Many chance occurrences can change the way we eat - dishes discovered on our travels, health fads, finding intriguing new ingredients. We had a strange one this weekend.
One of our two chickens (the third suddenly turned up its toes several months back), named Steve as a homage to her youthful tendency to do a runner (think The Great Escape), after not having tried to make a break for it since November disappeared completely after we left her foraging for worms for a few minutes. We have foxes over the brook at the bottom of our garden, so after ages searching we figured one way or another she was a goner. With no signs at lunchtime on Sunday we went and bought two replacements. At four, checking on the newbies, Ruth found Steve happily pecking at the lawn.
So now we have four, and are averaging three and a bit eggs per day. Poached egg for breakfast is always a winner, but not every day. Thus I am thinking about ways to use the surplus creatively: I made onion bread (half a pack of dried onion per big loaf) two days in a row, using an egg to enrich the dough, the results very tasty and with a lovely pale yellow crumb. We may end up as we have previously giving some away, if only to avoid cholesterol poisoning. But I'm loath to do so - the eggs are so much better than any supermarket organic version, and offer so many fine dishes.
Best of all these is the simple omelette. Simple if you get it right, which for me means using great eggs (no problem there then), nice unsalted butter in which to fry them, and if adding any flavourings erring on the side of caution as regards quantity. The cheese, for example - Parmesan always a favourite - is there to enhance the flavour not dominate.
It was, as I have said before, reading An Omelette and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David that was a turning point in my culinary life. My life. The eponymous essay is a joy to read still, and full of good sense - keep things simple, use good ingredients, and find great matches like those two. With a green salad and some decent bread a six egg omelette (and a glass of wine) is a perfect midweek supper in the warmer months. At Sainsbury's half-a-dozen large free range eggs cost £1.75. Add a few pence for butter, £0.50 for half a cos lettuce, a few more pennies for oil and vinegar, and £0.80p for a small loaf of crusty bread, and supper for three would be about £3.25. Now here comes the even smugger than normal bit - if you have your own hens, make bread, and grow lettuce, the cost for the same meal would be about 75p. Worth thinking about. Especially as it leaves more to spend on buying a half decent wine to top it all off.
Showing posts with label hens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hens. Show all posts
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
Monday, 26 August 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
There is Nothing Like an Egg
We have chickens at the bottom of our very long (and thin) garden. No neighbours at the back to annoy - there are allotments over the brook - so that's the best place for them. At present we have two laying, one in retirement (though perhaps laying very very occasionally still) that we are too cowardly to do away with, and one youngster still a good fortnight off being productive. The upshot is we get two eggs a day currently. Eggs that taste of egg are a boon to the cook.
Yesterday I made a cake spiced with mace and cinnamon, into which two very fresh eggs went. Last week egg mayonnaise, such a simple thing to do, was as ever appreciated as the eggs taste wonderful. We just gave a couple to the people who have moved in next door, saying sorry for recent escapes into their garden by the youngster who doesn't yet know better. Where she is getting through the hedge and chicken wire still a mystery.
Omelettes are equally enjoyable, and the simplest thing to make. Made with good eggs like these you don't need a filling. I have a feeling that as austerity bites further, and we find that we don't bounce back to quite as high as we were before, that more people will be keeping hens.
There is a lesson in the keeping of them for the cook or menu planner too. I am convinced the more they are out and about, adding variety to their diet (layers' pellets plus loads of scraps and plenty of seed), and the happier they are, the better the eggs. It's hard to verify this hypothesis scientifically, but I remain certain. And the stuff they eat to make the eggs better is an eye-opener: blood-worms are a special treat; wood-lice; slugs; larvae found in the soil (species unknown); grass; dandelions; the occasional mouse-head left by our cat; once or twice when we couldn't intervene in time a baby frog. Nature red in beak and claw as it were. But no complaints as there is nothing like an egg, or (Wodehouse would be proud) a good egg.
Yesterday I made a cake spiced with mace and cinnamon, into which two very fresh eggs went. Last week egg mayonnaise, such a simple thing to do, was as ever appreciated as the eggs taste wonderful. We just gave a couple to the people who have moved in next door, saying sorry for recent escapes into their garden by the youngster who doesn't yet know better. Where she is getting through the hedge and chicken wire still a mystery.
Omelettes are equally enjoyable, and the simplest thing to make. Made with good eggs like these you don't need a filling. I have a feeling that as austerity bites further, and we find that we don't bounce back to quite as high as we were before, that more people will be keeping hens.
There is a lesson in the keeping of them for the cook or menu planner too. I am convinced the more they are out and about, adding variety to their diet (layers' pellets plus loads of scraps and plenty of seed), and the happier they are, the better the eggs. It's hard to verify this hypothesis scientifically, but I remain certain. And the stuff they eat to make the eggs better is an eye-opener: blood-worms are a special treat; wood-lice; slugs; larvae found in the soil (species unknown); grass; dandelions; the occasional mouse-head left by our cat; once or twice when we couldn't intervene in time a baby frog. Nature red in beak and claw as it were. But no complaints as there is nothing like an egg, or (Wodehouse would be proud) a good egg.
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