Egg Fu Yung, Dutch Oven Style
Scrambled eggs with shrimp, sprouts, and soy, cooked flat in a dutch oven over coals.
- calories
- 390
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 43
- protein
- 34 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 30 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Breakfast
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Eggs | 8 | |
|---|---|---|
| Evaporated milk | 1/2 cup | shelf-stable can, no fridge needed |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Scallions | 3 | sliced, green tops included |
| Celery | 1 stalk | chopped |
| Canned bean sprouts | 1 can | drained hard |
| Canned sliced mushrooms | 1 small can | drained |
| Shrimp, shelled | 2 cups | about 24 medium; cooler or thawed from frozen |
| Sesame or olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Soy sauce | 1 tbsp | |
| Instant rice | 2 cups dry | optional, cooked separately |
Method
- Build a bed of coals. You want the oven around 375°F for the vegetables, so plan on a full ring underneath.
- Beat the eggs with the evaporated milk and salt in a bowl or a wide-mouth bottle. Set it aside.
- Pour the oil into the dutch oven over the coals. Add the scallions, celery, mushrooms, and drained sprouts. Stir and cook five minutes.
- Add the shrimp and soy sauce. Stir another five minutes, until the shrimp go opaque.
- Pull coals off until the oven drops to about 300°F. Too hot here and the eggs turn to rubber.
- Pour in the egg mixture. Cook about ten minutes, stirring now and then, until it is firm and no longer wet.
- Serve over instant rice, or eat it straight out of the oven.
This is an omelet that gave up on being an omelet. The scout version fries the vegetables first and then floods the pan with egg, which is the right order — the sprouts and celery need real heat to lose their water, and eggs at that temperature seize. Dropping the oven to around 300°F before the eggs go in is the whole technique.
Two changes from the original. Evaporated milk replaces fresh, so nothing dairy has to live in the cooler. Draining the canned sprouts and mushrooms properly matters more than it sounds — leftover can liquid turns the eggs into a wet scramble that never sets. If you want this shelf-stable, powdered egg and pouched chicken get you there without the cooler at all.
Packing
Cans and oil go in the food bin. Eggs ride in a hard case or get carried as a carton of liquid egg. Shrimp stays in the cooler on the bottom, on ice, and gets cooked the first night out.
Variations
- Swap the fresh eggs for whole egg powder and 2 cups of water. That makes the whole thing shelf-stable and drops the cooler entirely.
- No shrimp available: two pouches of chicken or a can of crab does the same job.
- A splash of rice vinegar at the end cuts the richness.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/egg_fu_yung-2435.asp