One pot, one stove, one wash-up

There is a particular kind of tiredness that only arrives after a long day on the hills: wet boots, a heavy pack, and a horizon that has just turned pink over the tarn you are pitching beside. What you want at that moment is not a three-course dinner. You want something hot, filling, and eaten within twenty minutes of the stove coming out of the rucksack.

Everything here follows three rules. One pot. One burner. One thing to wash up. You can cook all of it on a small gas or liquid-fuel stove, in wind, in the dark, with cold hands, and you can do it without turning your pitch into a kitchen disaster zone.

What earns its weight in the food bag

Weight is fuel, and fuel is effort, so choose ingredients that do several jobs at once. A well-stocked hill food bag looks something like this:

• Quick-cook pasta, orzo or instant noodles — under five minutes of simmering, which saves gas.
• Couscous — needs only boiling water and no simmering at all.
• A tube of tomato purée, a stock cube or two, and a sachet of miso — instant depth of flavour in something tiny.
• Cured sausage, chorizo, a small hard cheese, or a tin of tuna in oil — fat and protein that keep in a warm rucksack.
• Peanut butter, olive oil in a small screw-top bottle, chilli flakes, dried herbs.
• Powdered milk and instant mash — both cheap, both light, both surprisingly welcome on a cold evening.

Repackage everything into resealable bags before you leave. Cardboard and tins are weight you carry uphill and then carry home again.

Ten-minute pasta for a wet evening

This is the reliable standby. For one hungry person, bring roughly 400ml of water to the boil, add 100g of quick-cook pasta or orzo and a pinch of salt, then simmer for four to six minutes with the lid on. Stir occasionally so nothing catches.

In the last minute, stir through a good squeeze of tomato purée, half a stock cube, a sliced chorizo or a small tin of tuna with its oil, and a pinch of dried herbs. Take it off the heat, add a handful of grated hard cheese, and let it stand for a minute to thicken. Eat it straight from the pot with your spork. If you have a little fresh spinach or a spring onion that has survived the day, throw it in at the end.

Couscous and noodles: no simmering required

Couscous is the quiet hero of upland cooking. Use roughly equal volumes of couscous and boiling water — about 75g of couscous to 100ml of water — add a pinch of salt, stir once, put the lid on, and leave it wrapped in your fleece or tucked into a pot cosy for ten minutes. It will absorb everything and fluff up beautifully. Then fork through chopped chorizo, sundried tomatoes, crumbled feta, a few raisins or nuts, and a slick of olive oil. No simmering, no stirring, no burnt pan.

Instant noodles are even faster. Boil about 300ml of water, cook the noodle block for three minutes, then take the pot off the heat and stir in a tablespoon of peanut butter, a splash of soy sauce, a pinch of chilli flakes and the flavour sachet if you are using it. The peanut butter melts into a thick, savoury sauce that feels far more substantial than the ingredients suggest. A miso sachet works the same way.

Washing up with a mugful of water

The secret to a clean pot is to eat everything in it. Scrape the sides with your spork, then wipe the inside with a piece of tortilla or a square of kitchen roll — that residue goes in your mouth, not down the hillside. After that, a mugful of hot water swirled around the pot is normally enough.

If the pot is only greasy from food, drink that rinse water. It sounds grim and it is slightly grim, but it means nothing is left to carry and nothing is poured into the ground. If you must use soap, use it well away from water — at least 50 metres from any tarn, stream or spring — and never, ever rinse your pots in a tarn. Upland water is precious, slow to recover, and someone downstream may be filling a bottle from it.

Bothy kitchens and tarn-side manners

In a bothy, cook on your stove rather than the fireplace unless there is a well-established fire already burning. Never assume there will be fuel, and never burn treated wood or rubbish. Keep all food in a sealed bag — mice are enthusiastic and relentless — and take every scrap of packaging home with you, including half-used gas canisters. Sweep the floor, stack what is there neatly, and write a line in the visitors' book.

Two safety notes worth repeating. Never cook inside a closed tent: carbon monoxide kills experienced hill folk every year, so keep a door open and ventilate properly, or cook outside in the porch. And in cold weather, gas canisters lose pressure fast — keep yours inside your sleeping bag overnight, use a windshield, and accept that your last brew of the trip may take a little longer than the first.

Cook simply, eat well, and leave the hill as you found it. That is the whole art of it.