The Egg Bonanza Dilemma

Two egg bonanza dilemmas actually.

We have a somewhat deranged chicken called Steve, named after the star of The Great Escape (Donald Pleasence - she's that strange). She has no motorbike that searches of the chicken hutch have yet revealed anyway, and since we took away the pot-bellied stove that hid their tunnel entrance that route has not been a problem, but Steve escapes from their compound on an almost daily basis. They have a nice sturdy Omlet run for night-time security, and during the day roam inside another Omlet product, a great big net/fence that gives them room to wander, peck, and take time out from their hectic lifestyles. We have pegged the net carefully, so figure she launches from the roof of the hutch to get over the wire, as it were. Wasn't there an episode of Colditz about building a glider in the castle? I knew letting them have the box-set was mistaken.

Yesterday when searching for her in the garden I discovered she had made a nest of sorts under bags of wood in a little lean-to behind our shed. When I moved the bags I found nine eggs. Dillemma one: how to tell they are fresh? The old trick of putting them one by one in a glass of cold water is neat and simple: if they remain horizontal they're fresh. If they tip up a bit - not so fresh. Stand upright - downright stale. Easy peasy squeezy lemons.

Six turned out to be fresh, three stale - we have chickens so our eggs will be fresh and lovely, so very unpeasantly I threw out the three past their best.

Now comes the second dilemma: how best to use a sudden eggy glut? My immediate thought was scrambled eggs for breakfast tomorrow, but as the Dear Leader is taking a train before six even her most devoted underling (me) is unwilling to cook them at five. Next thought was a big Spanish omelette tonight, something that appeals for getting them used rapidly and as it's a fine dish. SC is a big fan of egg mayonnaise, rather perversely given he is not keen on boiled eggs and on other foods shuns mayo. Another Spanish dish, onions, peppers, beans and garlic with halved boiled eggs on top (or for the bold eggs broken into hollows in the top then cooked in the oven) also appeals. Other suggestions gratefully received.

ps I'm not sponsored by Omlet. Though if they'd like to I'd not say no.

The More the Merrier - Within Reason

Earlier this week we had a short break in Anglesey, taking a tiny cottage for four nights. One night was supposed to feature a pub meal, but lovely though the seaside village was its two central pubs were less than inviting: in one you seemed to be near the toilet wherever you sat, not a great boon to appetite; the other could have made a Hammer Horror setting - dark, empty, silent, creepy.

So with few supplies to hand it was make-do time in the kitchen. That great stand-by the omelette provided the first course, made with two peppers, some garlic, and a load of chorizo. It got me thinking about how certain dishes are so amenable to kitchen sink cookery - the stew and the curry to name but two. The pizza is another obvious contender.

But as so often in cookery, there is an indefinable but readily appreciated limit beyond which a dish shifts from interesting to messy and confused. Had I added another meat - ham say - that omelette would have indeed been messy. Another vegetable - onion or potato - would have worked. Why is that? Am I judging by a standard of meals eaten in my past? Or do the putative ham and actual chorizo clash?

The pizza case is an intriguing one here: we eat four thin home-made ones on our regular pizza nights. Put too many ingredients on one and it doesn't work at all. But it seems fine to have cheese and tomato and anchovy on one, chicken and sweetcorn on another, peppers, pepperami, ham and garlic on a third, etc etc. All the ingredients end up mixed in ones stomach. Eaten slice by slice the different toppings follow one another closely. So is this just a question of taste, keeping flavours more or less discernible, and a momentary question at that?

Stevie Wonder

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.

A Whole Ham for the Hambone?

Though Ruth said I was being foolish to do so, I went early to Aldi to buy - on the day they were to be in store - one of their Serrano hams advertised at £49.99 with knife, stand and sharpening steel. For some reason (it being sold cheaper on the internet apparently) it was actually £39.99. Not surprisingly perhaps the one I got at 8:30 was the last then in stock, the store having opened at 8:00.

The ham weighs 6.5kg, so quite a bit to go at over the Christmas break. It will make life easy when we have friends and neighbours (who generally are friends anyway) over. I'm looking forward to the meat, but having a hambone with which to make stock is a massive bonus. For the next few days I'll be thinking of recipes for the scraps and the mis-shapes too as we try to cut see-through slices. Omelette, pizza, risotto, tiny cubes in paella...

