Boiled Egg Fail

Why is it that I can perfect a cheese soufflé after just a couple of goes, 

but boiling an egg- a pretty primitive task- seems beyond my capabilities?

Oh, Keda. You let me down. I closely followed your instructions for “Boiled Egg and Spice Bread”. You said, “bring to the boil then cook for three minutes” for a cooked but runny yolk. Is there something wrong with my hob? 'Cause that's what I did. Result? One hard-boiled egg.

Did I set the timer too late? Maybe I did. Maybe I shouldn't shift the blame.

And what is “spice bread”? I asked the guy in Tesco, and he suggested hot crossed buns. I'm not sure that's what Keda meant, as her diagram looked like Soreen malt loaf. Either product is a good twist on normal toast I supposed.

I tried again the next day. This time I tried pouring boiling water, straight from the kettle, over the egg in the pan. I gave it four minutes from then, on full hob heat. This time the egg was undercooked, so I slammed it in the microwave for 30 seconds. When I took it out, it looked like this:

Sigh.

I'm reminded of this inspiring quote:

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'”

-Mary Anne Radmacher, author of motivational books

And that's what I did. I gave Soreen a shot. I got the timing right somehow, so the egg was just right, but Soreen is shit for dunking! Bread is absorbent and takes up the yolk. Toast is just as absorbent but tougher, so stays dunkable without collapsing, but Soreen is like dunking cheese- it takes nothing in and squidges all over the show. Whatever it was Keda photographed under the heading “spice bread”, it's nothing I've ever seen before.

I guess cooking is like most things in my life. Most people my age can do it, because it's- on the whole- pretty simple. But I struggle. Yet I surprise people with all sorts of shit that I've learned in 29 years. I taught a group of MMA fighters the meaning of “Buridan's Ass.” I developed novel methods of building blog readership, with lots of success. 

Egg metaphor alert: I'm just going to have to keep cracking away at my cooking. I can't let it go off the boil. I'll have to keep soldiering on. Okay, that's enough.