The joy of eggs

Some of our friends always ask what we’re having for dinner tonight – she’s a professional cook, now disabled & unable to work. Last week I said poached eggs. Somehow she didn’t seem to believe we could be having something so simple. I admitted to making a thick tomato, pepper & chilli sauce to pop the eggs on to. It was duly placed on some toasted sourdough bread.

Today we’re having a similar sauce. The pepper is green rather than the yellow of last week – it’s just what I happened to have in. This time I’m not toasting any bread. I’m going to make impressions in the sauce, dropping the eggs, one per impression & cooking gently on the gas rings. I will serve them with sauté potatoes & peas.

I love eggs. I can think of no simpler joy than having an egg, ideally with the yolk still runny & the white set. Egg on chips (i.e. a poached egg served with chips & a dollop of tomato ketchup) was a childhood favourite – something that arose if there wasn’t enough meat left over from the Sunday roast for the Monday meal.

I think eggs must be one of the most versatile ingredients. No matter whether you scramble, fry, poach or use for an omelette, they always taste different. Then there are so many other uses – soufflés, cakes, meringues, custard, to hold breadcrumbs on, to bind e.g. fishcakes, in salads, kedgerees, Scotch eggs or Aberdeen eggs (with kippers rather than sausagemeat around the egg), to enrich mashed potatoes & sauces,  and so the list goes on. I think on my desert island eggs would have to be the one food essential. What is more, it’s not even an expensive item. No, I’m looking forward to my eggy meal once more. I could still fancy that old childhood favourite of Egg on Chips my mother used to make.