Dinner
Skottle Steak Fried Rice
Big, crispy, ridiculously good steak fried rice made right on the Skottle
Day-old rice, seared steak, eggs, garlic, ginger, vegetables, soy sauce and toasted sesame oil all cooked hot and fast on the Skottle. Built for camp, easy to prep ahead and big enough to feed a hungry crew.
This cook is dramatically easier if almost everything is ready before you get to camp. The goal is to open a few containers, light the Skottle and start cooking.
Cook the rice the day before. Use jasmine rice and refrigerate it overnight. Spread it out while cooling if possible so excess moisture can escape.
Break up the cold rice. Separate any large clumps before packing it. Doing this over a hot Skottle sucks.
Cut the steak. Dice the sirloin into roughly ½ to ¾-inch pieces.
Prep the vegetables. Dice the onion and bell pepper, slice the green onions and keep the white and green portions separated.
Prep the aromatics. Mince the garlic and ginger and keep them together in a small sealed container.
Mix the fried rice sauce. Combine everything for the sauce in one leakproof bottle or jar and shake well.
Beat the eggs. Crack and beat them at home, then carry them in a sealed bottle or container.
Keep the rice, steak, eggs and other perishables properly chilled until you are ready to cook.
You do not need much gear, but having everything beside the burner before you start makes this cook a whole lot easier.
Skottle and burner
Propane
Two wide spatulas
Neutral high-heat cooking oil
Prepared steak
Cold day-old rice
Prepared vegetables
Garlic and ginger
Beaten eggs
Fried rice sauce
Toasted sesame oil
Green onion tops
Chili crisp, sriracha or sesame seeds for serving
Plates or bowls and forks
Paper towels
Two spatulas are worth it. Once twelve servings of fried rice are on the Skottle, being able to scoop and toss from both sides is dramatically easier than trying to control the whole thing with one.
Treat the Skottle like three different cooking surfaces.
The center is the searing zone. This is where the steak, vegetables, eggs and rice actually cook.
The middle is the working zone. Use it when you need slightly gentler heat or more room to toss ingredients.
The outside is the parking lot. As each component finishes cooking, push it toward the edge while the next ingredient takes its turn in the center.
That pattern is the entire trick to cooking a batch this large:
Cook → push out → cook → push out → bring everything back together.
Do not pile every ingredient into the center at once. The Skottle has plenty of room, but the concentrated high-heat zone is what actually gives you the browning that makes fried rice good.
Ingredients
Steak
Sirloin is the sweet spot here: tender enough for a quick hard sear, flavorful and not painful to buy for a crowd. The cornstarch gives the steak a light crust and helps it brown instead of steaming.
Rice
Day-old rice is the move. Cold, dry rice separates and fries instead of turning soft and gummy. Cook it the night before, refrigerate it and break up any big clumps before heading to camp.
Vegetables & Aromatics
Do all the chopping at home if you can. At camp this entire section should basically be opening containers and dumping things onto the Skottle.
Eggs
For the easiest camp prep, crack and beat the eggs at home and bring them in a leakproof bottle or container.
Fried Rice Sauce
Mix this entire sauce at home and bring it in one bottle. Start with about three quarters of it when cooking, then add more to taste. You can always add sauce. You cannot un-soy-sauce twelve cups of rice.
Everything else
One item per line. Paste it into a note, select the lines and tap the checklist button to make them tickable.
Cooking it on the Skottle
The Skottle gives you three useful heat zones: the center is screaming hot, the middle is your normal cooking zone and the outer edge is where finished ingredients can hang out without burning.
Keep moving cooked ingredients outward as you go, then bring everything back together at the end. This is what lets you cook a huge batch without overcrowding the center.
Have all your ingredients opened, measured and within reach before lighting the burner. Once this gets moving, it moves fast.
Get the Skottle hot
Heat the Skottle over medium-high to high heat for several minutes.
Add a small amount of neutral cooking oil to the center. It should spread easily and shimmer almost immediately.
You want the center properly hot before any food goes down. Fried rice works because ingredients sear and fry quickly. Starting with a lukewarm Skottle means everything steams instead.
Use a high-heat oil
Use avocado, canola or vegetable oil for the actual cooking. Save the toasted sesame oil for flavor later.
Heat zones are your friend
The hot center does the searing while the cooler outer edge gives you somewhere to park finished ingredients without overcooking them.
Sear the steak in batches
Make sure the steak is evenly coated with the soy sauce, sesame oil, cornstarch, black pepper and salt.
Add a little neutral oil to the hot center of the Skottle.
Spread a single layer of steak across the center without crowding it. Leave it alone for about 60 to 90 seconds so the first side develops a good brown crust.
Flip or toss the pieces and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes until browned outside and just cooked through.
Push the finished steak toward the outer edge of the Skottle and repeat until all of the steak is cooked.
Do not crowd the steak
Putting all 3 pounds down at once will crash the temperature and steam the meat instead of searing it. Work in batches.
The cornstarch earns its keep
A light coating of cornstarch helps the steak brown quickly and gives the outside a lightly crisp, restaurant-style texture.
