Don't Sweat the Aubergine

water; in poachers, the eggs rest in trays, and are steamed by simmering water in the pans below. I can’t see, or taste, what’s so unacceptable about steamed eggs; and the whites certainly come out neater.
    3 • Unadulterated water . Some recipes suggest you add salt and vinegar, which help to keep the whites tender. Too tender, in my experience: under this treatment, my egg whites become raggedy, and fail to cohere round the yolks. But eggs may behave differently in the water from your taps.
EGGS FLORENTINE
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 2
    Cook and drain 500g spinach ( see here ); squeeze out the water through the holes in a sieve or colander with the back of a wooden spoon, and arrange the spinach, seasoned, in an ovenproof dish large enough to hold 4 poached eggs (or 2, if you prefer). Make 4 (or 2) wells in the spinach. Put the dish into a low oven to keep warm. Heat water in a pan for the eggs. While it is coming to a simmer, make about 250ml béchamel sauce ( see here ). Keep the sauce warm on a heat disperser above the lowest possible flame, stirring from time to time. Poach the eggs and drain them; take the spinach out of the oven, and arrange the eggs in the wells you made. Stir 2 heaped tbsp grated cheese (Pecorino or Parmesan, perhaps; but you could use Cheddar) into the sauce (the cheese will retain its character best given the briefest possible cooking); check the seasoning of the sauce, pour it over the eggs and spinach, and sprinkle finely grated Parmesan on top. Put the dish under the grill until the surface has browned.
FRIED EGGS
    Here are two possible methods:
    Warm a frying pan; add enough butter to give a generous covering of the pan’s surface; when it is foaming, crack the eggs over it (or crack them into cups first, and slip them in from there). Cook for a couple of minutes, until the white is set.
    Nigel Slater’s method: crack eggs into separate cups; heat a generous quantity (a finger’s depth, he says) of good olive oil in a frying pan, until a small piece of bread sizzles energetically in it. Tilt the pan, and slip the eggs (no more than 2 in a pan) into the oil where it is deepest, so that you get hot oil to run over the yolk. Level the pan, and fry the eggs for a couple of minutes, until the white is set; lift out of the oil with a draining spoon.
    If you don’t like runny yolks, a fried egg is not for you. In the time it takes a yolk to set, a frying white turns to rubber.
SCRAMBLED EGGS
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HOW TO MAKE THEM
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    Again, the secret is slow cooking. That, and knowing when to stop: the egg will carry on setting when removed from the heat. If I haven’t made scrambled eggs for a while, I often find that I get my timing wrong.
    Crack 2 or 3 eggs for each person into a bowl. Stir with a fork to blend the yolks and the whites. 1 Add salt to taste, and 1 tsp vinegar for every 4 eggs. 2 Allow 10g butter or more (I use more) for every 2 eggs. Melt half of it over a medium to low heat in a non-stick saucepan (use another kind only if you enjoy cleaning off stuck egg – I’d rather clean the Augean stables). When the butter foams, pour in the egg, and continue to cook, over a low heat and stirring constantly, until the egg is set but moist. 3 Take the pan off the heat, add the rest of the butter, stir until it’s melted, and tip the scrambled eggs on to warm plates. Add pepper if you like. 4
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VARIATIONS
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    Any of the herbs and vegetables that go well with an omelette ( see here ) will make a happy alliance with scrambled eggs. You must make sure that the vegetables have disgorged their water, and won’t spoil the rich creaminess of the dish. Simply adding grated cheese to the beaten eggs and cooking them together is fine, or you could try a fancier option, reducing a small glass of wine to a couple of tablespoons of liquid in a saucepan, and adding it, with seasonings and herbs if you like , to a mixture of eggs and cheese (Gruyère complements eggs particularly well).
    Piperade is an onion, pepper and tomato stew with a bonding of creamy egg. For 2 people: 4 eggs, lightly beaten; 1 onion, sliced; 2 red peppers, deseeded and sliced; 1 garlic clove, finely chopped; one 400g can of tomatoes, or 4 plump fresh ones; 2 tbsp olive oil. Fry the onion, pepper and garlic in the oil until soft – about 10 to 15 minutes. (Or skin the pepper first – see here .) Now, here is one of the rare times when it’s important to deseed and de-juice the tomatoes ( see here ): if using canned