Only An Egg
Just a short post today about a short book, over easy. Terry Golson is a professional chef who keeps a flock of 11 hens in her backyard in suburban Boston. The Farmstead Egg Cookbook is a tiny gem. Golson begins by telling you everything you ever did or didn’t want to know about eggs, such as why organic eggs taste better than commercially produced eggs, and why what she calls farmstead eggs– that is eggs laid by hens which are not kept in cages and can roam freely– taste better still. She also explains the grading and sizing of eggs and then tells you how to cook them.
You probably think you don’t need a recipe to boil an egg. Golson would not agree. If you’ve ever had a hard boiled egg with a greenish yoke or a shell that could not be removed without tearing away most of the white you would probably benefit from Golson’s instructions. After covering the basic preparations like sunny side up, over easy and scrambled Golson moves on to recipes for a wide range of dishes from the ubiquitous deviled eggs for snacking, to omelets and frittatas , then on to heartier fare such as swordfish kabobs with aioli , steak and eggs and spaghetti carbonara and finally to deserts including angel food cake and pistachio apricot biscotti that looked mouth watering in the photograph. Recommended.
In the library cookbooks are shelved at Dewey Decimal Number 641. This particular book can be found at 641.675.
A final note–the title of today’s post does not actually refer to the book mentioned above but is a hint or clue as to the topic of my next post, which will be up on Saturday. The first commenter to post the author or book title will win effusive praise. (JD, you’re not eligible since I already told you. )
I was pretty sure that wasn’t the one (though it was a very cute kid’s book). I’m probably going to get the egg book this weekend.
Sorry golfwidow, but it doesn’t sound like you are on the right track at all. If you should see the egg book at your local library pick it up, it’s a neat little book, though I wouldn’t spend 17 bucks to buy it.
I know of a book with a line about “only an egg,” where that egg was somebody’s brother. I’m not sure if that’s the book. I do my HB eggs (including shaking the pan to crack the shells) the same way Techfun does.
The pan shaking sounds effective. I just bang them on the sink. We have a hundred year old farmhouse sick with the two side drain boards and its easy to bang them on that then shuck the eggs under cold running water.
damn. you sound like you wrote the book. I only read it. The only useful info I will add from the book is the advice to drain the water from the pan, then shake the pan vigorously to crackle the shells, then plunge them into ice water for a few minutes. the shells will slip right off she says
Dammit! You were right, of course I know who it is and which book and which character and to which character it was first spoken to.I don’t blame you for not tackling THAT post that late at night. If I started writing about him and his work I would be up half the night and have to split the post into a half dozen separate entries.The egg book sounds good though. I am curious as to her egg boiling method. I do mine by covering them with lots of cold water – at least a few inches more than is needed to cover them since the water needs to act as a heat sink of sorts.Then I bring them to a boil, cover the pan, turn it off, and let it just sit for 20-25 minutes. That is plenty to cook them through and I usually avoid the greenish (sulfur based) gunk around the yolk and they peel easily under cool running water. I also make a point of find eggs that have the farthest off “use by” date because fresher eggs have more of the protein thingies that keep the yolk suspended close to the center of the egg. Boiling older eggs have a tendency to result in eggs with the yolk close to one end of the egg or the other because that protein thingie has broken down some. I ue the fresher eggs also for frying since they hold up better. I save the older eggs for scrambled or for omelets and such.