The Hungry Poet: My Life in Food — Boiling an Egg with My Grandfather (A Recipe)

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My Grandfather is dead. He died of lung cancer when I must have been about seven or eight. My memories of him are vague, much as I try to recall them. But one memory I had with him sticks vividly in my mind: having a boiled egg and soldiers with him at the little foldable formica table by the window which looked out onto a very standard, quite small garden, commensurate with all of the other semi-detached houses on the estate named Westlands, which was located, now I come to think of it, at the south side of Crossgar. 

I cannot think of a simpler meal than a boiled egg. Nor can I think of a more satisfying one. On the days that I work from home, for lunch, I usually boil a couple in salted water for six minutes, and have them simply with buttered toast, from a loaf I would have made myself – a mix of brown and white flours, with seeds. I eat this standing up at the island by the stove, as I do with most of the meals I cook, as I’m simply too impatient and in the case of boiling eggs, always slightly anxious that I’ve overcooked them. I cut the toast into fingers (soldiers) and dip them into the egg in a mild state of panic while it’s still runny, and then use a teaspoon to scoop out the yolk’s jammy remnants and all of the white, until there’s nothing left in there but the shell. There should be a word for the moment of cracking open a boiled egg – it induces a childlike sense of excitement in me: will it be runny? Have I overdone it? How deep will the colour of the yolk be? How runny?

When I was last over to Northern Ireland, I was admiring the butter knives my aunty had in the cupboard, which would have been the butter knives my Grandfather used, all those years ago when he made me a boiled egg and soldiers. She said that I could take a couple of them, so I did, and I use them all the time. They resemble palette knives in their lack of a serrated edge and in their flatness and rectangular blade. They’ve also got a white, ivory-esque handle which is pleasing to hold. 

The moment of cutting the top off of an egg is one of life’s great pleasures. I feel like I may say that about a lot of things, but this really is. These flat palette knives are wonderful for that, as they cut the egg as opposed to just smashing it, so I feel like it gives a much cleaner cut and therefore more access for the toast. I’ve become adept at avoiding getting eggshell into the egg at this point, as there’s nothing worse than biting down on soft egg and toast only to find an extra undesirable crunch of shell. 

At any rate, not only do I find there to be something almost ceremonial about the boiling of egg with toast, but every time I make the dish (and, yes, it does deserve the appellation of dish) it makes me think about that time I sat down on that sunny morning morning, with Granda, as we’d call him, with the sunlight streaming in, with the Nutty Krust loaf toasted and cut into soldiers (Nutty Krust is a wonderful brand of white bread from Ormo bakery in Belfast, with right angles which makes the perfect soldiers) and simply sharing a moment of eating the egg. I can’t remember anything my Grandfather said, I can’t even really remember his voice, barely even his face but I remember him making me a boiled egg, the buttery toast that left my fingers greasy, and the way he’d sprinkle the fine salt on his, and butter his toast with abandon. And so every time I boil an egg he comes to life briefly, as the top of the egg comes off with one scrunching swoop of the knife, to reveal the deepest orange yolk which in turn reveals him, my Grandfather, with his head bowed, at the table, eating, in the sunlight, and very much alive.

Ingredients

Two of the best eggs you can afford to buy

Recipe

1. Take an egg (the best you can buy as this makes all the difference as the yolk will be darker and more flavourful) and lower it gently with a desert spoon into salted, boiling water. The salted water is important here; eggshell is porous and therefore the salted water helps to season the egg more consistently by osmosis. This is more effective than sprinkling it with extra salt at the end, although if you like your salt then who am I to stop you? 

2. The water should be boiling nicely. Leave the egg in there for 6 minutes and then put it straight into an egg cup. You might want to turn the pan down if it looks like it’s boiling too much. 

3. At this point, you can leave it, but if you leave it, with the shell unbroken, the egg will continue to cook and you risk the yolk hardening. So, take your eye off the egg at your peril at this point. There is no time to waste. 

4. At this point, I like to cut the top off with a knife, for a clean cut but also for the drama, and then dip strips of buttered toast into the egg.

5. A teaspoon is your friend for smearing the rest of the egg onto your toast.