When I was a kid, my Mom used to make the most amazing Caesar salad dressing that no restaurant could compete with. For years I bugged her for the recipe and one day she emailed it to me. I was so excited that I wanted to make it that day until I saw that the recipe called for a coddled egg. What the heck is a coddled egg? That question threw me off course and the recipe got lost in my enormous stash of recipe printouts. Now that I am on my own again I am yearning for flavours from my childhood so I printed the recipe out again and took out the copy of Joy of Cooking my Mom mailed me to me years ago and looked it up.
my Mom mailed me to me years ago and looked it up.
Essentially, a coddled egg is a lightly cooked boiled egg. According to Joy of Cooking you place the egg in boiling water by lowering it in gently with a spoon. Turn off the heat and cover the pan. Allow six minutes for a delicately coddled egg, 8 minutes for firmly coddled eggs and 30-35 minutes for hard-cooked eggs. If you want them to remain shapely, turn them several times at the beginning. I coddled mine for 8 minutes because it was probably being used just for the egg yolk to be the emulsifier for the dressing. Next time I will add a bunch of salt which helps prevent the egg shell from sticking to the egg.
I regret blitzing the shredded mozzarella with the dressing, my favourite part of this salad dressing is that it was not your typical creamy dressing but by doing so:
My Mom always made this dressing in a Nescafe bottle. I had one left over from her visit, different shaped bottle today but it still worked perfectly for the dressing!
Yup, it got all creamy. That’s OK, it was my first try and next time I will know better! Now that I have the food knowledge on how to make a coddled egg off the top of my head and know not to blitz the mozza, it will be even better next time.
The more you know about food, the more culinary windows open up for you. No matter how much you think you know about food, there is still so much more to learn. I love that about food! Hopefully I will never get bored of this topic (knock on wood).
I didn’t know what a coddled egg was either thanks for sharing look this post I just read on the topic of eggs
http://peachkitchen.blogspot.com/2009/06/balut.html, interesting!
Rebecca
*Egg in shell in boiling water is called a bolied egg.
*Egg out its its shell in boiling (lightly) water is called a coddled egg.
*Ditto in a ‘coddler’ which is placed in boiling water.
*Egg out of shell cooked in steam is a poached egg. For example, in a poaching pan.
Summary:-
Coddled= in water
Poached= in steam
Boiled= in water, but in shell
But isn’t coddled but in shell and water, similar to boiled? Fascinating Pete!