In an Age of Austerity and Burnout, the Most Luxurious Food Indulgence Is Something You Already Have in Your Fridge.

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

It’s deep into October, and we all feel the same sense of the candle burning perilously low. This is the yawning end-stretch of the year, before the buzz of Christmas offers a final lift. Summer’s gone, work piles up like pancake stacks — we’re tired, in a word. Too broke, post-summer wanderlusting, for big meals out, and too burnt out to cook anything taxing at home

If you’re anything like me, though, you still crave comfort on a plate, perhaps especially in such stressful times. Maybe even comfort with a dose of luxury. Surely such a thing is possible? It is—if you redefine what luxury is. It ain’t the usual suspects, like unctuous caviar, now retailing for $20 a small spoon at New York bars; or the tiresomely ubiquitous truffle, refuge of chefs who want to triple your bill whilst napalming your tastebuds. No, the luxe ingredient I’m talking about is one that, dollars to doughnuts, is nestled in your fridge as we speak.

Enter the egg. Not just any egg, but the best kind—boiled, and I’ll fight any man who says otherwise. Oh, I could write a similar love letter to the delights of scrambling, but this is not the time. I’m tired, did I mention? And, like millions of Average Joes around the world, I’m watching the cost of my weekly shop soar (just to pluck one stat out of the depressing ether, half of Americans now struggle to afford groceries and gas).

That’s why at least two meals a week, I do the bare minimum for breakfast, lunch, or maybe even dinner. I cradle two eggs—preferably free-range, despite the up to 2.5x cost mark-up—into a small pot, sink them to their chins in room-temperature water, turn on the heat and let them simmer for eight minutes and 48 seconds from the second they drop.

Why 8:48? For starters, the symmetry of the two egg-like eights tickles me; what can I say? But there’s a practical purpose to my fiddly specificity. Like all simple foods, the smallest of changes mutate an egg’s flavors completely. Every egg-fetishist worth their salt has their preferred time down to 10 seconds or so. So that countdown—plus a quick stop to the cooking under cold running water—results in the perfect texture every time. An oozy golden core supported by a custardy white. Get that right, and you can count it a minor victory for the day.

The eating, too, is a fine ritual. I like my eggs soft-boiled and in cups—two, preferably brown, perched in ceramic holders with trenches around to sprinkle salt and a whisper of pepper. Good toasted bread and high-quality butter on the side. My format is all quite mundane (reassuringly so), but the spectrum of ways to enjoy your ova are endless. My wife, a Singaporean, introduced me to how they’re enjoyed across much of southeast Asia: loosely cooked and cracked into small bowls so the two eggs swim in their yolks, like a one-ingredient soup. To this she favors a kiss of soy sauce, or Bovril for its salty tang—the tarry, salty meat extract is too rich for my blood, but therein lies the pleasure of discovering how you like your own eggs.

Let’s not forget that half the joy in eating these babies is how you open them. Once you grow up, it’s easy to forget how miraculous the fiddly task seemed as a child. (No wonder famed food writer MFK Fischer wrote “Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken.”) Do you slice it across the throat whilst pretending to be a deranged samurai? (Guilty.) Do you dig into it with a spoon then peer inside, murmuring “Gold, boys, we’ve struck bloody gold!” as you dip into the trembling yolk (also me, I’m afraid)? I can’t help it. Something about the locked room of an egg makes you a child again, one who knew the simpler stuff was the stuff of luxury—especially if you ate them on a weekend morning, yolk spilling onto the Sunday funnies.

And while I’m against the showy faff of single-purpose kitchen gadgets, I must admit temptation doth rear her head at times. Current obsession: a German gizmo, all brushed stainless steel and clean lines, average retail price around 12 bucks. You fit the tool’s small metal dunce cap over the top of the egg, then pull up the plunger and release. It falls onto the egg with a satisfying clack, leaving you with a surgically clean opening (minus fiddly splinters of shell) once you slide the skull of the egg off. Apart from gifting me the ability to add another character to my morning play-acting (Dr. Frankenstein, obvi) the product name alone sells it: the Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher. Which translates, as we all know, to “eggshell predetermined breaking point causer”.

So, how do you eat your unborn chicken? Like a good Martini, everyone has their preferences. Your ideal recipe will change, depending on the time of day and your hunger/wealth levels. If you’re poor and hungry at sunset, I urge you to do as I do. Make two eggs, lightly boiled (in this case, I recommend 7 min 37 sec—we want softer whites and yolks that will mix happily with the rice). Release them from their shells (chill them in cold water first, which loosens the yolk from the shell), then air-drop into a pillow of steaming white rice. Drizzle with chopped spring onion and slather in soy sauce. Four poor-man’s ingredients, I promise you, that add up to a minor feast.

Eat your eggs mindfully, and you start to see a humble vessel pushed through a hen’s hoo-ha as the shapeshifting star it deserves to be. Everything it touches tastes better, richer, more textured. No wonder even hyper-inventive celebrity chefs like David Chang urge us thusly: “When in doubt, add an egg”. I’d say he’s cracked the code.