Anglesey Eggs

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large baking dish, roughly 25cm by 20cm
• •Heavy-bottomed saucepan for the cheese sauce
• •Potato masher or ricer

Instructions

1. 1

   Boil the eggs

   Lower the eggs into a pan of boiling water and cook for nine minutes. Not eight, which leaves the yolk too soft for this, and not ten, which turns it chalky. Nine gives you a yolk that's set but still has a faintly golden centre. Drain, run under cold water until you can handle them, and peel. Set aside.

   Eggs that are a few days old peel more cleanly than fresh ones. If yours are straight from the box, add a splash of vinegar to the boiling water. It won't solve everything, but it helps.
2. 2

   Cook the potatoes

   Put the potatoes in a pan of cold, salted water. Bring to the boil and simmer until they give way completely when you push a knife through them. No resistance. Drain well and leave them in the colander for a minute to steam dry. Return to the warm pan, add a generous amount of butter and the warmed milk, and mash until smooth. Season with salt, white pepper, and a grating of nutmeg. It should taste good enough to eat on its own. If it doesn't, it needs more butter or more salt.

3. 3

   Soften the leeks

   While the potatoes are on, melt a knob of butter in a wide pan over a low heat. Add the leeks with a pinch of salt, stir them through the butter, and put a lid on. Let them sweat gently for ten minutes, stirring now and then, until they're completely soft and silky and have turned from sharp and bright to sweet and yielding. No colour. If you hear sizzling, the heat is too high.

   Wash leeks thoroughly. Split them and rinse under cold running water, fanning the layers apart. Grit hides between them and there's nothing worse than a mouthful of it in something this gentle.
4. 4

   Make the cheese sauce

   Melt 40g of butter in a saucepan over a medium heat. When it foams, add the flour and stir constantly for a minute or two. The paste will turn from pale to biscuity, and the raw flour smell will cook out. You'll know. Pour in the milk gradually, a good splash at a time, stirring or whisking after each addition until smooth before adding more. Keep going until all the milk is in and the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Stir in most of the cheese, reserving a handful for the top. Add the mustard. Season. Taste it. The sauce should be savoury and warm, with enough sharpness from the cheese and the mustard to stand up to the mash.

   If the sauce goes lumpy, don't panic. Take it off the heat and whisk hard. It will come back. It always does.
5. 5

   Assemble the dish

   Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan. Fold the softened leeks through the mash and spread the mixture into a buttered baking dish, making a generous, slightly uneven bed. Halve the eggs lengthways and nestle them into the mash, cut side up, spacing them so every serving gets a fair share. Pour the cheese sauce over the top, letting it pool between the eggs and cover everything. Scatter the reserved cheese over the surface.

6. 6

   Bake until golden

   Bake for twenty to twenty-five minutes, until the sauce is bubbling at the edges and the top has gone golden and blistered in patches. Let it sit for five minutes before you bring it to the table. It needs that rest, both to settle and to stop it scalding anyone's mouth. Serve it from the dish, with a big spoon, straight onto warm plates.

Chef Tips

• •Use a good, mature Cheddar with real bite to it. Welsh Cheddar if you can find it, something crumbly and sharp. A mild Cheddar makes a mild sauce, and mild isn't what this dish needs. The cheese has to hold its own against the leeks and the mash.
• •The mash wants to be smooth and well-seasoned, with enough butter that you'd be happy eating it alone. It's doing the heavy lifting here. A sad, under-buttered mash will make a sad dish. Don't hold back.
• •This is a good thing to make when you're feeding people who need feeding. It's filling, it's warm, it's the kind of food that makes shoulders drop. A green salad on the side, if you like, but it doesn't need it. We're only making dinner.

Advance Preparation

• •The whole dish can be assembled up to a day ahead, covered, and refrigerated. Add ten minutes to the baking time if putting it in the oven straight from the fridge.
• •The cheese sauce can be made several hours ahead and kept covered with a disc of greaseproof paper pressed to the surface, which stops a skin forming. Warm it gently before pouring over the mash.
• •Leftover Anglesey eggs reheat well in a moderate oven, covered with foil, for fifteen minutes or so. The sauce won't be quite as golden, but the flavour deepens overnight.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 530g)