Friday, April 13, 2012

Soft-Boiled-Eggs, Rosemaling, and Chicks

Rosemaled Egg Cup

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Where do I start this post? From chicks to eggs to rosemaling? I'll start with "I love eggs".

My 10 girls

We had chickens for almost thirty years. When Heather married we got rid of our chickens, as she was my one child who loved chicken chores. I have missed the chickens. I miss fresh eggs. We are building a new coop closer to the house. I will be the one doing chicken chores. I currently have 10 chicks in my dining room. Every morning I sing my "Good morning, good morning ..." song to them and say, "Good morning girls". I want them to get to know me, get to know my voice.

Danish boiled egg holders - egg top snipper

Years ago a Danish friend gave me egg cups for soft boiled eggs and taught me how to prepare them and eat them. I love a 'sunny-side-up' egg with great toast, but I'm cutting down on my bread consumption, so have returned to regularly eating a soft boiled egg.


I have an egg piercer. I pierce the large end, cover the eggs with tap water, sprinkle in some salt, and bring to a gentle boil. In my Hearth & Home I tell you there is a science to cooking eggs. Call it the culinary alchemy of eggs. I always like to know the whys and know my ingredients. In heating eggs in shells, a race begins between the buildup of pressure within the egg and its release of air oozing out the end. If the air pocket is heated faster than the air can escape, the shell cracks. Some eggs have larger pores, some have harder shells, so not all crack. Thus the hole poke. I could go on and on with the science, like why the salt too ...

Egg timer

I also have an egg 'timer' that works for me, in that I know when the dark purple line is at the half-way mark to 'soft' I remove my egg and crimp off the top. If it looks a little underdone, I'll set the top back on and let it sit a bit, otherwise I eat it immediately, with some fresh ground sea salt and pepper, with my little spoon.

I looked in Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions book for a time - she suggests 3 1/2 minutes, but does not say whether the egg should be room temp or from the fridge. Since I don't have my own eggs yet, but buying pastured eggs (otherwise you should use organic), mine are coming from the fridge to soft-cook.

Why look in Sally's book? My daughter-in-love was just here and little S's first food is an almost raw egg yolk. I cooked her egg like I do mine with my timer and Sarah said it was just perfect. Little S was quite colicky until Sarah started making the raw milk baby formula in Sally Fallon's book - like night to day difference!

Monte's mom used to do Rosemaling like the egg cup I started the post with. Since she no longer can do it, I treasure the pieces we have of hers. I'll end this post with pictures of her rosemaling.

Rosemal over Keeping Room couch

Rosemal over our bed

Rosemal hanging in our entry's stairway

Posted at The Homestead Barn Hop, Little Farm in the Big City, Simple Lives Thursday, Food Renegade, Frugally Sustainable, Real Food Wednesday,

9 comments:

Marci said...

I love to paint, but never got the fine touch for rosemaling. Her work is beautiful. I put my eggs (room temp) into a pan and cover with water. I put a lid on. As soon as I hear them almost boil, I turn the heat off and leave them. They are not soft though.

Karey Swan said...

Marci, when I had my own chicken's eggs I cooked them from room temp. It'll be an adjustment for barely cooked eggs. I do your version for hard-cooked, leaving them about 10 minutes.

By the way, I read, and then re-read your cheesemaking page once in the process. I did Feta - not salted, but brined (Monte thinks too salty still, but I like). Then used it's whey for ricotta. I wouldn't work tho until I heated it to the 210 degrees.

I'm loving having raw milk. May not do cheese making much - too expensive. Your having milk at your disposal is great! I'm enjoying the various cultured milks tho - Villi, Piima, and dairy Kefir. Don't know yet if I'll stick with one. Not wanting to heat my raw milk to 180 for typical yogurt.

Whitney said...

I grew up eating soft boiled eggs, but haven't been able to get them just right so THANK YOU for the tutorial.

I am new to chickens and have a little flock of week old chicks...love to watch them! I have marans, welsummers, wyandottes, and ameraucanas. I'm so excited about watching them grow and then getting fresh eggs!

I'm not sure what all your's are, but I *think* I recognize 2 cuckoo marans, 2 black copper marans, and a welsummer. Congrats on those cuties.

Karey Swan said...

Whitney, it will be a lot of experimenting. Like egg size even alters the cooking time too.

I tell more chicken stories from the past in this post - http://kareyskitchen.blogspot.com/2012/03/chickens-again.html

Anonymous said...

Hi Karey, thank you for sharing this. I've never heard of the egg piercer or that egg timer before. I just ordered them both from ebay and can't wait to try them out! By the way, the Rosemal is very beautiful, and your chickens are adorable!
Take care,
Kathy in Sonora, CA

Carole said...

thanks for linking in.

Megan of RojerThat.com said...

About your yogurt comment, we have an EASY raw milk yogurt recipe. Here is the link:
http://rojerthat.com/2011/12/16/homemade-yogurt-its-easy/

God bless!

Carole said...

Hi there. I was looking at this great dish you linked in to Food on Friday: Eggs. I realized that I haven't been following your blog. Sorry about that. I have signed up to follow now. It would be great if you followed Carole's Chatter back. Have a super week.

Karey Swan said...

Carole,
I'm not going to be adding to this blog anymore. I moved my 3 blogs in to one at http://homemakingbeyondmaintenance.blogspot.com/
I tell why the last post I wrote on this blog. I'll have to check out your blog again.

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