Eggsperimentation

Well I did say I wouldn’t write anything for a while now that I am now officially on holiday, but what can I say, seems I can’t keep away.
Important news items first – oven is fixed. I am incredibly lucky to have a very good friend who is an oven fixing God – or at least a very good friend of God’s. Actually technically he is a very good friend of a very good friend of God’s. I digress.
It turns out the limiters on the oven had blown – the doohickeys that cut out the power when the whole thing gets too hot. I did tell you it was hot in my kitchen! Suddenly I feel fortunate that the previous owners of our house decided to buy the worlds most basic oven, had I had flash things like electronics, a fan or – imagine the luxury – a clock, things may have been much much worse.
So I celebrated having my oven in full working order by cooking four things on the stove before we flew out. No there isn’t really any logic to that but the Husband did say that he fancied some eggs for breakfast (naturally he stopped short of telling me to cook them) and I was feeling unnaturally obliging. But these were no normal eggs, these were eggs cooked three ways – boiled, coddled and puffed - and all Edmonds Style.
Boiled and coddled first – Boiling is putting an egg in boiling water for 5 minutes whereas coddling is putting an egg in boiling water, then taking the pot off the heat and leaving it for 7 minutes. The theory is that coddled eggs are cooked at a lower temperature and therefore are more tender and more digestible – in 1966 there seemed to be a great deal of importance placed on digestibility, I think perhaps their energies would have been more wisely focused on palatability.
And the results? Well in a highly scientific comparison the Husband found that his coddled egg was definitely more tender. It was also almost liquid. Still he did decide that he preferred his coddled egg over the boiled. From an egg cookers perspective it is also far easier to coddle an egg than it is to boil one – no cracked shells. I also discovered after eating my pair of eggs some ten minutes later (due to the preparation of the puffed eggs below) that the eggs were now quite different. My coddled egg was still dark yellow and quite waxy in the middle while being not even a touch runny, while the boiled egg was the normal light yellow of a hard boiled egg. A bit spooky really. There are photos of this to follow that will clarify things better than my description has managed to.
Speaking of spooky we have been initiated into the world of puffed eggs. To make a puffed egg the white and yolk are separated and the white is beaten until stiff. This is then put into a saucer and steamed for 3 minutes, the yolk is then placed on the top and it is steamed for a further 3 minutes. This process is intended to increase the digestibility of the egg making it suitable for invalids. Hmmmmm.
Now naturally I decided to make this without owning a saucer or a steamer. A saucer was relatively easy to improvise with a little flat dipping bowl. The steamer was a little more challenging and I ended up having to use a large plastic colander inserted into a saucepan with a plate over the top. Unfortunately due to the curved base of a colander only one egg could be steamed at a time but this was no really hardship seeing I was busy supervising the production of eggs both coddled and boiled already. The egg and the dish went into the colander fine and despite almost having doubled or tripled in size by the end of the first three minutes I managed to get the yolk on top. Three minutes later I realised that it’s quite tricky to get a relatively flat, hot dish out of a curved colander. And I did relatively well. That is until the yolk slid off the white, into the colander and started to leak through the holes…
Although I managed to reassemble it to some extent the Husband still was unenthusiastic about the joys of a puffed egg – enhanced digestibility and all. I did try some and the texture was a little odd to say the least.
Now I am afraid that I have the sore shoulder of someone who is typing on keyboard which is at nipple height (a graphic but necessary description) so I will have to sign off and leave the description of my fourth recipe - Tomato pulp – to a time when can again feel all of my limbs. I also have some rather fascinating photos of the various eggs to add which will have to wait until I have a battery and lead for my camera. As if needing more evidence that I should not be allowed to use scissors without the help of an adult - let alone a kitchen full of knives, hot elements and boiling water it’s nice to know I’m the kind of person who takes the camera on holiday, but no battery. Nevermind.