So, I’ve never been a fan of cold eggs. A frequent “That’s You” of my child and teenhood was Dunnes Stores’s Chunky Egg Mayonnaise¹. I was also the despicable child that complained about the smell of someone else’s egg sandwich lunch (for which I will forever be mortified/shuddering with sensory revulsion). But now - now I am not only keeping tupperwares of soft boiled eggs in my fridge, I’m steaming eggs and loving it.

I had not considered the possibility of steaming an egg. It just sounds messy. In never considering that possibility, I had in fact neglected to challenge myself to the task of steaming a liquid. It is so very simple of course. Once again with eggs with come to the most dowdy of elegant solutions: tupperware.

Sohla calls for one-cup deli containers. I really had so many guesses, but no clue. In contemporary American professional kitchen media the deli cup is a sort of in-joke, a nod to the unglamourous (inglamourous, subglamourous?) reality of working in high-end restaurants - the patrons get Waterford Crystal, the chefs get water in plastic. Sohla has pointed the convenience of these deli containers in some of her videos², but the ones she shows are tall cylindrical containers, clear, flat-bottomed and liddable, but not something I could see fitting in a steamer. And they are hard to parse as a deli container. Mega amounts of hummus? Perhaps an expense of olives? Because for me, a deli is not a deli is not a deli. In my youth (aka American tv shows and movies) a deli is somewhere to get the best pastrami sandwich of your life; as a teenager, it was chicken fillet rolls at petrol station somewhere in Monaghan on the way between Dublin and Donegal; right now the closest deli is a cafe that has a cheese counter, but that counter is also where you queue up to pay for your tea and quiche, so there is not the luxury of examining the chedders or stiltons and asking if they have any good quince paste to go alongside, not when you can feel the press of someone else’s lunch hour at your back.

The closest to the deli that I think would match with Sohla’s, or the originator of the chef’s favourite recepticle (and thus the one-cup version of same) is McCambridge’s on Shop Street, Galway (at least the one that existed in my uni days, halcyon food times). I think the American version is likely cheaper (from what I’ve put together from visits and the way they are spoken about) less high-end ingredients (we’re not fooling, McC’s is priding itself on high quality, local or exotic³ produce and that comes at a premium), but it seemed to be that mix of damn good sandwiches and being able to take home small potions of fresh or fancily preserved goods: tapanade, sun-dried tomatoes, coleslaw, a handful of salami, a wedge of manchego. Now that I think of it⁴ the very originator of the infamous Chunky Egg Mayonaisse (With Onion, if you were lucky⁵) was the salad counter in Dunnes, which I suppose is the very part of a deli that was generally overlooked in the romcoms and procedurals of my initial intro to delis.

All of which is to say⁶ I had no idea what a one-cup deli container really matched to, or why I might have a casual four in my cupboard f I was doing eight eggs. I was only going to do four, but that still meant two containers, and they needed to fit in my steamer. So, I took to the drawer of plastics and preservation. There was some trial and error, some concern about jet fuel and steel beams, and a lesson learnt about the crucial nature of an airlock, but I did it. I measured up my tupperware with a baking cup of water and found the contenders.

Then I made the recipe. So simple I’ve done it twice now, so tasty and eaysy to use, I’ll probably intersperse it with the jammy boiled eggs from now until I no longer need to protein-maxx like a dickhead⁷. Better to use in sandwiches than the boiled bois, as you can shape them to your whims with the container you choose, so I’m not going for cyliners, but cuboid, as my bread is not currently a bagel or bun, but the cheapest of the sliced white toasties to be found. Plus, there’s no yolk spillage when you break into the egg slab, so less mess, less fuss.

What have I not told you? Oh yes, it’s basically egg and cream whisked (salt, obvs), poured equally into oiled plastic containers, then steamed for 9-ish minutes. I poked it after three and there was still liquid, then again after seven, still liquid and at nine it seemed solid. I’m sure there’s a bit more resistence if you oversteam, because the second batch was left in for probably ten or eleven and it had slighty more of a rubbery texture when I cut it, but not when I eat it. Om! So, again, less precise than boiled eggs and not peeling or ice bath neccessities. I’m coming onto a more stable weight and don’t use the cream that much at the mo, so I will try with milk just to see the difference. I’m not liking the speed of dairy expiration (TWICE I have had to pour out curdled milk shudder). It is a benefit of vegan goods. They take longer to go off and probably won’t give you dysentary if they do.

So, yeah, I’m loving the steamed eggs. I haven’t made the tartare sauce because I have to avoid bits in my food atm, but I’ve been mixing cream cheese or mayo with pickle juice drained from, you guessed it, pickles and I think it’s giving that similar tart vibe⁸. Ooh, speaking of bits, Sohla’s all about the mix till you can’t see egg white, but I do get bored and lo, it’s just that there will be streaks of white in the final product and may be trickier to pour equally. But nothing to fuss me much and who doesn’t love when their food is marbled? Marbled = fancy and a treat. You got Waygu, chocolate cake, a third thing…

I am once again not at all shocked and yet eternally surprised that something that I took an instant dislike to in the has, once tried, become not only palatable but desirable. Could be a lesson in there.

Nah.