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Roasted Eggs (Roasting is a hearty pioneer)
Roasting is a hearty pioneer hearthside method of cooking eggs, probably brought here by early Dutchmen. You need two iron frying pans for this, and first heat them both. Then partly fill one of them with hot ashes, being careful not to include any glowing coals. Place the eggs on these ashes, leaving plenty of space between. Cover with more hot ashes and then with the other hot frying pan. The eggs should be done in 10 minutes. Eat hot with butter, , salt and pepper, while munching crisp toast.
Duck eggs are especially good baked in the ashes, and of course turkey eggs would be just swell. Down in the Argentine an American cowboy told us that when he was out on the pampas herding cattle with the gauchos, he found roast emu eggs delicious, although the meat of this South American ostrich was tough as leather. The birds roam the plains in large flocks and their eggs are plentiful in nesting season. The shells are so thick and the eggs so large, he said, that they can be set right in the center of a fire which has died down. It takes a strong blow from a machette to crack them open, and one egg makes a meal for three or four hungry herders. And by way of size comparison, one ostrich egg will serve two dozen people, in smaller portions.
A hearth technique that translates directly to a campfire or a fireplace, provided the ash is hot enough and genuinely free of live coals. The whole method hinges on that distinction.
- Ash, not embersA glowing coal against the shell can crack or burst the egg. Rake ash off to one side of the fire, let the visible red die out, and check with the back of a hand held a few inches above: it should be uncomfortably hot but not searing.
- Use wood ash onlyAsh from charcoal briquettes may carry binders, borax and lighter fluid residue, and it sits directly against a porous shell. Hardwood ash from an open fire is what the method assumes.
- The two pansTwo cast-iron skillets of the same diameter, both preheated, form a crude oven that holds heat from above and below. A Dutch oven with its lid, or one skillet plus a heavy lid, works the same way.
- Ten minutes gives a firm eggAsh heat is dry and uneven, so the result varies with how hot the bank is. Expect a fully set white and a nearly firm yolk. Seven or eight minutes leaves the center soft; pull one out early and crack it to judge.
- Cracking pressureAir trapped in the shell expands. Prick the broad end once with a pin before burying the eggs, or accept that one or two will weep. Room-temperature eggs crack less than cold ones.
- Duck and other large eggsDuck eggs are roughly half again the volume of a large hen egg and will need correspondingly longer, perhaps a few minutes more. Turkey eggs, mentioned here as a matter of course, are almost never sold now; commercial turkey eggs go to hatcheries.
- RatitesThe bird described on the pampas is the rhea, called "emu" loosely in older American writing. Farmed ostrich and emu eggs are sold in some specialty markets; a single ostrich egg is about two dozen hen eggs, an emu egg about ten. Wild rhea eggs are not a legal or practical option.
- ServingTwo to three eggs per person, cracked into a bowl with butter, salt and pepper while still hot. The shells will be gritty, so wipe them before opening.