Slightly under is fine
The steak will hit the heat again when everything comes together, so there is no need to cook each batch to death.
Cook the vegetables
Add another small splash of neutral oil to the center.
Add the diced onion, red bell pepper and white parts of the green onions. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften and pick up some color.
Add the frozen peas and carrots.
Cook for another 2 to 3 minutes until the vegetables are hot but still have some bite.
Push everything outward with the steak.
Frozen veggies can go straight on
There is no need to thaw the peas and carrots first. The heat of the Skottle will handle them just fine.
Do not cook them to mush
The vegetables should still have some texture when they leave the center. They will cook a little more later.
Bloom the garlic and ginger
Add a small amount of oil to the center.
Add the minced garlic and ginger and stir constantly for about 30 to 45 seconds.
As soon as they become intensely fragrant, mix them into the vegetables and move everything back toward the outer edge.
Burnt garlic ruins the lot
The center of the Skottle is extremely hot. Garlic can go from perfect to bitter and burnt in seconds, so keep it moving and pull it off the center as soon as it smells good.
A quick bloom is enough
Briefly frying garlic and ginger in hot oil releases their aroma without cooking away all of their fresh flavor.
Scramble the eggs
Add a light coating of oil to the center of the Skottle.
Pour in the beaten eggs.
Let them sit for a few seconds, then gently scramble them with your spatula.
Cook until they are just barely set, break them into bite-sized pieces and push them outward with the steak and vegetables.
Stop before they look done
Pull the eggs from the center while they are still slightly soft. They will continue cooking when everything gets tossed together.
Prep the eggs at home
Crack and beat the eggs before the trip and carry them in a sealed bottle or container. It makes this step almost effortless at camp.
Fry the rice
Add about 2 tablespoons of neutral oil to the hot center.
Add roughly one-third of the cold rice and spread it into a relatively thin layer.
Leave it alone for 30 to 60 seconds so the grains touching the Skottle actually fry.
Stir and toss the rice, then let it sit against the hot surface again.
Move the hot rice slightly outward and repeat with the remaining rice until the entire batch is hot and separated.
Do not constantly stir it
Rice touching hot steel gets crispy. Rice constantly flying around on a spatula does not.
Day-old rice matters
Chilled rice is drier and firmer than freshly cooked rice, so the grains separate and fry instead of turning soft and gummy.
Break up the clumps first
Separate the cold rice before it hits the Skottle. Fighting a giant refrigerator brick over a hot burner is no fun.
Bring everything together
Pull the steak, vegetables, eggs and rice back toward the center.
Use two spatulas if you have them and thoroughly toss everything together.
Drizzle about three-quarters of the prepared fried rice sauce around the hot Skottle and immediately toss the rice through it.
Cook for another 2 to 3 minutes, tossing occasionally, until the sauce has coated the rice and everything is piping hot.
Taste and add more sauce only if needed.
Do not dump in all the sauce
Start with about three-quarters of it and taste first. You can always add more sauce. You cannot un-soy-sauce twelve cups of rice.
Let the sauce hit the steel
Drizzling some of the sauce directly onto the hot Skottle lets the soy caramelize slightly before it gets tossed through the rice.
Two spatulas make life easier
A spatula in each hand makes tossing a batch this large dramatically easier and keeps ingredients from escaping over the edge.
Make the crispy bits
Spread part of the finished fried rice across the hotter center section of the Skottle.
Leave it completely alone for 60 to 90 seconds.
Slide a spatula underneath and scrape up the browned, crispy rice from the surface.
Fold those crispy sections back through the rest of the rice.
Do not crisp the whole batch
You want little pockets of browned, crunchy rice mixed through softer fried rice, not twelve cups of dry rice.
Texture makes the difference
Those browned sections add a toasted, slightly caramelized flavor and keep a huge batch of fried rice from eating like one uniform texture.
Finish and serve
Turn the heat down low or shut the burner off.
Drizzle the final tablespoon of toasted sesame oil over the rice.
Add the green onion tops and a few cracks of black pepper, then give everything one final toss.
Serve immediately straight from the Skottle.
Put chili crisp, sriracha, sesame seeds and any other optional toppings out so everyone can finish their own bowl.
Sesame oil goes in last
Toasted sesame oil loses a lot of its aroma under hard heat. Adding it at the end keeps that deep toasted flavor front and center.
Let everyone bring their own heat
Keep the main batch savory and balanced, then put chili crisp and sriracha on the table for anyone who wants it hotter.
Do not let it sit forever
Fried rice is at its best right off the Skottle while the steak is hot and the crispy rice is still actually crispy.
The base recipe makes about 12 solid servings and already pushes a good amount of food across the Skottle.
For roughly 15 to 18 hungry people, increase the recipe to:
4 lb steak
15 to 16 cups cooked day-old rice
10 eggs
4 to 5 cups vegetables
1½ batches fried rice sauce
At that size, resist the temptation to cook larger batches of everything. Keep the individual batches small and simply do more of them. The Skottle needs exposed hot steel to sear the steak and fry the rice properly.
For a crowd, set chili crisp, sriracha, sesame seeds and extra soy sauce out at the end rather than making the entire batch spicy.
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