Read Online Don't Sweat the Aubergine by Nicholas Clee - Free Book Online
Authors: Nicholas Clee
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Bring the water to the boil, then turn the heat on your hob right down before lowering in the egg or eggs. You’re less likely to crack the shells if the water is at a gentle simmer (as you are if you’ve taken the eggs out of the fridge some time beforehand), and the eggs will benefit from slow cooking. Keep the heat at a level below simmering or boiling point; just let it show a few rising bubbles.
It’s impossible to give reliable timings. I’d say that, cooked at this very gentle rate, a medium egg will be soft boiled, with a runny yolk, at 5 minutes; after 7 minutes, the yolk will be part-squidgy, part runny (that’s how I like it); at 10–12 minutes, it will be hard-boiled, but still moist. After that, it starts to get dry and powdery. If you’re hard-boiling eggs, put them into cold water for a while when they’re ready; otherwise, their residual heat will carry on cooking them, and they will develop an unappetizing grey-greenish layer around their yolks.
POACHED EGGS
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HOW TO MAKE THEM
----
Four is usually the most you can poach at once. Crack them into separate cups. 1 Bring a frying pan or broad saucepan of water – you need only an egg’s depth – to the boil, 2 turn down to a simmer, and gently slip the eggs into the water. 3 Maintain a low heat under the pan, as when boiling eggs (see above). Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, and lift out with a draining spoon.
I used to put them to dry on paper towels, but found it hard to prise them cleanly from the soggy paper. So now I put them for a few seconds on to a wooden board, before lifting them on to plates.
----
WHY YOU DO IT
----
1 • Cracking it . Cracking eggs is one of many simple kitchen skills at which I’m incompetent. I don’t trust myself to do it efficiently above simmering water. This two-stage operation is far less stressful.
2 • Cooking in water . Purists turn up their noses at egg-poaching pans. A poached egg, they insist, is cooked in water; in poachers, the eggs rest in trays, and are steamed by simmering water in the pans below. I can’t see, or taste, what’s so unacceptable about steamed eggs; and the whites certainly come out neater.
3 • Unadulterated water . Some recipes suggest you add salt and vinegar, which help to keep the whites tender. Too tender, in my experience: under this treatment, my egg whites become raggedy, and fail to cohere round the yolks. But eggs may behave differently in the water from your taps.
EGGS FLORENTINE
----
HOW TO MAKE IT
----
For 2
Cook and drain 500g spinach ( see here ); squeeze out the water through the holes in a sieve or colander with the back of a wooden spoon, and arrange the spinach, seasoned, in an ovenproof dish large enough to hold 4 poached eggs (or 2, if you prefer). Make 4 (or 2) wells in the spinach. Put the dish into a low oven to keep warm. Heat water in a pan for the eggs. While it is coming to a simmer, make about 250ml béchamel sauce ( see here ). Keep the sauce warm on a heat disperser above the lowest possible flame, stirring from time to time. Poach the eggs and drain them; take the spinach out of the oven, and arrange the eggs in the wells you made. Stir 2 heaped tbsp grated cheese (Pecorino or Parmesan, perhaps; but you could use Cheddar) into the sauce (the cheese will retain its character best given the briefest possible cooking); check the seasoning of the sauce, pour it over the eggs and spinach, and sprinkle finely grated Parmesan on top. Put the dish under the grill until the surface has browned.
FRIED EGGS
Here are two possible methods:
Warm a frying pan; add enough butter to give a generous covering of the pan’s surface; when it is foaming, crack the eggs over it (or crack them into cups first, and slip them in from there). Cook for a couple of minutes, until the white is set.
Nigel Slater’s method: crack eggs into separate cups; heat a generous quantity (a finger’s depth, he says) of good olive oil in a frying pan, until a small piece of
Bring the water to the boil, then turn the heat on your hob right down before lowering in the egg or eggs. You’re less likely to crack the shells if the water is at a gentle simmer (as you are if you’ve taken the eggs out of the fridge some time beforehand), and the eggs will benefit from slow cooking. Keep the heat at a level below simmering or boiling point; just let it show a few rising bubbles.
It’s impossible to give reliable timings. I’d say that, cooked at this very gentle rate, a medium egg will be soft boiled, with a runny yolk, at 5 minutes; after 7 minutes, the yolk will be part-squidgy, part runny (that’s how I like it); at 10–12 minutes, it will be hard-boiled, but still moist. After that, it starts to get dry and powdery. If you’re hard-boiling eggs, put them into cold water for a while when they’re ready; otherwise, their residual heat will carry on cooking them, and they will develop an unappetizing grey-greenish layer around their yolks.
POACHED EGGS
----
HOW TO MAKE THEM
----
Four is usually the most you can poach at once. Crack them into separate cups. 1 Bring a frying pan or broad saucepan of water – you need only an egg’s depth – to the boil, 2 turn down to a simmer, and gently slip the eggs into the water. 3 Maintain a low heat under the pan, as when boiling eggs (see above). Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, and lift out with a draining spoon.
I used to put them to dry on paper towels, but found it hard to prise them cleanly from the soggy paper. So now I put them for a few seconds on to a wooden board, before lifting them on to plates.
----
WHY YOU DO IT
----
1 • Cracking it . Cracking eggs is one of many simple kitchen skills at which I’m incompetent. I don’t trust myself to do it efficiently above simmering water. This two-stage operation is far less stressful.
2 • Cooking in water . Purists turn up their noses at egg-poaching pans. A poached egg, they insist, is cooked in water; in poachers, the eggs rest in trays, and are steamed by simmering water in the pans below. I can’t see, or taste, what’s so unacceptable about steamed eggs; and the whites certainly come out neater.
3 • Unadulterated water . Some recipes suggest you add salt and vinegar, which help to keep the whites tender. Too tender, in my experience: under this treatment, my egg whites become raggedy, and fail to cohere round the yolks. But eggs may behave differently in the water from your taps.
EGGS FLORENTINE
----
HOW TO MAKE IT
----
For 2
Cook and drain 500g spinach ( see here ); squeeze out the water through the holes in a sieve or colander with the back of a wooden spoon, and arrange the spinach, seasoned, in an ovenproof dish large enough to hold 4 poached eggs (or 2, if you prefer). Make 4 (or 2) wells in the spinach. Put the dish into a low oven to keep warm. Heat water in a pan for the eggs. While it is coming to a simmer, make about 250ml béchamel sauce ( see here ). Keep the sauce warm on a heat disperser above the lowest possible flame, stirring from time to time. Poach the eggs and drain them; take the spinach out of the oven, and arrange the eggs in the wells you made. Stir 2 heaped tbsp grated cheese (Pecorino or Parmesan, perhaps; but you could use Cheddar) into the sauce (the cheese will retain its character best given the briefest possible cooking); check the seasoning of the sauce, pour it over the eggs and spinach, and sprinkle finely grated Parmesan on top. Put the dish under the grill until the surface has browned.
FRIED EGGS
Here are two possible methods:
Warm a frying pan; add enough butter to give a generous covering of the pan’s surface; when it is foaming, crack the eggs over it (or crack them into cups first, and slip them in from there). Cook for a couple of minutes, until the white is set.
Nigel Slater’s method: crack eggs into separate cups; heat a generous quantity (a finger’s depth, he says) of good olive oil in a frying pan, until a small piece of
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