BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Feb 05 - 06:35 PM

Agreed about the distinction between poached eggs and coddled eggs - except you've got it the wrong way round. Maybe it goes with driving on the right hand side of the road.(That would tie in with that Larousse Gastronomique bit...)

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: Burke
Date: 07 Feb 05 - 06:54 PM

We had 'dippy eggs' when I was a child. I thought it was just something from my mom's family. The eggs were fried with hard whites & runny yolks. Mom could do them over-easy & still have the yolk unbroken and runny. We had toast cut in 4 triangles & dipped them into the runny yolk.

I've never developed the technique, so I go with poached. Boil water in a non-stick pan. Drop in the egg, turn the heat off. Turn the toaster on. When the toast is done so is the egg.

I've never quite understood a coddled egg. I own a couple of fancy looking 'egg coddlers' from English companys. They always seemed to me that they'd be boiled in ceramic instead of the shell so you don't have the spoon the egg out of the fragile shell.

My sister worked in a diner type place & said always order poached. You can't get served a bad egg that way.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: Burke
Date: 07 Feb 05 - 07:04 PM

I've checked the OED & the distinction between poach & coddle seems impossible to make.

Coddle: To boil gently, parboil, stew (esp. fruit)
Entymology: [Found first in end of 16th c.; origin uncertain. The form and sense would be satisfied by a NFr. *caudeler = Fr. *chaudeler, f. caudel, chaudel, late L. cal(i)dellum (see CAUDLE), in sense of 'to warm, heat gently'

Poach:   To cook (an egg) by dropping it, without the shell, into boiling water and simmering gently; to simmer or steam (an egg) in a poacher. Hence, to cook (fish, fruit, etc.) by simmering in water or another liquid.

Entymology: OldFrench pochier (12th c. in Godef.), later pocher to enclose in a poke or bag

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Feb 05 - 07:26 PM

"Egg poachers"

"Egg Coddlers"

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: JennyO
Date: 07 Feb 05 - 09:46 PM

"What'll ya have?" the waiter said,
Reflectively picking his nose.
"Two boiled eggs, ya bastard.
You can't put yer fingers in those!"

"Who called the cook a bastard?"
"Who called the bastard a cook?"

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,Chef, non-celebrity
Date: 07 Feb 05 - 09:58 PM

Merican folks get lots of choice with fried eggs.
In the UK you just take what you're given, and expected to be grateful.

You do get a choice with boiled eggs - hard or soft.

Nobody gets a choice with poached or scrambled mainly becos most customers dont give a fuck.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 06:12 AM

I was once a catering assistant (I assisted the chef by doing all the cooking while he made pretty shapes out of carrots and took all the credit) and I'm sorry but I must disagree.. I've had many an egg sent back because the customer did give a fuck....   One ordered a runny egg. We made him a 2.30min egg and he still said it was too hard. We tried 2.00 mins... still too hard. Eventually, we got so sick of him we gave him a 1.00min egg and he was satisfied. When he said runny, he meant runny WHITE as well!!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,Chef, non-celebrity
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 09:18 AM

Sorry L,

Should have said "...most customers - cept for the one Liz knows - don't give a fuck".

I'd have given the bugger raw egg.

Too, never eat sculpted bits of carrot or turnip etc. They are filthy as bastard.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 09:26 AM

Here in the US people are *VERY* fussy about their eggs - poached, scrambled, fried.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: jeffp
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 09:51 AM

Judging by McGrath's links of poachers and coddlers the main difference would be that coddlers prevent actual contact between the water and the egg. The egg is broken into the buttered coddler which is then closed and partially submerged in the simmering water bath.

The poachers, on the other hand, allow contact with the water in the form of steam, as they are open at the top. Many people also poach eggs by breaking them directly into the boiling water.

Does this seem to sum it up?

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,Chef, non-celebrity
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 10:01 AM

Because people in Usa do give a fuck, thats y they get a choice of differing eggs.

They also get choice of pouring sweet syrup over savoury breakfast - which my Madeiran frend calls orrribull.


