Friday, June 4, 2010

soft boiled eggs with fresh peas

Eggs are one of those foods that seem easy to cook, and they are easy to cook, but to cook them really well, well, that's less easy.  Chefs and food writers always talk about eggs, about doing them perfectly.  Alice Waters talks about it; M.F.K. Fisher talks about it; probably even the portly Emeril Lagasse talks about it.  I talk about it, too.  Or rather, I talk about it when I feel like talking about it.  Today I feel like it.

      
I eat eggs a lot.  I don't have any problems with that.  I don't care what the heath experts say about eating eggs.  The health experts are constantly changing their minds.  One day eggs are bad, the next day they're a super food.  For me, eggs are a super food all year round, except that, in summer, eggs should be soft boiled to be super.  They should be soft boiled, broken up with a fork, and garnished with whatever fresh herbs you've got in your garden.  This is how you eat eggs in the summer.  Not over easy, not over medium, not deviled, soft boiled.  Otherwise, they're too heavy, too buttery.  In the summer, eggs should be pert and light.  That's just how I feel.


I know I just said that soft boiled eggs should be garnished with fresh herbs, and that's true, but if you've got some sweet 'n tender peas in your garden, well, there's no reason why you shouldn't slice up those peas and garnish your eggs with them, too.  This scant pile of snow peas was my first harvest of the season, and I sauteed them in butter and finished them with chopped dill.  Raw, the peas still tasted a little "green."  But cooked, ahh, when I cooked them (gently) their sweetness really sang.     

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