Eggs in aspic

Over the years, I've come to like aspic and when I read about eggs in aspic on one of my favourite food blogs called Chocolate & Zucchini, I knew that there was a kitchen project waiting for me. I tackled it on sunday, possibly the rainiest day in August, ever.

I started by placing two small dishes (a little bigger than your average individual ramequin dish) in the freezer so that the initial layer of aspic would set quite quickly. I dissolved the aspic powder of two little packets in part hot water, part Noilly Prat (dry vermouth - fabulous for cooking). That made for half a litre of aspic which was too much, but I feared that one packet would not make enough liquid to cover both eggs and it's difficult to juggle the quantities here - too much water and the aspic won't set, too little and it'll set forever. I placed a parsley leaf at the bottom of each dish, then carefully poured in some of the liquid aspic in order to get a layer of about 5mm and put the dishes in the fridge. To make the eggs, I brought a large pan of salted water to a simmer, added a little bit of vinegar, stirred the water with a wooden spoon and let one cracked egg glide into whirl. This way, the egg white will twirl around the yolk and form a lovely round. After about three minutes I lifted the egg from the pan using a slotted spoon and put it into a bowl of cold salted water. Once cooled, I drained it on kitchen paper, cut off some of the fizzly egg white bits and, the aspic in my dishes having set, I carefully placed the egg onto it, together with a tiny slice of ham to keep it company, sprinkled some pink pepper corns over it and covered everything in more aspic. Same thing with the other egg. Back into the fridge, both of them, and wait...

An awful lot of work indeed, and very fiddly, but amply rewarding! I served them on monday night with simply boiled potatoes and a green salad.