Lebanese Beef Stew

Something a little different to pair with your rice

This dish is known as Bazella Riz Lahme in its homeland. I’m partial to cuisine from North Africa and the Fertile Crescent, so this one was a natural for my “cookbook,” which is in reality nothing more than a big pile of index cards with recipe adaptations scribbled on them.

It’s also one of my lighter weight meals. This one weighs approximately 7.7 oz. not counting the onion, garlic and small amount of Amore tomato paste. In other words, it’s one you can easily justify packing even if you’re going ultralight.

I cooked this one up in the rain on my recent section hike. It was a perfect meal for the conditions, and it turned out that I had enough to share with another very grateful hiker- it was the first hot dinner she’d had on her thru-hike and it blew her mind.

The ingredients look like this:

You don’t use that much of the tomato paste, so make sure to save the rest for a pasta dish.

INGREDIENTS:

4 oz. freeze-dried diced beef

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup basmati rice

1/2 cup dehydrated or freeze-dried green peas

1 packet of Packit Gourmet beef broth (or whatever makes 1 cup of broth)

2 TB Amore tomato paste

mini ziploc containing 2 green cardamom pods, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 bay leaves and 1/4 tsp. ground cloves

mini ziploc containing 1/2 TB allspice and a pinch of salt and pepper

1 packet of olive oil

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cook rice with 1/2 cup water, set aside when done.
2. Saute onion and then garlic in olive oil, then lower the heat.
3. Add the beef dices (which you had splashed with water a few minutes prior) and add enough water to just barely cover them. Bring to a boil.
4. Add ziploc with cinnamon etc. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Pour off half of the water and try to remove the chunk spices as best you can.
6. Add peas, continue to simmer for another 5 minutes.
7. Add enough beef broth to barely cover everything, and then add the amore paste and allspice. Simmer for 5 more minutes.
8. Serve over rice.

This was enough for 2 hikers on this particular night, although I wasn’t super hungry. You could double the rice for 2 hungry hikers. Otherwise, I think one hungry hiker could destroy it all.

The finished product looked like this: