Roasted eggs???

I enjoy cooking, and at basic stuff I’m not too bad . . . but I’d never heard of roasted eggs before.  The Telegraph reports:

There is a very good reason why we no longer eat eggs roasted on spits. Compared to boiling, scrambling, poaching, frying and coddling, spit-roasting an egg is a volcanic business.

It was once, however, common for cooks to spit-roast a hen’s eggs over a roaring fire.

The basic method, though it varies from translation to translation, is this: heat a spit until very hot, pierce the eggs with the spit, roast them over the fire, and serve.

There are some helpful hints in the 1598 translation – “heat your spit very whote”; “rost them like meat” – but otherwise, the method is vague and the egg enthusiast is left to make it up as they go along.

. . .

The glowing skewer went straight through and the egg neither leaked, nor slid off the end of its spit.

After four minutes, the shell had turned black and a small bead of amber yolk had formed where the skewer met the shell. While the egg wasn’t vibrating, it had started whistling like a kettle on a hob.

The charred shell peeled away to reveal an egg white as soft as a toasted marshmallow and a golden-jelly yolk.

The taste was smoky, meaty and absolutely delicious. All the more so for being eaten in drizzling rain.

There’s more at the link.

I’d never heard of spit-roasting eggs before.  Next time I barbecue, I think I’m going to have to try that – although judging by the number of failures the author describes, I suspect I’d better have a few dozen eggs in reserve!

Peter

6 comments

  1. Reminds me of encasing eggs in a ball of mud and roasting them in a fire. Tried it as a boy scout. The directions didn't tell us that they exploded to tell you they were done.

    More impressive to just boil them in a paper cup.

  2. Never heard of that either – interesting! I'll bet mine explode the 1st time though, ala microwave poaching in cup – we laugh and laugh (not).

  3. I wonder if the 1st part is the key. Getting the spit VERY HOT before you pierce the egg part. When we cook potatoes, we pierce them completely with a nail the long way so that the hot metal transfers the heat, cooking from the inside as well as outside. Faster cooking – maybe ?

  4. Yes Aaron, there are scout books that talk about this method of cooking eggs. it is well known in scouting circles and some troop at every camporee in our council does it. There is also the method of boiling an egg in a Styrofoam cup set into a bed of hot coals too. I was astounded to see it work 20 years ago when I was doing Scoutmaster training.

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