“slaped”?
:dubious:
slapped.
A Resounding NO!
The pot is cast iron with a porcelain emamel finish, inside and out.
All the residue is on the surface of the porcelain.
YES, If properly done.
Remove everything possible with a spatula, soak with hot water and detergent and scrape again.
Then use a stainless steel pad to remove any removing plastic and burnt egg.
Finally clean up with the steel wool & soap pads to leave an almost new looking interior.
Then boil your eggs using one of the above methods or buy a real timer.
Forget the gimmicks!
If you still don’t want to use it, I’llpay the shipping to me. 
I’ve always understood that you add salt in order to make the eggs more buoyant. By increasing the density of the water, you make the eggs float slightly higher, and thus they won’t be as likely to bang around on the bottom of the pot and you might not have as many broken eggs.
I don’t know whether this is true or not, not having done actual experiments, but that’s the rationale I operate under.
I would advise against the steel wool on an enameled pot. Rather strongly, I would advise against. You will forever have problems with stickage if you etch the surface that way.
I have several le creusets that I rescued from Goodwill for pennies because someone had tossed them after having a similar experience to the OPs. I take them home, cackling triumphantly, spray them with oven cleaner, let them sit in the oven over foil, overnight, then scrub them with plastic scourers. All who enter my kitchen are jealous of my le c’ collection, and assume that I am very wealthy, when all I am is smart.
Thank you all for the advice! We have washed the pot just with regular dishwashing soap, and it got almost everything clean but there are still a few ‘shadows’ where each egg and the timer was. Very faint, though. I’m going to buy some oven cleaner and give it a go with that and see if the shadows come out. If not, I’ll probably still use it anyway - I think they are more stains from the burning egg shell, and (hopefully) not toxic.
The type of timer mentioned is, in fact a very good egg timer, it just isn’t a good alarm clock. Using it, one can exactly cook eggs, without getting the overcooked whites, or discolored yolks, and do so without ever actually boiling the egg. It’s a better egg timer, if you are talking about getting your eggs very nicely cooked, hard or soft.
I have one.
I also burned one, too.
Now, I put the water in cold, with the eggs, and timer, and bring them to a simmer on very low heat. Then I turn off the stove. The eggs will be cooked perfectly when the timer is dark all the way, even for extra large eggs out of the refrigerator. Soft boiled the way I like them took some trials, but now I know exactly where on the scale that happens. No runny white, and the entire yolk thickened, with just the outer surface of the yolk slightly hardened.
That is the beauty of this particular type of egg timer. It is for people who really like boiled eggs, hard or soft.
Tris
Is oven cleaner safe for use on food contact surfaces? I mean, you’re still alive and well, obviously, but there’s some pretty nasty stuff in there and it’s sold for cleaning oven walls.
That is a qualified yes, if done right.
An oven is a porcelain lined steel enclosure. The Cruet is a porcelain lined cast iron pot. Spray it with oven cleaner, bake it, wipe it out, wash it, dry it, and it’s like new. 
What could be easier, and have a ‘good as new’ pot. 
Here’s my Le Creuset story: I bought most of my pots & pans from them 15 years ago. They’re black on the outside and beige on the inside. My favorite pot is the Dutch oven. It’s gotten almost daily use for 15 years. After so many years of burning a little of this, burning a little of that, the inside started getting pretty dark. Almost black, actually and it was getting increasingly stained up the sides too.
About a month ago I was scrubbing it and realized if I scrubbed really hard, I could actually make a clean spot. Dang! Now I had to do the whole thing. Well, you really have to scrub hard, so I just scrubbed one section at a time over the course of a couple-few days. It came out pretty clean but the bottom still looked permanently stained dark. Oh, well. It’s got personality.
I was looking around the Le Creuset site and they suggest this:
I was dubious but what the heck. They say it’s okay to do the bleach soaking as long as you don’t do it too often. Well, once every 15 years can’t hurt, right? So I filled the pot with water, poured a couple glugs of bleach in, set in on the stove to soak and went on with my day. I checked it after an hour or so and “holy crap!” It’s working! I turned the burner on briefly to re-warm the water, stirred it occasionally, and kept checking the progress throughout the day. After maybe six hours or so the pot was brand new. No kidding, it really looks like the day I bought it. Now I’m almost afraid to use it, it’s so damn clean.
This is OK for glass, enameled cast iron, or stainless steel, but oven cleaner will ruin aluminum cookware - the result will be an ugly, warty mess.
If you need to get gunk off anodized aluminum pots, get a tub of Calphalon’s Dormond.
Regular “natural” aluminum can simply be scoured with something like Bon Ami. Or leave it alone, and it will look like something out of a commercial kitchen.
If you got suckered into buying copper, and want it to look nice, scrub it up with salt and lemon juice.