As per a previous post, however, the simplicity of the thing appeals hugely too. Any of us fancying a snack or a quick starter will be able - with a bit of practice - to dig in. It does take practice, as we found pre-Joe when I brought a whole cured ham back from France, nestled among the wine that filled the boot at the end of every continental business trip by car. We had no long thin knife then, and so every other slice was too thick, chewed determinedly or cut up and used in stews etc. 

Cooking with the stuff is not, though, the real point of it. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity again: ham, bread, wine, salad, talk. And more ham. That's the point.

One Flame Chinese - Crab Omelette

Our eggs are not of the hundred year old variety (but then, paradoxically, nor are hundred year eggs), but fresh from our own hens. I make a point of using up all we have in the basket every now and then to ensure what we have is always less than a week old. they are, then, a wonderful ingredient for any cook with half a brain - and I nearly qualify.

In many of the Chinese banquets I enjoyed in my previous career omelettes were a feature, and why not - they are quickly made, nutritious, and very adaptable. One that left an impression on me was with crab, and I have since made versions of this with - sorry but it's convenient - tinned crab meat. Not too austere really as the white meat stuff with some texture left is more than £2 a tin, but given the eggs are near as dammit free I don't feel guilty.

The usual method applies - beat the eggs really well with loads of air, but instead of the breakfast or lunch omelette cooking medium of butter for the Chinese dish I use vegetable oil with a dash of toasted sesame oil. Start the omelette cooking, wait till nearly done then add the drained crab meat and a teaspoon of soy sauce, a shake of 5-spice powder, and we're done once they've heated through.

This is a light meal in itself, but better as a dish in a banquet, thin wedges cut ready to be taken by diners.

Half the World's Food Wasted

The Institute of Mechanical Engineers has garnered headlines with its report stating that up to half the world's food goes to waste. Some of the causes are beyond ordinary households to fix, but there are plenty of actions we can take to make some difference.

1: Buy local fruit and vegetables from local markets, where how a potato looks, or the size of a turnip, or  a little blemish on an apple, are not regarded as vital. If you buy from supermarkets, make a point of buying stuff like the 'basic' bags of peppers, which are misshapes and 'the wrong size' (what utter bureaucratic idiocy, wherever it comes from). They, like market produce, are cheaper and taste no damn different.

2: If you grow your own, use it. Either side of us neighbours have perfectly good fruit trees that over the years have been little picked if at all. Happily we have been allowed to harvest the damsons from a tree on one side and mirabelles from a much neglected tree on the other. New occupants of the damson side so I hope they make the best of what they have available fresh and free.

And strangely I have noticed how some fellow allotment growers don't harvest some of their crops, either because they are grown out of habit though not liked, or too much of something is grown (so gift them), or a touch of the can't be bothereds sets in.

3: Learn to use leftovers. All it takes is a little imagination: yesterday I was making a big omelette for our evening meal, into which cubed went three stovie potatoes left from the previous day, bulking out the onion, yellow pepper (yes, basics range) and Parmesan.

4: Don't buy on automatic. I wonder how internet grocery purchases are affecting wastage - we all tend to laziness, and not changing a list even if you go off something, or have plenty already, is going to lead to waste.

5: Learn to preserve stuff better. That may be simply keeping certain fruits and veggies in the fridge, or actually making pickles and jams. Last year was rubbish for apples, strawberries and raspberries here, what we got was eaten fresh or made into ice cream as regards soft fruit, so no jams or jellies made for once. But we have some from 2011 still good.

6: In a country where obesity is a major problem, think about portion size.

The economic benefits will be immediate if the shopping bill is reduced, as it can be for most of us. But longer term as demand drops here so should prices, and the developing world will get a better share of food resources. It won't cure the planet's ills, but every little helps.

Another action, not for everybody though: get chickens (who love leftover spuds, greens, stale bread, cucumber skin if you don't use it, any toms that have got mould, etc etc). One fine day we'd love to have a pig or two, though as our deeds say we can't that has to wait until we move sometime in the future.

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.