Huh? I would tend to disagree. I’d say there is no norm, you’d find as many German people who keep their eggs unrefrigerated as those who use the fridge. E.g., I have never seen eggs in fridges in supermarkets (and the like). Best-before dates for eggs typically state something like : best before 29 July, keep refrigerated from 21 July".
About the cooking: The method you described is very common here. Although, I use an egg cooker and I think those are widespread in Germany as well (and I use the egg piercer, that comes with the egg cooker).
To boil the water for boiling your eggs, obviously!
This debate is reaching epic proportions here - they discussed it on BBC Radio 2 breakfast this morning (the biggest radio show in the UK). Eggs, kettles… and now the debate has stretched to where in your house you keep your washing machine (UK = kitchen, US = not so much. I await the pile on).
My grandparents had their washing machine in the kitchen. I’m sure that there are others here who do that but I don’t recall ever seeing it anywhere else.
If the house has a basement it’s usually there. Otherwise it’s in a utility room or possibly in the garage if there is one.
If there’s no garage, basement, or utility room, they go to the laundromat.
It stands in place, like the toaster and the microwave. And what is this “wash it” you speak of? All it ever contains is water, are you going to wash out the water with water? You don’t steep the tea in the kettle, you steep it in a teapot or in the cup.
In Spain the three main locations for the washer are, in no particular order: the kitchen, a laundry room (which often is an enclosed balcony just off the kitchen) or a bathroom. I think the bathroom is the least-common one, but not so much that people will be surprised.
Sure. But if you’ve never tried to make soft-boiled eggs, how can you possibly judge how much work they are to make? The fact that loads of people do make them regularly should be a bit of a hint that your assessment of how difficult they are to prepare might not be entirely accurate.
Why is that surprising and/or funny? People who like a food tell other people it’s a great food. Film, as they say, at 11. Should people who like a particular food not talk about it ever? How would we ever find out about new foods to try?
I remember the egg cups and spoons from when I was an (American) kid. Always too fiddly to make seense of, and we had no role model: my mother was the only one who liked soft-boiled, and she didn’t use an egg cup.
I used to occasionally have soft-boiled eggs in an egg cup as a (Canadian) kid, but I don’t think I’ve had one in 30 years. I believe our egg cups were Tupperware and my grandparents had ceramic ones.
That link in the middle goes to my post, but I never said they were elitist status symbols; I said that they were like monocles or cigarette holders, in that I’ve never personally seen them in actual use. I make no guesses as to why some people use them; I merely note that I’ve never used an egg cup, or a monocle, or a cigarette holder, and I’ve never been physically present when someone else has.
The boiling/steaming is no more difficult and uses no further specialised equipment than a hard boiled egg.
The standing in an egg cup (or in a shot glass, or a spirits jigger, or a twisted piece of kitchen towel tied into a rough doughnut shape…all things I’ve used when pushed for want of a real egg cup) is merely practical as the egg is hot and prone rolling around unless you are really careful and you are eating it at the equinox!
The removal of the top takes about ten seconds with just a standard knife, if anything that is less fiddly than peeling the whole thing.
The dipping is with chunks of bread or toast , nothing fiddly there.
The scooping is with a standard tea or coffee spoon, no special equipment required.
A fried egg uses a frying pan, fat of some type, spatula, plate, standard cutlery
A soft boiled egg used steamer or pan, water, egg cup and standard cutlery
Of course the whole point of a soft-boiled egg is indicated by the name. If you don’t like hot, runny yolk then there is little point arguing further as you are never going to buy in to the delights of a perfect yolk. It does also indicate a deep moral wrong within a person but that can’t be helped.
Let’s just agree that all eggs are good eggs shall we? and perhaps all go away a little wiser and with a few more eggy ideas to try. (I am intrigued by the thought of hard boiled eggs sliced and fried…in butter one presumes?)
I gave my soft boiled method a while back but I also think the best way to fry eggs is deep-fried in beef dripping, very hot so that it maintains the shape of a poached egg, the consistency of soft-boiled egg but with lovely straggly crispy brown bits as well.
Popped on top of my thai-style basil and beef rice dish and broken so that the hot yolk runs all over…oooooooo!
I’ll take your word for it that this saves time but at the cost of juggling all parts around. There is always plenty of other things to prepare while waiting for water to boil. I’m not condemning your process, honestly, but you must really be under constant time constraints if saving a minute or so is that important.
It’s way more than a minute and invariably waiting for water to boil is the only thing holding up dinner is a significant chunk of time for me. And yes life is busy. There are a lot of things I have to do and a lot of things I want to do. Waiting for water to boil is not one of them.
I think this is one of things we just have to chalk down to experience. If you’ve never owned a kettle, you can’t see the benefit of it. If you’ve always had one, then you really miss it when it’s not there - it isn’t some fancy piece of kit saved for rarified cooking occasions, it is a really simple, effective tool that is used countless times a day in the homes that have it. After my cooker and fridge, it’s the electrical kitchen tool I use most often - more than, say the dishwasher or microwave, and WAY more than the toaster.
Agree completely. A soft-boiled egg and toast for breakfast is probably one of the quickest, easiest, most satisfying and least fiddly things you can make.
And if you eat soft-boiled eggs regularly, then it’s worth buying egg cups. It’s just practical.
Never thought of it as complicated. 1/2 inch of water in a small sauce pan. Add as many eggs as will fit. Cover and bring to a boil. Steam for 6 minutes. Cool in cold water for 30s. Do all this while I make toast and feed the animals.
Any time I need to boil water, I will prefer the electric kettle, but I do miss the characteristic whistle of the old stovetop kettles from my youth. Those things were indestructible too.
The kettle conundrum may come down to a difference between North American 120V mains power and the British 230V. That speeds the British kettle over the North American version.