Last fall Tim and I were sitting side-by-side at our computers just surfin’. It was a leisurely Saturday evening, we were staying in, and we were playing a little game we often do where we take turns sharing songs, usually songs that have meaning to us, or songs that we grew up listening to. One of the marvelous things about marrying a man your own age… we both graduated from high school in 1972… you sang the same songs, watched the same movies, and experienced the same social and cultural phenomena. All-and-all, it makes for many delightful conversations… but I digress! Shocker, right?
Anyway… songs like You’re So Vain, Super Freak, Knights in White Satin and Dreams by the Cranberries were filling the air (btw… totally extraneous info for the true story, but I’m setting the mood 😉 So, in my surfin’ the net, I stumble upon these a.dor.able egg cozies. I have never owned an egg cozy, as a matter of fact, I’ve never owned an egg cup BUT I now NEED to, if only to own these cute cozies. While reading about the cozies, the writer spoke of “soldiers”. Now, I know she’s not talking about people in uniforms, it has something to do with soft-boiled eggs. I ask Tim about it. He knows EVERYTHING. Truly, this man is amazing… the amount of trivial info bouncing around in his cute head. But, shockingly, he comes up empty.
I forbid him from Googling soldiers. Instead, I hop on Wee Folk Art’s Facebook page and ask our readers about “soldiers”. As I expected, lots of people knew about “soldiers” and I was delighted to learn about them from “friends” rather than just off a search. (For those of you that have no idea about what I’m talking about, you’ll find out soon 🙂
So, Tim and I spent the rest of the evening looking at egg cups and egg cozies, egg spoons and egg cutters. By the time the evening drew to a close, I felt like a bit of an authority on soft-boiled eggs, and gave sufficient hints, knowing full-well I’d be receiving egg paraphernalia as a Christmas gift. Although my Christmas stocking… actually, my Christmas shopping bag… was filled with many “squealable” delights, I was rather surprised that there were no egg cups, cozies or cutters amongst the gifts. It wasn’t like Tim. He ALWAYS picks up on those kind of things. But, we shared a perfect Christmas together, so it was soon forgotten.
HOWEVER, Michelle had not forgotten about my continued intrigue with the whole soft-boiled egg experience. And, this Mother’s Day, I received 4 adorable chicken egg cups and spoons, a handy-dandy egg snipper AND (drum roll please) 4 felted GNOME HATS that she knit to keep my eggs cozy while waiting to be ate! How exciting!
So, this morning, I set out to make my very first soft-boiled egg. As I said before, I had read all about them, so I was ready. I decided to steam my eggs. It was simple:
Bring water to a boil in the bottom of a steamer. Add eggs directly from the fridge. Steam for 6 1/2 minutes.
When you remove the eggs from the steamer, run directly under cold water to stop the cooking process.
While the eggs are cooking, make your “soldiers”. (Told you I’d get back to them!) Soldiers are simply a piece of buttered toast, cut into long strips, so you can easily dip them in your egg. Brilliant!
Now, the fun part… place your egg in an egg cup, and cover with an egg cozy to keep it warm until you are ready to eat.
Use your spoon or an egg cutter to remove the top of the egg, removing any little pieces of clingy shell. If you like, you can salt and pepper your egg. (I found the buttered toast added enough flavor without condiments.) If all went well, you have a perfect soft-boiled egg. The white should be thoroughly cooked, but the yolk should still be runny.
Now, dip your soldiers in and eat up! Note to self: when using the wide toast, make sure to cut into 5 pieces instead of 4 so they fit in the egg better!)
Yum! For a first go at making soft-boiled eggs, I’d say it was a major success.
Note: Make sure you check your eggs before you steam them. If there are any little cracks, the steaming process with cause them to crack open while cooking, and you have an egg that develops this globby thing that looks like a goiter! BTW… the dogs said it tasted just fine 🙂
If you are interested in knitting some gnome hats for your eggs… and if you are a regular reader at Wee Folk Art, I’m going to assume you’ve got your yarn and needles out already… Michelle found the pattern for the hats over at Silver Lining Knits. You can visit them to get the complete directions.
Thank you so much, Mich. I love them AND you 🙂
Photos 5-14-13
