In an unexpected departure from showing you Stuff I’ve Made, this time I’m showing you A Thing I’ve Bought. These things, in fact – a pair of Royal Worcester Egg Coddlers. They cost me a grand total of £6 on Ebay, and £5 of that was for shipping! There are loads more out there at a similar sort of price, if you fancy coddling an egg for yourself. I bet they often turn up in charity shops too.
I’d assumed that these were a mis-matched pair (which, considering they don’t match anything else in my kitchen, wasn’t really a problem), but the internet informs me that the “Evesham” designs often came in sets featuring different fruits. The plum and blackberry combination (as above) seems to be the most common.
Image © www.egg-coddlers.com
The size wasn’t given on the Ebay listing, but I think these are “standard” one-egg coddlers. (On the left of the image above.) Royal Worcester used to make four different sizes – Standard for one egg, King Size for two, and then Jumbo or Maxime which is apparently big enough to prepare a small stew! I think I might need to go hunting on Ebay again for one of those! They’d be fantastic for camping (not that I do that), assuming you could rustle up a pan of boiling water. Apparently they’re also brilliant for warming baby food, should you need to.
So, for those of you wondering what you do with an egg coddler… well, apart from the obvious answer of make coddled eggs… you break your egg into the coddler, pop the lid on, and stand the coddler in a pan of boiling water until your egg is cooked. (You can lift it out to check, using a spoon handle through the ring on the lid, if you’re not sure how long it’ll take.)
In case you’re wondering why egg coddlers, I’ve been advised by my doctor to eat (amongst other things) more eggs. Which shouldn’t be too difficult, considering that the current number of eggs I currently eat is none, if I can help it. I just don’t like them very much. They wobble, and I don’t eat wobbly food. (Except jelly. Obviously.) I don’t like fried eggs, because the whites have a funny texture. I don’t like boiled eggs because I can’t get the hang of cooking them properly. They’re always either too wobbly, or boiled until the yolks have gone a bit grey. Scrambled eggs are only any good if my Mum makes them (full of milk and cheese, which I’m supposed to be avoiding), and I can’t eat poached eggs because the texture makes me cringe. I do realise that coddled eggs are basically just poached eggs in a fancy pot that you then have to wash up. But frankly, if I can use a fancy pot from Ebay to trick myself into being excited about eating a food that I don’t much like, I’ll go for that.
(Although I rather wish I hadn’t looked too closely at the Royal Worcester website. I’ve just discovered that “Evesham” is still a current design, which means I now have to convince myself that I don’t need a set of porcelain-handled spoons to match my egg coddlers, or a matching plate to put them on, or a set of matching cups and saucers…)
Now I just need to wait for them to arrive, and I can get coddling!
I often make mine more exciting too. Put a little butter or oil around the coddler, then a little round pience of bread on the bottom, the egg and then on top of that either some cheese or creme fraiche and herbs or similar, then bread again. Nom!
Oooh! Is there room for all that in a single-size coddler? Or should I be looking for some bigger ones too? Sounds yummy! 😀
I suspect mine is a double sized coddler. You can make it in ramekins in the oven too for a crispier outcome
Have you got the ‘Vintage Tea Party’ book? The writer loves coddled eggs and does all sorts of recipes. (Plus, it’s a really inspirational book – the layouts and recipes are so creative. It’s not actually ‘vintage’ in the sense of being traditional, but it is lovely and very stylish.)
Ooh, thanks for the recommendation Mim! I’ll look it out. 🙂