Desert cooking

Take one bush-veld-savannah region in one of the world’s hottest and driest countries.

Avoiding tree cover, place a solar-box cooker on the ground, and set up so facing the sun.

In a black cooking pot, add one-part rice to two-parts water. Put cooking pot in the solar-box cooker. Leave in the sun for one hour if mid-day, or 2 hours if morning or late afternoon (add time if there are clouds).

Remove cooking pot from solar-box cooker, and serve the perfectly cooked rice to bored and tired colleagues who have been waiting for 4 hours for trainees to turn up for workshop.

 

Also possible with eggs, pap, stew, but not pasta.

 

Top tip: have a cloth handy for handling pot as it will be very hot as you wouldn’t want to pick up the hot pot with bare hands and then drop some of the perfectly cooked rice all over the dirt because your hand is melting.

Top tip: bring something to add to the rice, even butter or ketchup will do. The locally available sour milk will not make it taste better, but will ruin all of your cooking efforts.