I got to thinking about eggs the other day. My thoughts were stimulated by my friend Betty who gave me, as a hostess gift, a dozen eggs from her husband’s chickens. I specify the “her husband’s” part. Louis – the husband – takes care of chickens the way he takes care of everything, with enormous patience, time, and attention to detail. Betty, Paris-born, doesn’t get it. “Alors, les poules. Elles pendent, elles mangent, et quoi d’autre encore?” « Ok, so chickens, they lay, they eat…what else do they need? »
Remember to get FRENCH GRILL at your local bookstore!
What she does get is how delicious the eggs are. And she also, despite her urban upbringing, gets what every French egg-laying chicken owner knows: to date the eggs once they’ve been laid. Why? Well, the answer is obviously in the French DNA if Betty knows to do it, and here it is – too fresh eggs have runny whites, runny yolks, and they won’t perform in any way except to slip and slide all over and turn into an omelette on the counter, in the bowl, on the floor, in the pan. They need to “age” so that everything becomes more firm and distinct.
So after accepting the precious eggs I did exactly as Betty suggested. “Planquez les; attends une bonne semaine,” she said. « Hide them away for at least a week. »
But the egg thoughts were still there, so I turned to those already on my counter. I’d planned to grill sweet potatoes and it occurred to me that the combination would be delicious. So, I got the grill going, put on the sweet potatoes, and when they were nearly soft, I removed them, and scooped out a big hole in each, saving the flesh. My idea was to crack an egg into that scooped out hole and put them back on the grill.
So, I did that and spent the next ten minutes wiping egg white off the counter and the floor, because the eggs, while firm, were simply too large. I chose a smaller egg to try, and it sort of fit, so I put the sweet potatoes back on the grill, covered it, and had a messy looking but delicious dinner for a hungry adolescent.
“Mom this is sooo good,” she said as she ate her way through the halves. “But it’s really not a “you” dish because it looks so messy.” She ate the last bite, cleaned up her plate with a piece of baguette and said through her chews “Why don’t you try quail eggs?”
(Quail eggs are easy to find in the U.S. – check your local upscale supermarket or Asian grocery).
[ultimate-recipe id=”8971″ template=”default”]
