Tramping Food: Nongshim Udon Soup

 ...prepacked Udon for tramping meals...

Here is another potential meal idea for when you are out on a outdoor adventure. These are the Nongshim brand prepackaged Udon Noodle Soup meals. 

Nongshim Udon Noodle Soup

There are a multitude of pre packaged meal options available in Asian food stores and this is a good example. It contains everything you need to make a decent noodle meal with the simple addition of boiling hot water. 

A look at the Udon pack:

The Nongshim Udon soup is a self contained meal wrapped into one package. Inside the package you will find :

Udon noodle pack

Liquid soup mix

Dried flakes pack

A plastic serving dish

Udon noodles are pre-cooked so they just need a short boil (2 minutes is sufficient) or a longer soak (5-10 depending on brand) in boiling water to be ready to eat.  Adding the soup mix and dried ingredients package brings the flavor. 

Front of the Nongshim Udon Soup packet

Nongshim sounds Japanese but it is actually a Korean company and this pack is produced in Korea. Korean people eat a number of dishes that are similar to Japanese food due to their interactions over centuries past. They make some good food including snacks, Ramen, Udon and packaged all in one meals. 

Nongshim include a liquid soup mix and dried flavor pack

Most people know what Udon are but if you are new to them they are thick wheat noodles about the size of a pencil around. They are soft and often come as part of a thin soup (like a consume) with vegetables added to it for flavor. Common vegetables used are onions, mushrooms, carrot and radish.

...best cooked and eaten from the pot...

These Udon packs are perfect as they are but if you wanted to make them a bit tastier and more nutritious you can add items to them. Off the top of my head I would think about adding cooked meat or fish, cheese, fresh and dried vegetables and condiments like garlic, ginger, soya sauce, vinegar, pepper and chilli sauce. A small packet/spoon of Miso paste will also make for tastier noodles. 

Udon Soup pack and cooked soup

I always added a small measure of Soya Sauce when I am eating these Udon and a small shake of S&B brand chilli powder. One of those small soya sauce fish you get with a sushi meal is enough for a single bowl of Udon. Add soya to taste but just remember soya sauce is very salty so I would taste it as I went. 

...a small fish of soya sauce is a good additive...

Anyone who is a fan of Ramen or Udon will know what S&B powder is...it is an essential addition to both these noodle dishes. S&B is a Japanese brand of powder specially manufactured for soups. It has a mix of ground chilli, garlic, seaweed and other herbs and spices meant to improve the flavor of your soup. A good Ramen shop will have S&B powder readily to hand for their customers. 

S&B brand chilli powder for noodle dishes

You can buy your own S&B at most Asian food stores have a look in the section for Japanese food or the sauces section. I brought mine from the Japan Mart in Riccarton Mall. Decant it into a small bag as the bottles are glass and quite heavy. 

Dont add too much as it is a bit spicy...just a pinch on top is good!

...just a dash of S&B enhances the flavor...

Nongshim include a plastic tray for mixing your Udon in but I would tend to leave this at home. It is just extra rubbish to haul around for the rest of your tramp.  I just put all the packets into a sandwich sized Ziploc bag and cook it in my cook pot. Udon is much better eaten from a bowl or pot. 

Try the Nongshim Udon Soup out for yourself!

You are going to need either a fork or chopsticks to eat the noodles. 

Where can I find these?

You can find these noodles at good Asia supermarkets and shops selling Asian and Japanese food items. I brought some from the Japan Mart at Hornby Mall but I have also seen them at Kosco Shirley, Ken's Mart on Colombo Street and at V-Mart in the Bush Inn Centre. 

Kosco Asian Supermarket in Shirley, Christchurch 

I love noodles and this pack is a pretty good riff on a bowl of Udon. With a few ingredients added they make an excellent lunch or dinner meal and they are tasty and filling. Keep an eye out for them the next time you are in a good Asian Supermarket. 

You Tube: Nongshim Udon Soup

The great dehy crisis of '23...

 Where have all the Backcountry meals gone?

