How to make a BLT salad with smoked chicken (ideal for picnics or camping)
Once you’ve finally put up the tent, inflated the air mattress and unfolded the table, you still have to cook… There you are, working away over one of those wobbly little camping stoves, which in the end is hardly ever as tasty as it is at home. Fortunately, there’s Julius Jaspers, with his book Camping Cooking. He has countless handy tips, a packing list and delicious recipes that are also completely camping-proof. How about bratwurst in beer or the ultimate guilty pleasure mac & cheese, for example? My personal favorite on a hot summer evening is the BLT salad with smoked chicken, and here’s the recipe.
Luckily, my job at the campsite was always limited to doing the dishes (I was 12 the last time I went camping). It was up to my father to put together something edible for the five of us on that rickety gas burner. No wonder we ate out nine times out of ten while on vacation. The few times we ate at the tent, it was usually couscous or canned pasta (which, incidentally, I loved).
The experienced camping chef
Although I enjoyed my father’s cooking, Julius is clearly an experienced camping chef. Julius: ‘People who don’t know me think that I surround myself every day with the best equipment in the most beautiful kitchens, and that I achieve my successes there—but nothing could be further from the truth. I love improvising; you’re either a former caterer or you’re not! The word “camping” is also fairly familiar to me. On average, I spend a month a year traveling through nature in a camper van, and I cook there every day. If we eat out twice in 30 days, that’s a lot; cooking for yourself every day, I love it.’
You can imagine yourself in America
Julius: ‘A BLT is actually a sandwich—the Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich—but why not turn it into a beautiful salad? Delicious with smoked chicken and the slightly sweet maple syrup (or use honey), a piece of bread on the side, and you can imagine yourself in America, because that’s where the BLT was invented in 1903!’
How to make the BLT salad with smoked chicken
- Mix the yogurt, mayonnaise, white wine vinegar, garlic powder and maple syrup into a dressing.
- Mix the little gem lettuce with the cherry tomatoes, cucumber, spring onion, smoked chicken, cheese and bacon, and stir in the dressing at the end.
- Leave to stand for 15 minutes and season with salt and pepper.
Title: Camping Cooking
Author: Julius Jaspers
Price: €25,-
Publisher: Carrera Culinair
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