296527 Sun Mar 21 15:34:29 -0800 2004 27 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1633672 I had a soft-boiled egg served in an egg cup when I was in England last month and enjoyed it so much that I bought four egg cups to bring home. I like soft boiled eggs but usually burned my fingers removing them from the shell, or waiting until they've cooled, and ending up with a luke warm egg. The egg cup has changed all that. Just cook the egg for however long you like (3 1/2 minutes for me), put it in the egg cup straight from the boiling water, pop the top off with the tip of the spoon, and literally dig in! I put a little butter and s &p in, and mix it around. Toast "soldiers" are great for dipping in the soft yolk. Sun Mar 21 15:34:29 -0800 2004 0 Pat Hammond 1 1633677 I just realized from your post that not everyone may have grown up with egg cups. My mother, being English, always had all types of egg cups in the cupboard. I thought they were mandatory. I mean how else can you eat a soft boiled egg without blistered fingers? As a little kid I had my favorite egg cups. They were modeled after animal charaters from the Beatrix Potter books and were part of a set of childrens plates painted with the same. I remember when I was "grown-up" and asked for a "adult" egg cup. I havn't eaten a soft boiled egg in years but when I am at my folks I see them having their soft eggs in egg cups every day for breakfast or afternoon tea, with long thin slices of buttered bread or toast. I guess that's what you mean by "soldiers"?. There is even a special knife / scissor gadget for de-topping the egg cleanly. Sun Mar 21 18:09:26 -0800 2004 1633672 0 The Rogue 2 1633678 Hi Jonathan, I knew they existed, but had never used one. I'm going to ask for an egg topper thingy for my birthday! I still knock a bit of shell into the egg when I take the top off. It's a lovely way to eat an egg. And yes, the toast strips are called toast soldiers. My kids had the Beatrix Potter dinnerware too, but no egg cups. Poor deprived little tykes! Sun Mar 21 18:27:27 -0800 2004 1633677 0 Pat Hammond 3 1633690 Sur La Table has a pretty egg topper decorated with a stork. Sun Mar 21 23:09:53 -0800 2004 1633678 0 JudiAU 1 1633679 Wow...didn't realize they were hard to find.. Royal Worcester made or did make great egg cups...I guess you'l have to call a china store. Sun Mar 21 18:40:07 -0800 2004 1633672 0 Parrot Mom 2 1633680 I just never had occasion to look for them, but the "cookery" shops in London had them for one pound each. (That was probably close to five bucks when I was there!). I'm exaggerating, but not by much! Sun Mar 21 19:10:17 -0800 2004 1633679 0 Pat Hammond 1 1633691 How funny to come across this tonight -- I was just thinking about egg cups! We took a vacation to a friend's country place in Ct. and happened upon this really cute little antique store. Everything there was dusty and cluttered (just the kind of place I like to find) and I found some little treasures there, like dessert cups with pretty little sterling bases, old mixing bowls, etc. But their specialty seemed to be egg cups. I don't like soft boiled eggs anymore, but I did like the egg cups, and bought a few. Then, later on the same trip, I went to dinner in Providence and they had their toothpicks (at the hostess area) in these little egg cups. When I told the hostess that I'd recently been on an egg cup buying spree, she went in the back and came back with one to take home. Funny to check in here and find a discussion about them. Clarissa Sun Mar 21 23:25:15 -0800 2004 1633672 0 Clarissa 1 1633693 I had two different ones growing up. One was just a standard porcelain florally decorated one. The other was painted wood, and looked like a little girl's head with the top cut off. It came with a little pink knit snow hat that you put over the egg to keep it warm. The little girl had blonde pigtail braids, and I used to love putting the hat on the egg. Sun Mar 21 23:45:46 -0800 2004 1633672 0 Emme 1 1633699 I love egg cups too. Your post reminded me of when I was little, we didn't have egg cups. We would take a shot glass and we would stand our our eggs in it. It worked perfectly. Today, I use egg cups. I bought some recently at Pottery Barn. You may find some bargains if you go right after Easter. Mon Mar 22 08:17:56 -0800 2004 1633672 0 Michele Cindy 2 1633705 Getting back to the purpose of egg cups, i.e., eating eggs, I found that the organic eggs in England had a much thicker shell and made it easier to scoop around in the egg without poking holes in the shell. The supermarket eggs here are not nearly as sturdy. For the optimal egg cup experience, I think really good eggs are key! P.S. Shot glasses are a fine idea! Mon Mar 22 09:15:08 -0800 2004 1633699 0 Pat Hammond 1 1633709 I am amazed that our 'cousins across the pond' don't have egg cups. Married in 1969 and the wedding presents included enough egg cups and toast racks to feed the 1st Battlion of the Scots Guards. Cheap you see... . but egg topper scissors? The work of the devil! Part of the ritual of a soft boiled egg is the gentle tap of a teaspoon on the large rounded end of the egg, the cracking and removal of the shell fragments as they lay on the membrane below, depositing them in the saucer frequently attached to the egg cup, piercing the membrane, taking a small spoon of egg-white - enough to reveal the yolk - and then deciding the method of attack. A sprinkle of black pepper and a dusting of salt, a plunge of soldiers, OK buttered toast fingers, perhaps a knob of butter needs to be added? Delight! As to the shot glass fraternity, we have a vocabulary problem here, my shot glasses might be able to hold an emu egg - but not securely - the thought of putting a soft boiled egg in one makes me shudder. Bob Mon Mar 22 09:58:07 -0800 2004 1633672 0 Bob Moffatt 2 1633710 Oh my gosh, I've been putting the egg in the cup wrong end up! Thanks, I'm new at this. And 'twas "across the pond" where I discovered eating eggs this way. Pat Mon Mar 22 10:11:17 -0800 2004 1633709 0 Pat Hammond 1 1633713 I grew up (South Carolina) with egg cups and still use them. I didn't know that they were such a curiosity or that everyone didn't use them. The same for egg coddlers. Mon Mar 22 10:45:34 -0800 2004 1633672 0 Sandy 1 1633735 I also didn't realize these were a big deal. We had stainless steel egg cups in the house growing up and my mom bought me some in Germany from WMF. These came with little tiny matching spoons. My Oma (granny) fed us a soft boiled egg every day that we visited her in Germany. I am now craving the soft yolks with a good amount of salt. Mon Mar 22 13:48:04 -0800 2004 1633672 0 T in DC 1 1633755 Inspired by this thread, I cooked two soft-boiled eggs this morning, one for my husband and one for me. It was absolutely delicious (I hadn't had one since I was a child, and my husband claims he had his first soft-boiled egg ever today! He liked it very much). We ate the eggs with whole-wheat bread, not toast (toast would have been better, but we were ready to eat them and did not want to bother toasting the bread, which my husband had made last night). After the eggs I ate a corn lemon muffin with butter and honey, warm. I do not own egg cups, so I used tiny Chinese teacups made of ceramic, which were perfect. Thank you so much, Pat, for starting us thinking about soft-boiled eggs! It stirred wonderful memories! Mon Mar 22 15:43:47 -0800 2004 1633672 0 AndieCat 2 1633767 And thank you so much for talking about eating! I've been feeling guilty for starting a thread that at times seemed to belong on Not About Food with cooking equipment! I'm going to try an egg tomorrow that I'll put in the egg cup with the rounded end up! I've been doing it backwards. Mon Mar 22 16:26:22 -0800 2004 1633755 0 Pat Hammond 3 1633783 I always thought the reason for the narrow end up, was so as you dig in, you can fully reach all the white at the bottom. Also it's a smaller amount of top to cut - less chance of shell in your soft-boiled egg. Mon Mar 22 17:41:55 -0800 2004 1633767 0 bryan 4 1633788 Oh, Geez! Well, I'll try it the other way and see how it goes. Your explanation makes sense, though. Mon Mar 22 18:17:02 -0800 2004 1633783 0 Pat Hammond 1 1633786 How odd to find this thread now. Hadn't looked at chowhound in weeks while on vacation and just yesterday, I got a sudden craving for a soft boiled egg (hadn't had one in years) and decided to use-for the first time ever-the little antique egg cups gathering dust on the windowsill. I love chowhound synchronicity. It took me two tries to get them perfect. (3 1/2 minutes is right on) How delicious with buttered whole wheat toast soldiers. Mon Mar 22 18:04:23 -0800 2004 1633672 0 veebee 2 1633802 "I love chowhound synchronicity." Me too! Clarissa, in this thread, had a similar experience. Mon Mar 22 19:55:56 -0800 2004 1633786 0 Pat Hammond 1 1633840 My mother had an egg cup collection, and I've started one too, with a bunch of egg cups I found at a flea market in Copenhagen. I also think egg coddlers make a beautiful and fun collection, although I have no idea how to coddle an egg. I have a few that I think are Royal Worcestershire, plus a cool one from the 50s that has a sort of atomic design on it. My favorite egg cup from my childhood was one that was shaped sort of like an hourglass, with one side bigger than the other. You could either use the smaller bowl as an egg cup, or you could turn it over and scoop the entire egg into the bowl and eat it like that. I think there's a soft-boiled egg in my near future, too, after reading through this thread. Tue Mar 23 10:02:21 -0800 2004 1633672 0 JessicaSophia 1 1633849 Here's a great how to site regarding egg cups. Also, there are 1,000's of cups being sold all over the net. Some are really clever. Link: http://www.factsfacts.com/EggCups/EggCups.htm Tue Mar 23 10:42:51 -0800 2004 1633672 0 Michele Cindy 2 1633854 Thanks for the link; that was fun! And it seems I've been placing the egg in the cup in the right direction, after all. pat Tue Mar 23 11:14:15 -0800 2004 1633849 0 Pat Hammond 3 1633975 Ahh. Vindication feels sooo goood. Wed Mar 24 00:43:41 -0800 2004 1633854 0 bryan 1 1633862 To bring this back to cooking, someone recommended 3 1/2 minutes. I forget -- do you place the egg in cold/room temperature water, raise to a simmer, and then cook for that time or do you get the water to boiling, add the egg, and then cook? I really dislike hardboiled eggs. Thanks. Tue Mar 23 11:58:48 -0800 2004 1633672 0 T in DC 2 1633901 I mentioned 3 1/2 minutes. The white will be set, the yolk will be runny. I get water boiling in a sauce pan (deep enough to cover the eggs). Add eggs to boiling water and set timer at 3 1/2 minutes. I do lower the heat after putting the eggs in so they don't roll around and crack. Remove them from the water with tongs, dry off, and put into the egg cup. Tue Mar 23 13:40:09 -0800 2004 1633862 0 Pat Hammond 3 1633930 Thanks! Tue Mar 23 15:47:03 -0800 2004 1633901 0 T in DC 1 1634126 I saw this discussion noted in Chow News today, and in particular the controversy about which end goes in the egg cup. And was reminded that this centuries-old dispute was central to the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu in "Gulliver's Travels." Link: http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/jonathan-swift--end.html Fri Mar 26 16:04:14 -0800 2004 1633672 0 PayOrPlay