I first made this tasty, delicious, appetising, delectable, palatable, scrumptious, luscious, toothsome, flavoursome, flavourful, succulent, mouthwatering, dainty, lush, ambrosial, tempting dish one day when, due to the fact that I’d been wrenched, torn, dragged, thrust, ejected from my high powered, well paid, professional job answering phones for the fire service, I found myself a bit skint for a couple of weeks. I looked in one of my three fridges - all of them turned off due to the Pov - and all I had in one of them was a solitary hen’s, chicken’s, pullet’s, layer’s, bird’s, avian egg, luxuriating sulkily in the dark cavernous interior of the food-chilling appliance. Desperately hungry, as it had been a full 11 hours since I’d eaten a scant five course meal at The Groucho the previous night, I coaxed out the reluctant ovoid, shelled, beige with little speckles package of goodness into my two hands and carried it irregardless across the kitchen. But what to do with this matt, not quite shiny, a bit like Farrow & Ball’s Pointing oval of goodness? After looking through 24 cookbooks, I gave up and looked back lovingly, longingly through my old Home Ec exercise books. And there I found the answer, which this GCSE D grade psephologist now brings to you, dear Guardian readers.
Method
1. Put some water in a saucepan, or your preferred cooking utensil made of metal with a handle attached. The source of your water is entirely up to you: I used some from a lemonade bottle under the sink, which I liberated from the tumble dryer, but you might prefer your tap - inside or outside, it doesn’t matter - or if you’re feeling luxurious, a bottle of San Pellegrino swiped from the mini bar at Soho House.
2. Carefully, take your pan of water to the cooker and place on the hob. This is the flat bit on the top where flames come out (if it’s gas), or it might have circles which light up and get hot. The choice of ring is up to you, but I like the one at the front on the right, as there is an Anglepoise lamp on the other front one, an electric kettle on the back left, and a casserole dish on the other back one. There’s something in it which has been there for a few weeks now, I forget what it is and frankly I’m scared to lift the lid and look. I’m reliably informed that other hob rings are available on other cookers.
3. Carefully, gently, painstakingly add your whole egg to its luxuriant bath of water. Do not just drop it in. It will crack. That’s what happened to the other five, and it is a lesson well learned.
4. Turn on the hob ring under your preferred round metal boiling utensil. Under no circumstances light the hob under the Anglepoise lamp, thinking that you’ve lit the right one, go upstairs to get your shoes and then fall asleep on the bed fully dressed for four hours. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of fucking fires.
5. Watch the water intently until it boils. This means that the water has reached boiling point, 100 degrees C. It says that in my exercise book, and there’s a tick next to it, which means that I got it right. You can use a thermometer or another temperature measuring device to check. That does not mean your finger, as I know only too well.
6. Now for the magic part! Did you know that if you cook an egg for different amounts of time, it turns out differently? This is just one of the many classical cuisine techniques I learned when I worked in a professional kitchen. You now need to set your clock, or another time-telling instrument - grandfather clock, half hunter Georgian pocket watch, Harrison chronometer, sextant, sundial, Mayan ziggurat - whatever you have to hand. Let your egg bathe in its own hot tub for three minutes for runny, six minutes for hard boned (I think that’s what it says - my handwriting wasn’t as neat then, it must have been the Vermouth).
7. Carefully, painstakingly, gently, softly remove the water from the pan without dropping the egg in the sink. I find using the lid of the pan useful to catch the egg while the water comes out, but if you haven’t got a lid, a motorbike helmet works just as well, hence the nickname we bikers give to our protective headgear.
8. While your egg is cooling, cook two slices of bread until they make toast. I find a toaster useful for this, but if you haven’t got one of these specialist, expensive items of equipment, a chef’s blow torch flicked over the surface works just as well. Don’t over do it though: I’ve seen a lot of fucking fires.
9. When your toast is cooked to your liking - I prefer somewhere between Farrow & Ball’s Charlotte’s Locks and Farrow & Ball’s Downpipe - smear butter over the surface of each one, using a knife if you wish. If you can’t afford butter, I’m reliably informed that supermarkets other than Waitrose sell cheap margarine.
10. Cut your toast into slivers of quivering goodness, about 2cm across. Don’t worry too much about making them all the same size, but if you are worried, measure your toast in centimetres, divide by two and this will work out how many “soldiers”, as they are known, will be yielded by your toast. To make your toast go even further, divide into 1cm strips - this will double the amount you will get from your toast.
11. To serve, place the egg in an egg cup. An egg cup is a tiny shiny cup, made especially for eggs. If you haven’t got an egg cup, you can use a toilet roll tube cut into 3cm sections. Check that it doesn’t smell too bad from being next to the toilet first. Pile up your plate with the soldiers and slice off the top of the egg with a sharp knife, mallet and a steady hand. To eat, dip the soldiers into the gooey, sticky, runny, gloopy interior of the egg.
12. To completely ruin any vestiges of edibility, I add a poached mitten, a fistful of wallpaper paste and a scant teaspoon of cyanide. Enjoy!
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