Camp cookery (Kephart)

Beat four eggs just enough to break them well. Add one-half teaspoonful of salt. Put two heaped teaspoonfuls of butter in the pan and heat as above. Pour egg into pan, and tilt the pan forward so that the egg flows to the far side. As soon as the egg begins to set, draw it up to the raised side of the pan with a knife. Beginning then at the left hand, turn the egg over in small folds until the lower part of the pan is reached, and the omelet has been rolled into a complete fold. Let the omelet rest a few seconds, and then turn out into a hot dish. Work rapidly throughout, so that the omelet is creamy instead of tough. It should be of a rich yellow color. Ham Omelet. — Cut raw ham into dice. Fry. Turn the beaten eggs over it and cook as above. Bacon can be used instead of ham. Fancy Omelets. — Take tender meat, game, fish, or vegetable, hash it fine, heat it in white sauce (see page 87), and spread this over the omelet before you begin to fold it; or they can be put in with the eggs. Jam, jelly, or preserved fruit may be used in a similar way. Rum Omelet. — Beat three eggs, add a very small pinch of salt, a teaspoonful of powdered sugar, a slice of butter, and a tablespoonful of rum. Fry as described above. Lay the omelet on a hot dish, pour around it one-half tumblerful of rum that has been warmed in a pan, light it, and serve with its blue flame rising round it. Poached Eggs. — Put a pint of water in the frying pan, with one-half teaspoonful of salt. If you have vinegar, add two teaspoonfuls to the water: it keeps the whites from running too much. Bring the water to a gentle boil. Break the eggs separately into a saucer and slide them into the water. Let the water simmer not longer than three minutes, meantime ladling spoonfuls of it over the yolks. Have toast already buttered on a very hot plate. Lay eggs carefully on it. Eat at once. This may be varied by moistening the toast with hot milk. Eggs, Boiled. — Eggs are boiled soft in two and one-half to three minutes, depending upon size and freshness. If wanted hard boiled, put them in cold water, bring to a boil, and keep it up for twenty minutes. The yolk will then be mealy and wholesome. Eggs boiled between these extremes are either clammy or tough, and indigestible. CHAPTER IX. WHEN men must bake for themselves they generally make biscuit, biscuit-loaf, flapjacks, or corn bread. Bread leavened with yeast is either beyond their skill or too troublesome to make out of doors; so baking powder is the mainstay of the camp. Generally the batch is a failure. To paraphrase Tom Hood, Who has not met with camp-made bread. Rolled out of putty and weighted with lead? It need not be so. Just as good biscuit or johnny cake can be baked before a log fire in the woods as in a kitchen range. Bread making is a chemical process. Follow directions; pay close attention to details, as a chemist does, from building the fire to testing the loaf with a sliver. It does require experience or a special knack to guess quantities accurately, but none at all to measure them. In general, biscuit or other small cakes should be baked quickly by ardent heat; large loaves require a slow, even heat, so that the outside will not harden until the inside is nearly done.