A Tiny Piece of Perfection

Yesterday I cooked the perfect boiled egg. Actually I cooked two, one for my wife and one for myself. Not the greatest culinary feat ever, but very pleasing in its own little way, not least in that they formed the basis of our breakfast, and eventually of some debate.

Firstly, who is to define what constitutes a perfect boiled egg? Had my son been up at that time (not going to happen during the holidays unless fishing is in prospect) he would have pointed out that his perfect boiled egg is hard enough to damage plaster if thrown. These had soft but solidified whites, the very edge of the yolk had hardened, but the rest was liquid and cried out for toast soldiers (or peace women as a distant cousin dubbed them long ago).

Secondly, the comparative value of such small but perfect things. I maintain that I would rather have had that egg than a mediocre but exotic restaurant dish, just as I'd take a Hilliard miniature over any large scale piece of crap by Hirst. The egg would cost less than the Blumenthal crab meat and goat's testicle on rocket and pissenlit salad with dressing made from the distilled tears of a depressed cat, but cost is irrelevant here.

The method, by the way, as this is meant to be a food blog (and chefs have come to blows over their preferred ways of cooking boiled eggs): small saucepan of water brought to the boil, two medium eggs then added, wait till the water returns to the rolling boil, then start the ancient egg-timer going. Remove eggs when the sand has run out (wait a bit for larger eggs, remove earlier for small ones), place in egg cups and leave for a minute to firm up. Cut off top with knife (and like all sensible people I'm a Little-endian), add a few grains of salt and dig in.

Just realised that I left one important factor out of the above: the eggs were from our hens, so at most two days in the basket, and produced by creatures who along with their layers' pellets eat grass, worms, wood-lice (their favourite find), our salad discards, grain and if we don't rescue them in time the occasional little frog.