Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [52]
“No,” Miranda told him, feeling strangely moved by his passion. “Not at all. I think I see what you mean. Although I reject the premise that the importance of what you do negates the importance of what I do. Brillat-Savarin and his revolutionary ideas are only available to us now because he wrote them down. In a book.”
A slow smile spread across Adam’s face until his dimples winked into view. “Well played, sweetheart.”
Miranda’s mouth twitched. She knew she ought to protest the term of endearment, but the liquid warmth spilling over her insides at the look of approval and admiration on Adam’s face made it seem petty and childish to quibble over nicknames.
Adam picked up his head, an alert look on his face. “Hear that?”
Miranda drew her brows together, unsure what he meant. She listened hard for a second, and just when she was about to give up, she heard a soft metallic hiss.
Fiddling with the knob that regulated the burner, Adam said, “It’s the water. About to come up to the boil, which is exactly where you want it for poaching. An actual rolling boil is too jarring for the egg, fucks it all up. Just a steady simmer, that’s what we want. Grab me that spoon, would you?”
Miranda held it out. It had a long handle that flared to a wide, nearly flat bowl at the bottom.
“These eggs are so nice and fresh, it should be a snap,” he said, cracking an egg into the spoon Miranda held.
Which startled her so much, she immediately bobbled the spoon and splattered raw egg all over the counter.
They both stared at the goopy mess for a second, Miranda with dismay, Adam with a dawning expression of amusement.
“This is why I got the second dozen,” he said.
FOURTEEN
Eggs are kinda magic,” Adam said. “At least, that’s how I think of them.”
They were standing over the pot, watching to make sure the water didn’t get too hot or too hyper. He’d decided maybe the best thing was to demonstrate the technique first.
He cracked a new egg into the bowl of the spoon, admiring the freshness of the bright orange yolk, the way the translucent white held in a tight circle around it. So different from a regular, grocery-store egg that it might as well be from another planet. Then he slid the egg carefully off the spoon and into the water with barely a splash to mark its passage. He set a timer for three minutes.
“That’s it,” he’d told Miranda, who looked unimpressed. “Just cook it until the white is set, but the yolk isn’t.”
As was usual when Adam was working something through in his head, it all came out of his mouth, no prompting required.
“They’re the great negotiator, eggs are,” he continued. “They call truce between oil and water, get them to finally mix it up together. They can make a meringue light as air or a custard as thick as wet cement. They pair beautifully with everything from brioche toast to wild mushroom ragout, the perfect snack at any time of the day or night. They’re probably the most versatile ingredient in any kitchen.”
“And it all starts here,” Miranda said, tongue in cheek.
“That’s right.” The timer dinged and Adam checked the egg. The white had feathered a bit on contact with the hot water, but hadn’t spread out into untidy fingers. After three minutes on the heat, the white had coagulated into a beautiful sphere around the yolk. Adam had no trouble lifting it out of the water in a slotted spoon and easing it into a bath of cold water.
“You have to cool it down fast if you’re not going to serve it right away, or else it’ll keep cooking with the residual heat inside it. Which gives you rubber eggs.”
“Ick.”
“Exactly.” He