind of pemmican I made was comprised of shredded coconut and beef tallow. I melted that into the vegetables with some dehydrated chicken that I also made myself. This was very tasty. Perhaps a little bit of curry could have made it even more tasty. Adding pemmican to my meals gave me way better energy that I have had in the past plus it just tasted more like real food.