Curried X

A camp cook's shorthand for curried eggs on rice, with the sauce left almost entirely to the cook's judgement. The only real technique here is the sauce, and the only real risk is overcooked eggs.

• Hard-cooked eggsCover the eggs with cold water, bring to a boil, then take the pan off the heat, cover, and leave 10-12 minutes before cooling in cold water. Eggs held at a hard boil for the longer times some older books give turn rubbery with a grey-green ring at the yolk.
• White sauce, in proportionThe book assumes you know it: 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 cup milk, cooked a minute or two before the milk goes in so the flour loses its raw taste. That quantity sauces four to six eggs.
• Cook the curry powderStir the curry powder into the butter and flour before adding liquid, and let it fry 30 seconds. Powder stirred into finished sauce, as written, tastes dusty and raw.
• How much powderStart with 1 to 2 teaspoons per cup of sauce. Commercial curry powders vary enormously in heat and salt, so taste and adjust rather than measuring blind.
• "Any other sauce"The instruction to use it "like seasoning" means the curry is a flavouring for whatever sauce base is at hand: gravy, tomato sauce, or the milk-thickened stock of a camp kitchen. Tinned condensed soup works the same way if that is what is in the pack.
• RicePlain long-grain rice, cooked and drained dry, holds up best under the sauce. Rice cooked to a paste turns the whole dish into porridge.
• YieldTwo eggs and about three-quarters of a cup of cooked rice per person; four eggs with a single batch of sauce feeds two as a main dish or four alongside something else.