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Sunday 10 April 2011

Your Easter Eggs: Scrambled or Poached?

According to the eggsperts at wikipedia, The number of folds in a chef's hat supposedly represents the number of ways that s/he knows how to cook a chocolate egg - with the vaunted 100-fold hat reserved only for the heads of the heads of the finest culinary establishments in Lilliput.

And did you know the origin of the "egg-timer"?

Here's how it started. Sea-farers plying the globe in their wooden galleons would measure the passage of time by placing a chocolate egg aft of the poop deck, marking off the days by the position of the white mould-line as it crawled its way across the surface of the egg.

But this only worked with rubbishy supermarket chocolate eggs that went mouldy easily.

All that changed when the Mustard Seed started stocking their much more delicious and higher quality fairtrade chocolate eggs.  

So - when Sir Francis Drake bought his lovely fairtrade chocolate egg from the Mustard Seed and it didn't go mouldy; he died of fright as a result - all because he thought his whole family had been turned to stone. (He'd landed on Easter Island by mistake).

Ever since then, chocolate eggs have been part of our Easter celebrations, and the very best ones are found in the Mustard Seed - along with a lovely explanation of the Easter Message (no mention of the slaver Francis Drake though - which is a good thing too, because he wasn't a very fair trader at all).

The Real Easter Egg is the first and only Fairtrade chocolate Easter Egg to explain the Christian understanding of Easter on the box. As well as being fully fairtrade, it also supports charity and development projects - buying everything from medical equipment for new mums here at home, to chickens and securing fresh water for farmers in Africa.

And - because these special eggs are slightly smaller than usual - they also have a lot less air in them compared to the normal rubbishy supermarket ones (what a rip-off eh - charging for air! ) , and are therefore also much less fattening (air contains 586 cal / 100g ) .   

But maybe these beautiful eggs are still a bit too big for you?

For the egg-poacher turned egg-hunter looking for six of one & half a dozen of the other, we have the new Easter Egg Hunters' Kit from Divine (Ghana) - delivered to you in a real egg box with set of real egg hunter signs and six real chocolate eggs - also suitable for frying, poaching & boiling.  Let me know how you get on. Three minutes should do it.

Sorry - what was that? You don't want any air at all in your egg? You just want deliciously solid smooth chocolate in the shape of an egg so that it's perfect for secretly sniffing & licking?

Well - that is bordering on the Sybaritic. Bacchanalian even. Epicurian some might say.  Definitely Ambrosial.

OK. We'll make a few especially for you. But to curb your excesses, we're going to have to make your solid eggs delicately petite - so that when you breathe in those heady chocolatey aromas you don't over-indulge.

And there it is. The eggsquisitely crafted mini egg. Just for you.  A whole bagful. Perfect for licking and perfect for sharing (although - probably not in that order) . Also perfect for hiding from children. But not so good for coddling or pickling. Microwaving is quite fun though, especially with the wrapper still on.

Yoking apart, if you're as eggcited & eggstatic as me about all of this, I suggest you scramble down to the Mustard Seed at once to stock up in plenty of time for Easter; egged on by the Lilliputian big-endians and little-endians alike. 

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