I owe you a post about the lasagna that occupied the better part of Saturday, but I can think of nothing but poached eggs and feel it best to get this out of my system before proceeding with anything else.
Early Saturday morning, I yanked on my jogging clothes and headed into the drizzle armed with nothing but cash, keys, a metrocard, and the burning desire to beat fairweather cooks to the Union Square Greenmarket. My mission was to get a load of spring produce for the aforementioned lasagna, but when I saw eggs for sale I decided to splurge. $6 for six. This would be my first time buying eggs outside of the confines of a supermarket dairy department.
Now, I don't mean to disparage the poor old mass-production egg. For the past twenty-some-odd years of my life those little ovums have done quite a lot of heavy lifting. They've been there for the pancakes and custards and quiches, the pecan pies, the chocolate chip cookies, and the omelettes. Those little yellow floating globes are still better than 99% of what's on the shelves at the grocery store, but I will no longer kid myself by choosing the cage-free variety and thinking that I'm most of the way towards really high quality product.
Enter the fresh farm egg: the yoke isn't yellow, but the color of ripe apricots. It's custardy. Savory. Animal. You eat a farm egg and really understand what it is that vegans object to; you might as well be eating marrow. This is a carnivorous experience.
It's been said that high-quality eggs are the key to good fresh pasta, so I used four of my greenmarket eggs to make lasagna noodles. True to form, when I began rolling out the sheets of pasta they were buttery, silky, and elastic. Gorgeous.
I've never been much of an eggs for breakfast person. Growing up, I always opted for french toast or pancakes (this was at an age when I could eat a plate of pancakes and syrup in the morning and not feel like I had a dumbell tied to my waist for the rest of the day). My brother and dad would usually choose scrambled eggs, but they have always seemed to me to be less than the sum of their parts -- not creamy and indulgent like the yolk, not light and virtuous like the white. Just a bad compromise.
But I still had two eggs left over when I woke up on Monday, so I ditched my usual yogurt-and-meuslix routine. I decided that the best way to get the full effect of these phenominal yokes was to poach them, which took ten minutes total (including the six minutes I spent waiting for the water to heat up and packing my lunch).
I sat alone at the breakfast table with my two perfect, oozing, poached eggs, a mug of very hot, black coffee, a piece of mulitgrain toast, and the remnants of the Sunday Times (specifically: Sunday Styles, the guilty pleasure that I leave for after dutiful reading of Sunday Business and once out of the Viking's presence).
Poached eggs, I have not begun to fully appreciate you. You might be the closest thing I've found to a cure for a case of the Mondays.
Monday Eggs
Serves 1
2 Farm eggs
1 Tsp distilled white vinegar
Kosher Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1. Fill a saute pan with three inches of water and vinegar (this helps the outside of the whites to congeal faster so that they hold their shape).
2. Bring water to a boil, then reduce the heat until the water is simmering (between 180 and 200 degrees F is ideal).
3. Drop the eggs in one at a time, cooking for 2-3 minutes.
4. Remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to plate, sprinkling with salt and pepper.
Serve with hot black coffee, a slice of multigrain toast, and The Sunday Style Section.
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