Egg Sauce

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy-bottomed saucepan
• •Small saucepan for infusing milk
• •Wooden spoon
• •Fine sieve
• •Slotted spoon

Instructions

1. 1

   Boil the eggs

   Lower the eggs into a pan of gently simmering water and cook for eight minutes. Not seven, not nine. You want the yolks set through but still a deep yellow, not the chalky grey of an egg that has been forgotten. Lift them out and drop them straight into a bowl of cold water. Leave them there while you make the sauce. Cold eggs peel cleanly; warm ones fight you.

   Older eggs peel more easily than fresh ones. If you've got a box that's been sitting in the fridge for a week, this is the moment to use them up.
2. 2

   Infuse the milk

   Pour the milk into a small saucepan with the bay leaf, the peppercorns, and the piece of onion. Bring it just to the edge of a simmer, so the surface trembles but doesn't break, then take it off the heat and let it sit for ten minutes. The milk needs to taste of something before it goes into the sauce. Plain milk makes a plain sauce. This is the difference.

3. 3

   Make the roux

   Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pan over a gentle heat. When it foams, scatter in the flour and stir with a wooden spoon. You're making a paste. Cook it for a minute or two, stirring all the while, until it smells faintly biscuity and the raw flour edge has gone. Don't let it colour. This is a white sauce, and it should stay white.

4. 4

   Build the sauce

   Strain the warm milk through a sieve into a jug, throwing out the bay, peppercorns and onion. Now add the milk to the roux a ladleful at a time, beating hard with the wooden spoon between each addition. The first splash will seize and look like it's going wrong. Keep going. By the third ladleful it will loosen and turn glossy. Once all the milk is in, let the sauce come to a gentle simmer, stirring, and cook it for five minutes or so until it coats the back of a spoon and tastes of cream rather than flour.

   If lumps appear, don't panic. A quick whisk usually sorts them out. If they're stubborn, push the sauce through a sieve and carry on. Nobody will ever know.
5. 5

   Chop the eggs

   Peel the eggs under a trickle of cold water. Tap them on the counter, roll them gently, and the shells should come away in big satisfying pieces. Chop them roughly on a board. Not too fine. You want proper pieces of egg in the sauce, little nuggets of yolk and white that you can find with a spoon, not a smooth paste. A bit of texture is the whole point.

6. 6

   Bring it together

   Fold the chopped eggs into the warm sauce. Add a generous grating of nutmeg, a good pinch of salt, a little white pepper, and the chopped parsley. Stir gently. Taste. Add more salt if it needs it, and a squeeze of lemon if you fancy a bit of lift. The sauce should be thick enough to hold the eggs in suspension but loose enough to pour. If it has tightened too much, slacken with a splash more milk. Spoon it over poached smoked haddock, or a piece of plain white fish, or a baked potato on a Wednesday when nothing else will do.

Chef Tips

• •Infusing the milk is the small step that makes the difference between a decent sauce and a good one. Don't skip it. Five minutes of patience while the bay and peppercorns do their work is the only thing standing between you and a sauce that tastes like it came from a packet.
• •The eggs should be warm or at room temperature when they go into the sauce. Cold eggs from the fridge dull everything and make the sauce sluggish. If you've boiled them ahead, sit them in a bowl of warm water for a minute before chopping.
• •This is, for my money, the best thing you can do with smoked haddock. Poach the fish in milk with a bay leaf while the sauce is coming together, lift it onto a warm plate, and use some of the poaching milk to slacken the sauce if it needs it. Two pans, twenty minutes, supper sorted.
• •If you have any sauce left over, it's wonderful the next morning, gently warmed and spooned over a slice of toast with a piece of fish underneath. A small breakfast, but a properly good one.

Advance Preparation

• •The eggs can be boiled and peeled a few hours ahead and kept covered at room temperature. Don't refrigerate them if you can help it; cold eggs make a dull sauce.
• •The milk can be infused earlier in the day and left to sit, covered, for the flavours to deepen further.
• •The finished sauce is best made just before serving. It will sit happily for fifteen minutes off the heat with a piece of buttered paper pressed onto the surface to stop a skin forming, but it doesn't take well to being made hours ahead and reheated.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 180g)