And icing sugar on french toast.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: wysiwyg
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 10:21 AM

Another difference is that poaching is illegal and formerly punishable by death, while coddling is comepletely PC (except on the Dr. Phil and Judge Judy shows).

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,Former Farmer
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 10:43 AM

Back on the farm we had our chickens in little houses mounted on a Farris Wheel. Turn the thing on before they laid their eggs, and they all came out scrambled.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 10:49 AM

then you can "shirr" an egg - which is a baked product.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 12:39 PM

it's what yer dips yer soldiers in.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 12:42 PM

Has anyone ever done rumbled eggs..grand treat that is.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 01:53 PM

Baked (Shirred) Eggs"

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: gnu
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 04:41 PM

I had occasion to enjoy the culinary expertise of a construction camp cook in Nain, Labrador, many years ago. "Cookie", or Mr. Gavin, was 83 years young and three sheets to the wind at all times. In the main oven of the ninety-six inch Enterprise, a monsterous wood fired cooking stove of great fame in eastern North America, he kept a large pan, about 18" X 14" X 8", two thirds full of grease from previous meals, always at full fire, and never removed the pan from the oven. He only siphoned off grease as required. He'd slice bologna off the loaf whilst holding the loaf over the pan, deftly dropping the slices directly into the grease, wax and all. And he'd a large ladle in which he could put four eggs. Yup, in less than thirty seconds, four poached eggs. Some might cringe but, when you are working in cold, wet weather for fourteen hours a day, a hot breakfast that will "stick" to your ribs is welcome.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: Teresa
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:51 AM

Ok, i finallly had to take a look at this thread.

Boy, do I hate poached eggs, because they don't seem to have much flavor, IMO.

I love fried eggs, especially "over-easy" because they have that nice, greasy flavor. They're often cooked in butter. They're great for dipping bread, tortillas, meat into. And I like them scrambled, but I can take or leave boiled ones.

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,Burke
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 11:04 AM

gnu, submerged in grease sounds like a (deep) fried egg to me. Tasty, but oh the fat!

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,Teresa
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 11:07 AM

Er, no, not "deep-fried" ... ugh. :) Just cooked in a smidge of butter.

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 11:11 AM

I assumed that the ladle was solid - dipped into hot grease you could "poach" the eggs without actual contact with the grease.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 01:47 PM

MMario, I think you're right. gnu's description reminded me of a time when a bunch of eggs were fried up in a pan just after the bacon, when all the grease had been left in the pan.

So if the fat is hot, but not in contact with the egg & there has been no contact with water either, what kind of egg is it? Coddled?

I do like the taste of eggs fried in the pan that's just been used for sausage or bacon, but normally I drain off most of the grease. All those meat bits left behind really enhance the taste.

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,Leadfingers
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 03:05 PM

When I was a lad we called 'french toast' bread that was buttered on one side and then the NON buttered side toasted !!
So now we can argue about THAT as well !!

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 03:37 PM

Leadfingers, I never heard of that kind of "French toast" ~ maybe we have discovered another US/UK language difference.

To drift even farther from the original subject, I grew up observing cheese sandwiches buttered on one side (one "outside" side) and then placed in a hot skillet buttered-side-up. Of course, the pan was already coated in butter. After the sandwich is done on the first side, you flip it over and there's a fresh dose of butter in which to fry the second side. The final product: one standard Grilled Cheese Sandwich.

Back to "coddled" vs "poached." McGrath's two links, to "poachers" and "coddlers," show two devices designed to contain eggs when boiling them outside the shell: neither one is designed for cooking the broken-open egg submerged in boiling water au naturel, which is what I have always understood as "poaching."

It had not occurred to me that there would be a difference between boiling an egg cracked open into an open-top container versus boiling one cracked open into a coverable container ~ but now I know!

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 04:56 PM

Buttered one side then toasted? Sounds good - I'll try it. But I'm not cleaning the toaster!

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,Chef, non-celebrity
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 09:45 AM

French toast is bread dipped in whisked eggs or egg-mixture then fried.

Whether you sprinkle icing sugar or not? sorts out the men from the boys

Subject: RE: BS: What are 'dippy eggs?'
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 01:43 PM

I'll have Freedom Toast and Mecca-Cola