Verlorene Eier Erzgebirgische Art

Verlorene Eier belong to the cheap, clever egg dishes of the German table, and this Erzgebirge version sits in Saxony's mountain kitchen. It is weeknight food, meatless when the larder is thin, good enough for Sunday breakfast if the potatoes are right and the sauce has bite.

The regions argue, as they should. In Berlin and Brandenburg you meet Senfeier, boiled eggs under mustard sauce. In parts of Saxony and Thuringia the egg is poached, lost without its shell, in a sour sauce. Here in the Erzgebirge I cook the egg straight in tomato sauce sharpened with vinegar, because the sauce seasons the white as it sets and leaves the yolk soft. Boil the egg first and you've made another dish.

The deciding technique is the tremble. The sauce must barely move when the eggs go in, because a hard boil tears the whites into rags and cooks the yolks before the whites have gathered. Make hollows, slide the eggs in low, cover the pan, and wait. Das braucht seine Zeit, but not much of it.

Serve with boiled potatoes or dark bread to catch the sauce. Weggeworfen wird nichts, not one spoon of it.