Soft boiled eggs are oddly comforting and yet luxurious at the same time. Maybe it’s because I’ve most often encountered them while staying in a cozy bed and breakfast somewhere in Europe, run by a kind grandmotherly type. Who can resist the lady in the frilly apron asking, “would you like more toast dear?”
Recently I ran across this wonderful collection of genuine traditional Irish recipes (no green food coloring here!) which of course included soft boiled eggs. It got me thinking that I should try making this time honored breakfast at home.
How could I have waited so long? This is one of the easiest breakfasts I’ve ever made. No messy pans to clean up, and it takes a total of about 5 minutes! Better yet, the fact that the egg is still in it’s shell when served forces you to eat slowly, giving your stomach a chance to tell your brain that it is full. Surprisingly, one egg and one slice of buttered toast is very satisfying and sticks with me right through to lunch at the cost of only about 198 calories.
I know many people worry about the risk on contracting Salmonella from raw or undercooked (i.e. soft boiled) eggs. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 1 in every 10,000 eggs may be contaminated with Salmonella and that 1 in every 50 “average consumers” could be exposed to a contaminated egg each year.
I think the best way to combat this is by not being an “average consumer.” Before factory farming, Salmonella was not a wide spread problem in this country. If you buy your eggs from farmers who raise their chickens the way your great-grandmother did, you will significantly lower your risk of being exposed to Salmonella.
I buy eggs from Tello’s Green Farm stand at at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket in Brooklyn. Not only are these chickens organic, they have no cages whatsoever, roaming around the Tello’s 5 acres in Red Hook, NY scratching for grubs and taking baths in the dust, just as my great-grandmother’s chickens did (yes, my great-grandmother, really did raise chickens). Not only do I feel more comfortable soft boiling these eggs, they also taste fantastic, with bright orange yolks indicating their freshness.
There is one other danger associated with soft boiled eggs. If you’re not careful you might become an inveterate egg cup collector. For more information see the Ultimate Egg Cup Resources Guide
A Soft Boiled Egg with Toast “Soldiers”
1 large egg at room temperature
water
salt
1 slice of bread
soft butter
Fill a small sauce pan half full of water and bring it to a gentle boil. Use a spoon to lower your egg carefully into the water so it doesn’t hit the bottom and crack. Boil your egg for 4 to 6 minutes depending on your taste. At 4 minutes the whites are opaque but still soft and the yolk is very runny whereas at 6 minutes the whites are all solid and the yolk is a bit runny.
Put your bread on to toast now so it will be done at about the same time as your egg. When your bread is toasted slather it nicely with butter and cut it into long narrow strips that you can dunk into the top of your soft boiled egg. These are your “soldiers.”
When the egg is finished use a spoon to remove it from the pot and gently dunk it in some cold water (or run it under the tap) to stop the cooking. Transfer it to an egg cup and serve with salt. If you don’t have an egg cup, espresso cups do quite nicely (see photo above).
Comestibles 
The single egg and slice of toast is my breakfast of champions, too–though I just have it sunnyside. In fact I don’t think I’ve *ever* had a soft boiled egg. Maybe I should try :)
Yes give it a try. You may have to experiment with how long to cook it. Different people have different “ooginess” tolerance with eggs. Another bonus is that there is no extra fat involved in the cooking. I put butter on my toast, but you could even leave that off if you want to be fanatical. Oh, and don’t forget a little salt, it’s like hard boiled eggs, you definitely need salt.
Thank you. This inspired me to try a soft-boiled egg for the first time. Thing is, being the first time, I don’t know if it came out right.
Actually, there was a problem before that, in that, never having had one before, I didn’t know how to eat the thing. Calling on faint memories of a poem we read in high school being a metaphor for eating a soft-boiled egg and other bits that were floating around in my head for what might be the right approach, I set it in an egg-cup [shot glass], chipped at the shell with the side of a spoon in a circle near the top, and then . . . fumbled to get the top of the shell removed and the membrane out of the way. I ended up using my fingers, which kind of worked, but I’m sure was cheating. I then proceeded to use a combination of scooping out the more solid inside bits with the spoon and dipping my “soldiers” in and twirling them to pick up the more liquidy bits.
Just inside the membrane there was a solid section of white about 1/8″ thick, pretty similar to cooked white from any other sort of egg. Floating inside of that was some still clear but gooey white (I think it was a bit thicker than raw eggwhite). Floating inside of that was a sphere of runny yolk held together by its membrane.
This was at 5 minutes of cooking. Is this what I was going for? Should the inner white have cooked more? The outer white less? Both? How about the yolk? The eggs were less than fresh, and, now I think of it, were refrigerator cold; these are probably to blame for any imperfections, but not having a good sense of the target, it’s hard to know. Sure, I can, and will, go do some research, but a bit of this sort of information [a sexy photo of the inside of a perfect egg?] would make this post even greater.
Hi Marc, thanks for stopping by.
It sounds like you did pretty well. The short answer to “did it come out right” is, it depends on how you like your eggs. My impression is that there is a wide variance in taste on this. The best way is to experiment with different cooking times until you get something you like. I’m a 4 minute girl myself.
As to how to eat it, I actually thought about that *after* I posted the original article. I should have included some instructions.
I tend to tap the top of the egg a few times with the back of a spoon making some fine cracks. Then I use the edge of the spoon to slice off about 1/2 inch of the top of the egg. I should say here that the pointy end of the egg should at the top and the rounded end at the bottom. I have also seen other people slice the top right off with a sharp knife, no tapping needed. I like to dip with my “soldiers,” and we also happen to have some very very tiny spoons (I think they are meant to be served with espresso) which I can use to eat the egg right out of the shell.
I try to take my eggs out and leave them on the counter for 15 minutes or so before cooking when, but I will confess to making them cold from the fridge too. It doesn’t seem to make that much difference. As to freshness, for poached eggs it is extremely important. For *hard* boiled eggs, fresher eggs are actually a detriment because they turn out to be difficult to peel. I did see one article which mentioned that older eggs are more likely to crack when you soft boil them. To prevent this, use a pin to make a small hole in the large end of the egg.
Let me know if you find out any other interesting information and I hope you keep experimenting to find the “perfect” cooking time for you.
I, too, love the in-the-shell factor. It provides for a very ritualistic eating experience.