FOR: Niamh Shields
I have a complicated history with eggs and an obsession with a good egg yolk. The colour, the flavour, the texture, I love it all. As a child, I loved the yolk and despised the white. I thought it slippery and gross, and refused to eat it.
My mother claims I refused to eat it because I thought that it was fat. It became such a thing – and I was a fussy eater generally – that my mother presented me to the doctor and declared that I wouldn’t eat the egg white (probably to frighten me into it).
The doctor said that was fine, the egg yolk was the best bit, and not to worry about it. A tiny victory for me and I carried on refusing the egg white and revelling in the egg yolk for many years.
I came to accept egg white over time, and I quite enjoy it now, but only when it is fully cooked. When fragile (ok: hungover), I can’t face the white at all. I steal the yolk and put the plate away where I can’t see the discarded white judge me.
Egg whites are best in marshmallows and meringues and the idea of an egg white omelette sends my blood cold. I hate that little wobbly bit that attaches the yolk to the white (I am still a little fussy, even though I eat almost everything). That has to be cooked through or it has to be removed. And the yolks must be utterly runny. It is still all about the yolk.
There is something nostalgic about the flavour of a runny yolk. Occasionally, it hits a note in my memory bank and I am whisked to a moment where I was eating sausages and a fried egg when very young. I remember being struck by how delicious it was, and how much I loved it. The richness, the texture, the viscousness. The way it resists and the way it teases.
Little upsets me in the kitchen more than an egg yolk that breaks before it hits the pan or one that over cooks. I have to start again.
A runny egg is the perfect sauce. An instant sauce, ready in a few minutes. I love to drag a crispy fried potato through a soft egg yolk, piercing it and watching it ooze and dribble. Or some crusty toast, with butter, sometimes with Marmite.
I love to make a quick breakfast curry and crack some eggs into it, seasoning them lightly while still raw and poaching them within, lid on so that the eggs steam and present the perfect set white and runny yolk.
I like to cure the egg yolk alone in soy sauce overnight and put it in a bowl of congee (Chinese rice soup, with chicken broth ideally). I boil quails eggs for exactly two minutes 15 seconds then painstakingly peel them so that I can dip them in ham salt (blitzed salt and crisped thin ham – easy and gorgeous), and bite in, knowing the yolk will be perfect every time.
Egg yolks are simple perfect pleasure. Inexpensive and gorgeous. I adore the humble egg.
AGAINST: Bibi Baskin
It’s the smell I can’t stand. I know the sulphur starts to stink only when they are overly hard-boiled. But I imagine it’s there. And then when you stick the knife in the yolk, it runs all over the other food items on the plate and the breakfast plate is a bloody mess.
When the yolk is runny, there’s a chance the white may be ‘snotty’. That’s complete overkill for me.
Also, I always dread the thought of being sat near a bearded man who just might catch the runny yolk in his beard.
And it’s that point that I leave the breakfast table and make a beeline for the bathroom.
