Cookblog: How to boil an egg

There is a hilarious moment, in the 14^th minute of Billy Wilder’s Sabrina, when the master chef who teaches Ms Audrey Hepburn’s gourmet cooking class speaks the immortal words: ‘Bonjours, mesdames et messieurs. Yesterday we have learned the correct way how to boil water…’

Ah, how we all laughed when we first heard that! How could anybody not know how to boil water?? Is there anything simpler and more obvious? Unfortunately, the joke is not all that farfetched. Some of the simplest and most obvious processes cause people tremendous trouble. Thus, to my utter astonishment, I learned quite recently that more than half the population of the civilised West does not know how to boil an egg! Will you believe it???

Now, not all our cases are as desperate as that of Mr Ivan Lendl, the grand Czech tennis champion, who once during an interview confessed that his mother and sister always cooked for him and that he had no idea how a kitchen worked. To illustrate this, Mr Lendl told of this one evening when both his beloved women were out and he was hungry. He decided to boil an egg for himself. So he put an egg in a pan and the pan on the fire and went to watch TV while waiting for the process to run its course. Three minutes later there was an immense blast in the kitchen, and when he rushed over, he found that the egg had exploded and was now plastered all over the ceiling and the kitchen walls. ‘You see,’ Mr Lendl explained with a smile, ‘I had no idea that one has to put water into the pan when one boils an egg…’

No, 99.99 % of the population, will never make such a mistake. But what the greater majority of that same population does not know how to do is to cook an egg to their full satisfaction. As we all know there are three states of boiled egg: soft, medium and hard. And only all too many people can only get the hard-boiled egg right (by letting it cook for 20 minutes…). When they try to produce a soft-boiled egg, it often comes out like runny goo. When they aspire to a semi-soft egg (and most do), it usually turns out too hard. A family breakfast fails dismally once again… Lawyers and divorce papers appear on the horizon…

All sorts of ingenious devices have been invented, produced, brought onto the market and propagandized to help house wives and tennis champions to produce the boiled eggs of their choice and preference. There are kitchen timers, hour glasses, miniature pressure cookers, smart phone apps, litmus tests and termo-chemical adhesive strips that must be wrapped around the egg shell and change colour when the prescribed cooking period has passed. In ultra religious Spain there even used to be an apostolically approved pious method to guarantee the perfect egg: a house wife would mutter four Ave Maria’s over the pan for a soft boiled egg, six for a semi-soft one, and an entire rosary for the harder variety. The Holy Virgin of Miracles took care, we hope, of the rest…

But all this is perfectly needless. Come now, people: it ain’t rocket science. If only you know what you’re doing, you will need no expensive aids, electronic devices, satellite guidance or help from on high. All you need are the instructions from a man who knows what he’s doing, and the discipline to follow those instructions to the letter.

So here is…

Alfred B. Mittington’s ‘Correct Way To Boil An Egg…’

Put a normal sized egg in a pan and fill the pan with cold water until the egg is completely submerged. Do not punch holes in the shell or mistreat the egg in any other way. It makes no sense and no difference for the end result. Do not use already boiling water either; it will completely disturb the timing.

Put half a teaspoon of salt, or a fair splash of vinegar into the water. This raises the boiling temperature slightly, but – more importantly – it seals a crack if the shell happens to burst, so that you do not end up with an empty wind-egg floating in ugly egg soup.

Put the pan onto a high fire and bring to a boil.

As soon as sturdy, unstoppable bubbles rise up from beneath the egg, making it dance, lower the fire to medium height (the water must continue to bubble) and bring out the stopwatch or any other sort of watch with a second-hand.

From this very moment:

            If you want a soft-boiled egg: count 3 minutes, and not a second more!

            If you want a semi-soft egg: count 4 minutes, and not a second more!

            If you want a hard-boiled egg: let the water boil for 5 minutes at least.

As soon as the prescribed time is over – and not a second more! – remove the egg from the pan and submerge it entirely in cold water. This stops the congealing process. If you want your egg warm, you can take it out of it cool bath after some 30 seconds and serve it. If you want your egg cold you will need to keep it in there for a considerable time (10 minutes usually).

