Easter Eggs
by Tom Yates
I suppose I should feel somewhat embarrassed that I believed in the Easter bunny far far longer than I believed in St. Nicholas. Understanding those major holiday icons (the big guns) while living as a kid in Austria was a bit odd. The local folks took both holidays very seriously. In my book, it came down to St Nicholas and the Easter Bunny. While I loved the notion of St. Nicholas, he came with so much baggage, both literally and figuratively. Naughty. Nice. Good. Bad. Rules. On the other hand, the Easter bunny just showed up and dropped a few eggs. Done. No expectations. Pretty cool. It was a no brainer. I believed.
Easter morning meant baskets of candy, chocolate bunnies, and Easter eggs littering our living room floor. When the hoopla settled down, Frau Olga would slip into the kitchen and quietly prepare soft boiled eggs with toasted soldiers. Perched atop white porcelain eggs cups, the warm runny yolks and jiggly soft whites oozed through the gently cracked shells and dripped into warm yellow puddles. I still dream about those Easter eggs.
Soft Boiled Eggs With Toast
For the soldiers, I could have gone all artisanal with the bread, but purposely kept it very simple, and made basic white bread (milk, water, butter, sugar, and yeast).
Eggs
The great boiled egg debate. Boiled and rested, boiled, simmered, or steamed? Pick your poison. It seems everyone has the perfect solution for perfectly boiled eggs. Of course, many factors come into play with the ultimate outcome depending on the size of the eggs, the freshness of the eggs, the degree of heat, and the desired doneness (soft, medium, or hard).
I love hard boiled eggs. While they’re great for salads, deviled eggs, and snacks, I was shooting for the warm goo of soft boiled eggs. After filling the bot- tom of a small sauce pan with 3/4” cold water, I brought the water to a boil, lowered large Elmwood Stock Farm organic eggs into the water, cover the pan, and let the eggs steam/poach for exactly 5 1/2 minutes before pulling them from the heat and running them under cold water.
I tucked the soft boiled eggs into egg cups, used an egg-topper to snap open the eggs, sprinkled the yolks with cracked black pepper, and finished with delicate sprigs of fresh dill.
Easter eggs. Toast the yolks.
This article also appears on page 21 of the April 2019 print edition of Hamburg Journal.
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