Goose egg for breakfast

Last week I got a couple (one each for hubby and me) of goose eggs via a friend. I was very excited, as I’ve never tried either duck or goose eggs before. Everyone I mentioned it to said they are much much richer than hens eggs and then proceeded to suggest the best way to have them – most favoured fried or scrambled. I umm’d and ahhh’d for quite a while and then decided that what I really wanted was soft boiled with soldiers (hubby decided on fried for his egg).

Having made my decision could I find any books that told me how long to boil a goose egg for? NO.

Hugh F-W let me down big time here – I thought he was bound to be waxing lyrical about goose eggs and giving cooking times but not anywhere I could find he wasn’t – honestly Hugh call yourself a converted country boy and you don’t mention goose eggs, just what’s the world coming to? Then I saw that Rose Prince mentions them – hurrah I thought, instructions here we come – but it was another blank – she tells us how much her five year old son really likes soft boiled goose egg as a tea time treat and also his views on how big they are (in which he demonstrates a fine grasp of the f word) but not how to cook them to perfection.

So off to the computer to see if that helped – and a quick Google search came up with the goods straightaway. Next a search in the cupboards for something to stand the egg in to eat it – at about 2½ times the weight of a hens egg it looked a bit big for a regular egg cup (even my lovely spotty Emma Bridgewater one which seems to be designed for extra big hens eggs was only going to provide a comedy moment and an unsecure stand). After much searching about and trying different tea and coffee cups I finally found a coffee cup that was a perfect fit.

Back in the kitchen it was time for breakfast. Into a pan of luke warm water went my goose egg, brought it up to a simmer and then cooked at that pace for 10 minutes (next time I'd do it for a little less to get a more runny yolk), hubby fried his egg for around 4 minutes or so and we dashed off some toast for each of us. Then to eating.

The white is a more boingy texture than a hen’s egg and a different shade of white (kind of translucent even when cooked) but similar in taste. The yolk is huge, a lovely yellow and to start with you think its not that much richer than hen’s eggs but at you munch your way through you realise its kind of cumulative and by the end I was hard pushed to think I’d want another bite. It was truly delicious, a great treat for a Sunday breakfast and next time I see any I’ll be getting another couple.