Cookbook: Colin Davies’s (F)owl au Vin

There are, dear reader, at large in this wayward and overcrowded world of ours, all sorts of very weird people. There are such who walk with a chip on their shoulder. There are those who wrap yellow ribbons around their neck to remember a loved one, or weave green willow boughs around their hats to spite one who has spurned them. Others yet again have bats in the belfry; buns in the oven; or walk around with a fried egg on their head (although, as the inimitable Ms Bette Midler observed: ‘The ladies with the fried eggs on their heads don’t generally come out until September or October…’)

Ah yes: it takes all kinds, and we really ought to be tolerant to every folly which the Good Lord has put onto this earth to amuse us…

It becomes, however, extraordinarily hard to muster the necessary lenience when such madness strikes a close friend, who deserves better, whom one would like to protect from his more irrational antics, and with whom one is regularly seen in public, with all the inevitable consequences for one’s own immaculate reputation.

And one such lamentable case unfortunately is mine…

My dear friend Colin Davies, born in Liverpool (need I say more?) but lately of the charming Spanish town of Pontevedra, a while ago fell victim to a serious ailment: columbidaephobia, that is: the subclass of ornithophobia in which one experiences a deep, murderous, blood-thirsty hatred of pigeons. Don’t ask me why. He can’t stand the sight of the beasts. He would tear them to pieces with his teeth… And of course they are all over his home town, so that one wonders why he ever decided to live in an old historical Spanish city full of decrepit stone buildings, which are a perfect breeding ground for these charming little birds. Why not move to the Kalahari Desert, where pigeons are rare, or the North Pole, where there are none? Oh well… To each his own, I say, with all the leniency I can muster.

A harmless pigeon

But worse than this innocuous loathing itself, is that the good man has decided to do something about it. You see, he next fell victim to the completely ludicrous conviction that one could scare pigeons away by sculptural means. Believe it or not, but the fellow started walking around the pleasant old town of Pontevedra, which never did him no harm, with a huge, shockingly painted, hollow plastic owl tugged in the hollow of his elbow, from café terrace to café terrace, from restaurant to classical concert, from doctor’s consultancy to modern art museum, in the morning, in the afternoon, in the depth of night… and only too often in my embarrassed company…

Did it work? What do you think? Just take a look at the picture on this here blog, and you will see for yourself how well a hideous plastic owl scares city pigeons away… The only result the polypropylene monstrosity effected was that passers-by stared at us weirdly, and whispered dank phrase at each other, followed by hilarious laughter… 

This is he.
The red face is the result of Albariño wine and Pontevedra sunshine.
The hideous colors on the owl are paint.

I have therefore declared War on Owls, dear reader. On all owls. Flesh and blood, feather and kapok, plastic, stone, wood and even celluloid. I want them gone. I want them out of this world. If, I say, we managed to exterminate the Dodo (which never did us no wrong either) and the Elephant (which is on the way out) and the Platypus (which will soon fall victim to its lack of looks and cuddliness…), then why can’t we do something about a vicious night stalker that plays parasite to small rodents and little kittens and babies left momentarily unattended in their prams by their smartphony mamas??

Yes, it is high time that something be done about it! And I shall start with the flesh & blood variety, as they are the origin of all the trouble. Therefore I have whipped up this delicious recipe, which is so very irresistible that soon house wives, caterers and restaurants will wish to serve nothing else; demand for dead food owls will surge like an eagle in the sky; and poachers will put a quick and efficient stop to the whole despicable breed!

So here we go with

Colin Davies’s (F)owl au Vin (for two people)

Get 1 plucked and cleaned bird.

The bird may be any class or species of owl, but preferably it should be a very young one. These tend to be more tender, and they have the tremendous additional advantage that – if only their neck is wrung early enough – they get no chance to procreate (which is the whole point of this delicious recipe, after all…)

If you have really tried hard, and got a categorical No from every supermarket, delicatessen, poulterer, zoo and volière in a 20 mile radius, you may also make this dish with a small free range spring chicken or cornish hen or whatever, as long you DO NOT use pigeon! Pigeons are a harmless, innocent symbol of peace that deserve to enjoy life and liberty until God calls them to His side!

Once you have your bird, pour yourself a sparkly glass of white wine, and enjoy the sight of that dead owl for a sweet, contemplative moment. Then flavour the bird with a mixture of salt, pepper, some curry and some mustard powder (if you can get it) and let it sit for at least an hour. 

