An abundance of eggs
Recently we have been rather eggy… no, not annoyed, just egg-full! Lorna has pretty much given up laying, despite only being three years old: we haven’t had an egg from her since Christmas. The other three (including Esme, who is the same age as Lorna) are giving us an egg each almost every day. Even with an occasional day off, this means we are getting about 18 eggs per week. I think that this level of production is being supported by the abundant leafy greens that they are consuming: kale, broccoli leaves and a wide variety of oriental leaves from last autumn’s planting (which we too are enjoying).
It’s great to feel that the garden is so abundant, but sometimes the number of eggs does seem overwhelming. The easiest solution is to give them away: our lovely neighbours look after the hens when we are away for a weekend and so we often give them a box of eggs. However, we do like to make use of much of what we produce ourselves and, to this end, recipes that include eggs are really useful. Of course, there’s always cake, but if all the eggs went into cakes, we’d be the size of elephants by now… or perhaps the shape of Humpty-Dumpty! We often have poached or boiled eggs for our lunch – always with homemade bread using our locally milled flour, but even that has its limits.
Recently we have been enjoying Scotch Eggs made with Glamorgan Sausage (breadcrumbs, cheese, sage and onion bound together with beaten egg). This is a lovely combination of flavours, but being deep-fried we don’t want to have them too often.We also quite often have hard-boiled eggs (7-8 minutes so the centre of the yolk is still soft) with garlic mayonnaise (again made with fresh eggs if I have the time) as an element of Tapas, along with patatas bravas, broad beans with spring onions, monkey bread and fried sweet peppers… all of which often have elements from out of the garden. Alternatively, a Spanish tortilla always goes down well – sometimes spiced up with some small chunks of chorizo in it.
Pasta drying on the kitchen table
Perhaps the least egg-like use is making pasta. For every 100g of flour in the pasta, you use 1 egg. That’s it as far as ingredients are concerned – it just takes some kneading and quite a lot of rolling. We do have a little pasta machine for rolling it out (like a tiny mangle that you clamp to the work surface) which makes life easier, but it’s not necessary. Mr Snail-of-happiness usually makes the pasta and then I use it for cooking, so it’s a team effort. I usually make it into a layered lasagne, but I think I might have a go at fresh ravioli next time we make it. It’s great because you can freeze it too.
So, those are some of my favourite egg dishes, but I’m always looking for new ones. Do you have any suggestions?
The Snail of Happiness 
JennieL
/ May 20, 2013Your eggs look yummy! We have two favourite egg dishes:
1. Egg with kale and pasta. Serves 2
Hard boil 3 eggs 7-8 mins. Shell and chop into quarters.
Chop an onion and a garlic clove finely and soften in butter in a frying pan.
Add 4 large handfuls of shredded kale and 1 teaspoon of paprika. Cook on a low heat until the kale is softened. Season to taste.
Serve with grated cheese with pasta of your choice.
2. Roast Butternut squash with sage and egg
Serves 2
Preheat oven gas 7/ 220c
Chop a red onion into chunks
Cut butternut squash length-ways in half and scoop out seeds with a spoon.
Place squash and onion in a baking tray with sage, a pinch of salt and pepper. Coat ingredients in oil. (we use rapeseed oil)
Place in the oven for 20mins.
Meanwhile cook rice of desired quantity.
After 20mins, check progress of squash. Continue cooking if it is still hard.
When the squash is cooked, break an egg into each of the wells that the seeds were in. Put back into the oven for approx. 10mins, depending on the size of the egg. It’s nice when the took remains soft!
Serve with the rice and salad.
Enjoy!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ May 20, 2013Both of those sound great.. thank you!
I love the idea of the egg in the squash… a sunny dish if ever there was one and certainly one I will try when we are harvesting our own squashes.
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metan
/ May 21, 2013100g of flour and 1egg? Is that it!? Wow. I will definitely have to try that, I am sure the kids would love to have a go at a pasta machine too. (Plain flour I assume?) How long does it last?
When eggs get out of hand here I have taken to making a bacon and egg pie, shortcrust pastry, a finely chopped onion, a grated zucchini, a small finely chopped tomato and a few rashers worth of chopped bacon (of course that could be left out if you wanted) sautéed and then spread it loosely in the pie base. I beat three or four eggs and pour it on the top until it is all covered then in the oven until it is set. Good hot or cold in the fridge later. Yum!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ May 21, 2013The recommended flour is called 00 flour – it’s very fine bread flour, but I think any flour with a high gluten content would be fine. You knead it to release the gluten and that makes it hold together. It is fun and very simple to make.
Your suggestion of bacon and egg pie is great and reminds me of carbonara – paste with bacon and scrambled egg which, if you use home made paste would use up eggs in two ways. I guess you could also bind the shortcrust pastry for your pie with egg.
We may all overdose on eggs at this rate!
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metan
/ May 21, 2013If we start to cluck you’ll know why!
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