If you are out tramping, biking, kayaking or doing some other outdoor pursuit you are probably eating Backcountry Cuisine dehydrated meals at least some of the time. You might have noticed that they seem to be a bit scarce in your local outdoor retail stores...there is a reason for this.

Classic Backcountry Cuisine meal...Cooked Breakfast

Back in November 2022 one of the large machines Backcountry Cuisine use to dehydrate ingredients went out of service. This has seriously slowed production rates. As a result there has been a shortage of backcountry meals in most of the local stores. I recently visited the Hunting and Fishing store at Tower Junction here in Christchurch and they had NO Backcountry meals at all. Like zero...not even the Vegan meals most people never buy. 

Dehydrator at Backcountry Cuisine in Invercargill

Hopefully the shortages do not last for too long because love them or hate them Backcountry Cuisine is the number one freeze dried meal brand here. Losing them from the market would be a huge problem for anyone who uses freeze dried meals. You might have to do what the old timers did and eat real foods like sausages, steak and bacon with mashed spud, rice or cous cous.

 My God how primitive!!! 

Is this your future without Backcountry meals?

Real Meals, Radix and boutique food companies are making inroads into the freeze dry meal market but they have neither the range of meals nor the production ability to totally replace Backcountry Cuisine. As yet we cannot get any of the big international brands like Mountain House here. 

Real Meals...not as large as Backcountry cuisine

If you live in Christchurch and need to buy some Backcountry meals you should go have a look at the  Hunting & Fishing store in Rangiora. I was there in the weekend and they had ample supplies of both the small and regular sized meals. They also have plenty of the bags of mixed vegetables, dried meat and mashed potato. 

Small sized BBC meals at Rangiora Hunting & Fishing

 Either they had a stash of meals or they just don't get the volume of traffic that the Christchurch store receives. BTW: the Rangiora Hunting & Fishing has a great range of items in store...it is just about as big as the flagship Tower Junction store. 

They also sell Real Meals, O-Meals and Outdoor gourmet meals

Anyway...hopefully Backcountry Cuisine will soon rectify the problem and be back up to full time production once again. 

A look at the Go Native 24 hour ration packs

Food options for backcountry adventures 

One of the items I received for Christmas this year was a 24 ration pack from the company Go Native. It is a complete one day ration with all of the items you would need to sustain you for a 24 hour period. 

Looking at the Go Native 24 hour ration

Go Native is based near Wellington and they produce a range of food items for the commercial market as well as contract work for government agencies like the Ministry of Defense, DOC, Emergency Services and SAR. Go Native produce the ration packs used by the NZ Defense Forces as well as manufacturing items contained in Australian/Singaporean and Malaysian military rations. 

Go Native 24 hour ration and side dish pack

Contents of the Chicken Italiano 24 hour ration

The packs have food items for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as a couple of snacks, drink kits and salt/pepper. There are three versions of the ration pack available and the only item which changes is the entrée pack and accompanying side dish. Varieties include Chicken Italiano, Beef Casserole and Vegetarian Curry. 

Breakfast/lunch/dinner and snacks in the Go Native pack

Here is a breakdown of the contents of one of the rations:

• Breakfast: Natural Muesli with Milk Powder, Jed's Coffee, Creamer and Sugar
• Lunch: Tuna on Cream Crackers
• Dinner: Chicken Italiano Casserole served with Potato, Salt, Pepper, Tea, Creamer and Sugar
• Snacks: Jack Links Steak Bar, Go Native Fruit Bar

All of the items are inside a heavy duty plastic bag with a tear seal and Ziploc closure at the top. This makes the ration waterproof and able to be resealed to keep the contents in one place. Once empty the bag would make an excellent rubbish bag. 

Preparing to lay out the contents of the Go Native pack

There is a cardboard insert inside the main bag. If you take it out it has information on both the outside and inside about the ration. On the outside is a photo of the contents of the pack showing all of the items contain within the package. 

Tear tab and Ziplock at the top of the Go Native bag

The inside of the card has a bit of information about the company, a nutritional breakdown of the contents and cooking instructions. There is information about the Go Native Website where you can find additional information and an online store where items can be purchased. 

