Egg and Soliders

It must have been more than 15 years ago. It would have been at my grandparent's house and probably on a Wednesday. That was last time I had a soft boiled egg with soldiers.

There is no reason it has been left this long. I had no bad experience I can only imagine that the seductive lure of scrambled, the hangover curing properties of fried or the gastro difficulty of hollandaise smothered poached variety just distracted me. It would have been in the seemingly endless summer holidays where I can only remember the days being sunny and children's cartoons playing on the television all hours of the day, that my sister and I would have visited my gran in what we considered to be deep in the Sussex countryside. Things at my grans house were always at a more sedate pace. Everything was hand made in the comforting way of recipes handed down and refined through a lifetime, using bowls and utensils that have served their function for a generation already but show no sign of giving up any time soon. Where cereal, usually in front of the television was normally the order of the day in our house at my grans things could not have been more different. Soft boiled egg and soldiers was on the menu the eggs from the market, many with feathers still stuck to the shells, most no more than a couple of days since they left the chicken and hit the ground. The bread was white and from an uncut loaf and required cutting on the slicing machine the width set to your desired preference. A couple of minutes under the grill and a thick coating of butter and the soldiers were dressed, shortly followed by the egg in a cup all served at the table. This was egg and soldiers as I remember it.  

I figured it was time to amend this glitch and go back to the future. On Sunday morning I fired up the grill and put an anemic slice of white bread under to crisp and tan. Moments later the pan of boiling water was bubbling away ready to receive its offering. I figured I was somewhat larger than I used to be so reasoned two eggs rather than the one from memory were probably needed so in they went for exactly 3 minutes before being scooped out by the slotted spoon and placed in a bowl of cold water. The bread got a butter covering and the eggs a cup long forgotten about from the back of the cupboard. We were ready to go just one questioned remained do you smash or slice the top.

For posterity I should have smashed but for convenience I sliced, inside was the gold, runny and ready for dipping. Always my favorite bit I waded in with a soldier of toast touching the bottom of the egg for maximum yolk coverage. The white was always second best. When I could I would pass it off to my sister or exchange it for her yolk in the days when saturated fats meant little to a kid. In all honesty I only ate the albumen out of loyalty to the yellow, figuring I would be doing the egg as a whole a disservice by shunning it, that and being a prisoner to the table until it was all finished and I was allowed to get down.
 
So was it like it used to be? In the end I had a pile of toast crumbs on the plate and table, two empty egg shells and yolk drips down my t shirt, yes.