A friend and I were talking about breakfast foods this past week (yeah, I know – awesome), and coddled eggs flew into my brain and have since taken up residence there, not allowing me to forget about them again.
So yesterday I went down to the basement closet and rummaged around and found each of my coddlers. My Grandma collected porcelain egg coddlers, and when I stayed overnight at their house as a child,
in the morning I got to choose one of their coddlers in which to have my egg made for breakfast. It is hard to describe a coddled egg. I guess the consistency is in between a poached egg and a sunny side up egg, but steamed inside a small porcelain cup. The smaller coddlers only just fit a single egg inside.
The slightly larger coddlers can fit two eggs, or else an egg and different additions, such as cheese, meat, or cooked vegetables. My Grandma also had a couple of very large coddlers, that you could fit a whole meal inside. My favorite is simply a single egg with a little bit of cheese, salt and pepper cooked inside a larger coddler, as then I can stir it around easily and not have it splooge out.
I made one today to go with a piece of toast for lunch (daylight savings time really threw off my meals today…). It was as delicious as I remembered, and I will certainly not be packing away the coddlers anytime soon!