7 28 MARCH 2024 In my opinion SARA COX TAKE TWO… the ground meat salad eaten throughout Laos and northern Thailand, Ed simplifies things for a quick win. “It’s not about hand-mincing pork or chicken [the authentic way to make laab]. I use an English breakfast sausage that you squash down in the pan with a potato masher. It’s a great one for using up leftovers.” He adds sparky Thai flavours – chilli, lime, lemongrass, ginger – to the meat and spoons it onto a toasted brioche, then tops with a fried egg and the other half of the bun. There’s precedent in writing about eggs. Before a knife pierced a yolk on Instagram, there was French chef and restaurateur Auguste Esco er. His 1903 edition of Le Guide Culinaire has 59 recipes for an omelette alone, and a daunting prep list – you’ll need chestnuts cooked in consommé and julienned partridge fillet to make his ‘mancelle’ omelette, chopped lobster tail and tru e for his ‘Victoria’. Eggs were a serious business. It’s no surprise that the 100 pleats in a chef’s tall hat are said to represent ‘I like to get some dippy eggs ticked off before we check whether the Easter Bunny has been’ They can be dressed up or down, accommodate spicy heat or be deliciously, comfortingly plain, as Ed’s book showcases Chilli heat Serve poached eggs with cherry tomatoes on toast, roasted in soy sauce and sugar, then mixed with Szechuan chilli oil. Leftover rice Reheat the rice thoroughly, top with fried eggs and serve with a gochugaru (Korean chilli akes), soy and tahini sauce. There’s a ‘chilli tickle’, Ed writes, but it’s mostly about umami savouriness. Simple bagels Fudgy boiled eggs on a buttered, toasted bagel followed by mayo, a spoonful of capers and some anchovies is as simple as recipes come. For comfort Lift spirits with savoury eggy bread. Soak white bread in beaten eggs, milk and seasoning, fry in butter, spread with a mustard-mayo mix, then shower with grated Cheddar. Crowdpleaser Try shakshuka. Ed suggests making the spiced tomato sauce, but poaching the eggs separately, because they don’t like an overcrowded pan. the number of egg dishes that should be mastered, or that the making of a perfect omelette remains a classic skills test for professionals. Food writer Elizabeth David simplified things in her classic An Omelette and a Glass of Wine – a collection of articles and recipes she devised between 1955 and 1984. She wrote that the omelette should be “a soft, bright, golden roll, plump and spilling out a little at the edges”. Ed agrees, adding that a nonstick pan and speed are also essential. Whether Elizabeth would have approved of his suggested topping of crunched-up crisps (salt and vinegar, soured cream and chives or something with paprika), we’ll never know – but it sounds good. We’ll cook more than 180 million eggs as consumption spikes over the Easter weekend, and several will be cracked in the Smith household, where Ed’s favourite are Clarence Court eggs. “We’ll play it fairly traditional,” he says. “I like to get some dippy eggs ticked o before we check whether the Easter Bunny has been, and I might do some tempura sage and asparagus as additional dippers alongside the toast soldiers.” Now that sounds good, too. Good Eggs: Over 100 Cracking Ways to Cook and Elevate Eggs by Ed Smith (Hardie Grant) is out now ENDLESS INSPIRATION Asparagus tempura (left) make great soldiers for dippy eggs; Elizabeth David (below) ‘My nurturing instinct has faded, so I no longer apologise for speaking my mind or dance around issues to protect someone’s paper-thin ego’ The broadcaster and author airs her views I’m refusing to have a midlife crisis and instead have plumped for a midlife kickass. I’ve never been more interested in people, politics, travel, the arts. I don’t feel like I’m slowing down – in fact, I’m revved up and ready to approach the next few years like a car that can, to quote Vivian from Pretty Woman “corner like it’s on rails”. My annoyingly upbeat invigoration stems from a few things. Firstly, at my ‘not 50th’ party in December, when I celebrated turning 49, I looked around the pub that was heaving with my favourite people, including Dolly Parton (well, a ruddy good impersonator), and my heart swelled with joy to be alive. Getting older is a privilege – I’ve lost people who’ve been taken too soon and left heartbreaking gaps behind them. So I’m grateful to be here, with all my original parts in decent-ish working order. Secondly, my o spring are teenagers now. They still need me, but in di erent ways. The endless routines of their younger years – eat, sleep, a thousand other tasks, repeat – no longer tethers me to the home. I now have the freedom to explore my hobbies and throw myself into my career. Which brings me, thirdly, to work. I am more confident than ever in my abilities and able to communicate what I want. This doesn’t mean I’m a raging tyrant now, it’s just that, as my hormones have adjusted with age, my nurturing instinct has faded, so I no longer apologise for speaking my mind or dance around issues to protect someone’s paper-thin ego. Finally, just because I enjoy a green tea, country walks and – from some angles – have a light beard, it doesn’t mean I’m past it. It means I have experience and skills. Reaching midlife inspired my new novel Way Back, about Josie, a woman in her fifties who starts a new life, finds romance and explores new friendships. It’s a celebration of chasing your dreams no matter your age, of being fearless. So I try to act young and feel young. I’m not qua ng cosmo cocktails and hanging around the Met Bar like some ghost of 90s past. But I refuse to become sluggish – I want to be fitter, stronger, and keep learning. I love Dr Michael Mosley’s Just One Thing podcast, about how to improve our lives with simple tweaks to behaviour. His Stay Young Special with Professor Andrew Steptoe discusses how our attitude to getting older can impact the ageing process, so we mustn’t embed lazy stereotypes. The good prof says that a biological age of 60 today is equivalent to age 50 three decades ago. Great news for us all – at this rate, I’ll be inviting ‘Dolly’ back to perform at my 40th in a few years. Sara is on BBC Radio 2, weekdays from 4-7pm. @djsaracox Photographs: Alamy
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDY5NzE=