Information on the cardboard insert, Go Native ration

There are also a couple of Sudoku puzzles and a general knowledge quiz to give you something to do in camp. It is a useful and thoughtful use of what would otherwise be a blank space.

Quiz and Sudoku card in Go Native ration

Here I have broken down the ration into three meals...the mains are muesli with dried fruit for breakfast, crackers with tuna for lunch and a retort pouch of entrée food and a side dish as the main. 

Go Native 24 hour ration laid out

Dinner is a retort pouch of food and a side + tea with sugar/creamer

Breakfast is muesli with fruit, a Jed's coffee pack and sugar

You can heat the dinner meal in a number of ways...boil in the retort bag, bury in hot sand, using a FRH (or Flameless Ration Heater) or tipping into a pot and simmering. An FRH is a bag with a pouch of chemicals...when you add water it starts to react and heats the meal through thermo-chemical action. Personally I would boil these in the bag and just eat them straight from the bag. 

..my US pattern Cups Canteen I have owned for 37 years...

One method of heating the entrée in hot water

...or fold the entrée bag into your pot sideways...

Go Native sell most of the contents of these rations as individual items and you can buy the muesli, fruit bars, entrée packs and rice/mashed potato. They are readily available in outdoor stores across the country...I have seen a good selection of these in items in Hunting and Fishing, Bivouac Outdoors and Macpac. I have used the rice and potato before and both are good. 

Holding one of the Go Native side dishes

There are a range of other entrees available in store and online including the following:

Spaghetti Bolognese

Chicken Italiano

Beef Casserole

Beef Ragu

Chicken and Chickpea Curry

Chilli Con Carne

Butter Chicken

Vegetable Curry

You could easily vary the menus you carry by swopping out the entrée from an existing 24 ration. 

Go Native Spaghetti Bolognese entrée

Go Native instant potato pack

Calorie count for these rations is 2400-2600 which is the minimum to keep a person going for a full day. Of course you could supplement these packs with additional items if desired. I would be inclined to add a powdered drink sachet, chocolate, more sugar and a couple of extra snacks. This would take the ration up over 3000 calories. 

Al the contents of the Go Native 24 hour meal pack

You would want to be careful about how much you added as the pack already weighs 690 gms. A good weight to calorie count is important and you should be aiming for around 700 gms/ 2800+ calories  per day. 

Go Native meal packs are a great option

These rations would be excellent for an overnight trip as they are or as a part of a wider menu for a multiday trip. With only three different options food fatigue would soon set in and they are quite expensive at $35 per pack. My homemade rations come out at around $25-$30 so this is not an outrageous price. 

Worth a try in my opinion and I will be taking this one out sometime in the next couple of months so look for a review at that time. 

YouTube: Go Native 24 Hour Food Pack

Rations from the Lake Daniell Trip in May

 ...food for an overnight tramping trip...

I'm going to take a look at the 24 hour bagged ration I took with me when I visited Manson Nichols Hut back in May. Once you start spending a night out camping or in a hut your food planning needs to get a bit more elaborate and this is the way I do things. 

Eating my lunch at Manson Nichols Hut at Lake Daniell

I like to bag my tramping food into 24 hour rations as I find this the easiest way to control my food usage while giving me an easy to handle all in one package. All of the items are put into a large sized Ziploc bag and then placed in my yellow food bag. Each ration holds all of the food, drinks, accessories and ancillary items I need to survive for 24 hours. 

The 24 hour ration I took to Manson Nichols Hut

The rations I took on the Heaphy Track in 2021

The food on this trip was dictated by two things. Firstly I had a number of  about to expire freeze dried meals in my tramping food supplies. I had to use them by the end of June 2022 so I used freeze dried packets for all the main meals on this trip. 

My cooking gear at the hut...MSR Windburner stove

Using freeze dried meals meant I could use my MSR Windburner stove as the meals only require hot water to added to them. The Windburner is best used to heat water so it was ideal...the 1 liter pot is enough for a freeze dry meal and a hot drink. 

