Sunny side up

Now - I am not an egg-lover. In fact, I'm barely an egg-eater, unless the egginess is disguised by other flavours. When Julie blanches at not only cooking but eating her way through Julia's whole section on eggs in 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking', I got pale in vicarious sympathy.

But we were at Olives for their Food Bar Series and were clustered in the open kitchen, as their chef, Jonathan Canning, was preparing our first course for the evening, Roasted Wild Mushroom and Zucchini Salad.

Saute pans sizzled, plates were prepped and lo and behold, a bowl of cold poached eggs appeared. They had been cooked earlier, then the whites trimmed to shapely restaurant perfection. They were now about to be re-simmered to warm them...surely the route to rubbery.

However after a brief rebathification, they were plated on top of the warm salad at the ideal stage of gooey yolk, showing no evidence of being cooked and primped earlier.

Hubby relished each runny mouthful...I mixed mine into the rest of the salad and also enjoyed, especially savouring the neat trick of twice cooked and still delicate eggs. I may not ever double boil any myself, but how cool is that?