Eggsperiments

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.