Breaking down my 24 hour ration:

Let's take a look at the breakdown of all of the items I carried in my 24 hour ration pack.As I said all the main meals were freeze dried. I had one for lunch, dinner and breakfast on day two. Normally I use a mixture of freeze dried, dehydrated and fresh meals so it is uncommon for me to use freeze dry for every meal. 

My 24 hour ration as taken to Manson Nichols Hut

My 24 hour ration contained the following freeze dried meals:

Day1: Lunch

Backcountry Cuisine (BCC) Cooked Breakfast (1 serve)

Day 1: Dinner

BCC Spaghetti Bolognaise (2 serve)

Day 2: Breakfast

BCC Apple Pie (2 serve)

In addition the ration pack contains a number of other items, these were:

Knorr (Chicken Noodle) simmer soup, steak bar (for breakfast), snacks for the next day, Earl Grey tea with sweetener, accessory pack and a pot scrubber. 

Freeze dried main meals, soup, accessory pack, snacks and tea

The accessory pack is in a smaller Ziploc bag. It is universal across rations and always has:

Salt/pepper sachets, sugar sachets, 6x Aquatabs, 2x 3 in 1 Coffee sachets, Raro/Vitafresh sachet, a Cup -O - Soup, 3x plastic freezer bags.

 In addition I had a powdered Apple Cider sachet (bloody delicious!!!) I brought from an American food supplier based in Auckland. I have a limited supply of these so they don't go on every trip. The freezer bags are used for trash, cutlery storage or some other use. 

Accessory pack: salt/pepper, Aquatabs, sugar, soup, drink powders, coffee

I always carry an emergency supply of food with me on any tramp and in this instance I had a BCC Lamb Fettuccine, some instant oats, a cup of soup and some snacks all carried in a separate bag. This food was not used by me on this trip as it was there in case I found myself stuck and unable to get back to the car. 

Emergency food items I took to Manson Nichols Hut

My hot beverage of choice is Chanui Earl Grey tea and I took an ample supply of tea bags as I knew I would be spending a lot of time in the hut and would probably want a few mugs of tea. Normally I carry 4 tea bags per day with a couple of extras just in case they are needed. 

...I carried plenty of Earl Grey tea and sweetener...

Here are some better quality images of the freeze dried meals I carried on this trip including the Cooked Breakfast, Spaghetti Bolognaise and Apple Pie all made by Backcountry Cuisine...

BCC Cooked Breakfast: front

BBC Cooked Breakfast: nutritional information

BCC Apple Pie: front

BBC Apple Pie: nutritional information

BCC Spaghetti Bolognaise:front

BBC Spaghetti Bolognaise: nutritional information

All of these meals simply require hot water to be added and then left to rehydrate for 10-15 minutes before consumption

Eating my rations at the hut:

Here are some photos of me preparing the meals at Manson Nichols Hut and eating them. I had the hut to myself on the day so I spread myself out a bit wider than I would normally do...

Preparing my lunch at a rainy Manson Nichols Hut

Backcountry Cuisine Cooked Breakfast

For dinner I had the Knorr soup which I prepared on the now blazing woodburner. There were some pots and pans at Manson Nichols Hut so I used one of them. My main was the BCC Spaghetti Bolognaise...

Knorr Chicken Noodle simmer soup on the boil

My dinner gear set up at one of the tables

Time to eat my dinner at Manson Nichols Hut

I usually have instant oats for breakfast, cereal with dried milk or instant Grits but I decided to take an almost expired Apple Pie dessert instead. I have used these for breakfast in the past and they are really good. I paired it with a Jack Link's steak bar as the Apple Pie had little to no protein in it. You need the protein for sustained energy release...

Preparing the Apple Pie for breakfast

Organising your food into a DIY 24 hour ration has a number of advantages with control of food intake and ease of packing being the most obvious. It is not always the lightest option with all the accessories I carry. You can easily get by with some snacks and a couple of meals chucked into a bag and thrown in your pack. My method is probably too elaborate for most people but I have been using it for over 20 years and it works for me.

NZ Bush Adventure YouTube vlogs you might find useful: 

Backcountry Apple Pie

Backcountry Cooked Breakfast

DIY 24 hour ration packs