Now I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed upon first glance. Nowhere in the recipe did I see napalm, catapults, Panzerschreck, or even small caliber ammunition. Instead, the recipe was filled with decidedly un-warlike things like eggs, toast, boiling water, and salt. But, considering my normal breakfast the last few weeks has been a grandfatherly bowl of Quaker Oats, I had nothing to lose. Really, how hard could eggs & toast be?
So, in anticipation of making my very own eggs & soldiers, I picked up a half dozen eggs and some bread. And tonight, the forces of nature finally conspired to keep me indoors. And by "forces of nature conspired to keep me inside," I mean, "a big snowstorm crapped about 8 inches of snow all over central New Hampshire, so there's no way I'm going out." Here's what I saw when I looked outside this afternoon.
What else could I do? The stars had aligned. The universe was prompting me to make eggs and soldiers.
I meditated on life and the universe to bring myself to the appropriate zen-like state required for cooking. I brought my water to a perfect boil, then reduced to medium heat. I salted the water. I warmed my eggs to room temperature by letting them sit for a while on the plate before dropping them into the water. I even used a little T-pin to poke holes in the egg to protect against the eggs breaking open from the heat. But somewhere, somehow, it all went terribly wrong.
When I took the eggs out of the boiling water, I thought I had it right. I took the ends off each of the eggs, exposing the nicely cooked egg white inside. I used a sharp knife to cut away the additional white around the... hard... fully cooked... grayish-yellow... yolk.
Here's how I imagined my dinner would look.
And here's what I actually ended up with.
To begin with, I lose points for presentation. It doesn't even look that appetizing. Note to self: use white eggs, and golden-toasted white bread in future attempts. Place on clean dish which is not covered with crumbs from the toast-cutting.
However, the real kicker here is the fact that the egg yolks are cooked through. From what I understand, the entire goal of proper eggs & soldiers is to dip your toast strips into the golden, silky texture of the warmed yolk, and enjoy a thoroughly continental form of culinary nirvana. And at that, I failed miserably. Instead, what I had for dinner tonight was hard-boiled eggs with cut-up toast. Which, in the order of things, is about as continental as a Pepperoni Hot Pocket.
Really, quite close, I think. I just need to cook the eggs a little less... maybe 4.5 minutes, instead of the 5.5 minutes I gave them tonight. And really, as long as the eggs are unfertilized, I can keep on trying.
