Eggsperiments

Have you tried the eggs yet, Jaq, or will you be taste-testing along with the guests?

There are 4 pints of various berry sorbets in the freezer from last year's crop, so that might be a good light dessert, maybe with some homemade shortbread.

The cassoulet tasted great, but was more the texture of french refried beans than trad cassoulet. Everyone ate it without complaint, and there's a huge amount left over. We drank Snipes Mountain porter and Cline Red Truck (also gin and apparently some vodka too).

After reading through Elizabeth David's Summer Cooking, I had to try making Oeufs en Cocotte, which now that I think about it are pretty much the same as shirred eggs: Butter a small ovensafe dish, break in an egg, float a tablespoon or so of cream on top, sprinkle with some herbs (I used tarragon), cover and bake (in a bain marie) in a moderate oven until set (5 min for a small, single egg dish at 350 deg F). I didn't have any single egg cocottes (but Le Creuset makes some adorable ones - for $50 apiece!), so I used a 4 cup ramekin and broke 4 eggs in. It needed to bake for about 20 minutes. The eggs were really yummy - sort of like a soft-boiled or very gently poached, only with extra creamy tarragon goodness. They would have been terrific served over toast.

Oh those days of surplus eggs :)

Ha! So, now I have an induction burner that will hold a pan of water at a fairly steady 140 deg F and thought I remembered how to do the long cooked eggs. How could I have forgotten how long those things really took? I should have looked up this thread before I cooked 18 for a mere 90 minutes at 140 last night. I sort of ate 2 for lunch today - the yolks are bland but beautiful, super creamy. But the whites were barely opaque and really not set at all so peeling was a disaster.

i was reading abt these in that new mcsweeneys food mag - wish i could try it!

I left them at 140/180 for about 5 hours after I got home from work last night - will be trying 2 more for lunch today. They may not have the pretzel-y deliciousness, but I'm hoping at least the whites will be set.