Put a few drops of oil into a deep casserole, and fry a tiny slice of common lard until it is brown and shrivelled. Take the slice out of the pan and throw it away. We only need the fat, which lends this fried owl its particular aromatic flavour.

Toss a generous chunk of sweet butter into the casserole and allow it to melt over a slow fire. Make sure it does not burn.

Now fry the owl on all four sides as you would do with a normal chicken. Once it has turned golden brown, lower the fire to the minimum and let it simmer for 5 minutes more. In the meanwhile, warm up at least half a bottle of dry white wine in a saucepan. As this dish is dedicated to Colin Davies, I suggest a quality Albariño, of which he is fond.

Pour the wine into the casserole, and bring to a cautious boil. The Fowl au Vin will come out best if the entire bird is submerged in the liquid; but do not add water. Doing so spoils the taste.

Close the casserole and let the bird simmer for 30 to 45 minutes. Then toss in a very tiny sprig of rosemary, a teaspoon of sugar, and – if you want to be adventurous – a spoonful of soft green peppers. Let it simmer a few minutes longer, and take the pan off the stove. It is a good idea to let it cool off just a little before carving and serving. Sprinkle some dry parsley on top, for the colourful effect.

Nota Bene: if the sauce comes out too greasy to the taste (which sometimes happens when you use too big a slice of lard), mix a spoonful of corn flour with some water, toss it in, and let the sauce simmer for another five minutes. This will absorb the grease, and the meat only comes out more tender.

Lettuce Enjoy !! (1)

Is there a more modest, humble, self-effacing, yes - … even saintly vegetable than ordinary lettuce, dear reader? Oh, I know: lettuce does not have many admirers. It has no fan club, no Royal Amateur Society, it has not been declared Immaterial World Heritage by the United Nations (one of the very few human accomplishments which does NOT enjoy that honour by now). Sadly, lettuce is the wallflower of the pantry and the fridge! It is so common, so taken for granted, that even gets looked down upon. It is the butt of jokes. It gets abused for the making of nasty metaphors. What to think, for instance, of this jibe shot by Tom Holt (Flying Dutch, chapter 1) at some insignificant personality in the past of an even more insignificant country:

His role in history was rather like that of lettuce in the average salad:

 it achieves no useful purpose, but there's always a lot of it.

Oh, this certainly is a phrase well coined, and I have no doubt that the nincompoop whom it describes was a veritable epitome of irrelevance. But…. did poor Lettuce really deserve such denigrating treatment? Have we not all eaten her with relish and radish, with pleasure and potato? Has not every family gorged itself at least once a week on her fresh and lush young leaves? So there is a lot of lettuce on the menu and in the average salad… What of it? There is a lot of air and water in the world as well - yet is that a reason to spit on breathing and drinking and washing and airplanes?

No, dear reader! That is not how one should treat the humble, the lowly, the little leaf vegetables and the pawns of the plate! Instead we ought to revere a plant that has given us so much and asked for so very little in return! Lettuce Enjoy! I therefore cry with many master chefs of this world. And just to show you what miracles this marvellous Lactuca Sativa may perform, I will give you two splendid recipes that excel in both taste and simple sophistication. Today the first one, which I baptise:

Laitue aux fines herbes

Take a head of lettuce. Remove the stems and clean the leaves with fresh water. Once they have dried, break the leaves with your (clean) bare hands into reasonably sized parts (do not use a knife!) Put these in a bowl.

 Chop and add:

            Half a medium sized onion

            One hard-boiled egg

            Half a tomato

            A small spoonful of capers

Sprinkle on top – while you listen to this classic Simon & Garfunkel song - the following green herbs (either fresh or dried):

            Dill (much)

            Oregano (to taste)

            Tarragon (some)

            Basil (some)

            Parsley (much)

            Sage (if you cannot resist…)

            Rosemary (if you must…)

            and Thyme (cautiously)

Add salt and black pepper to taste

Finally, toss in a small splash of olive oil and a little lemon juice; then put in one or two generous spoonfuls of your preferred quality Mayonnaise (bottled Mayo works just fine).

           

Just before serving, toss the salad well until all the ingredients are properly mixed, but with Debonairetee, if you please (see the endof Colin Davies’s blog for this gorgeous word…)