Last week, we looked after our neighbours’ chickens while they went on holiday. We’ve done it before but, back then, the brood was only about a third of the size it is now.

Before long, we had an ever-growing pile of eggs mounting up in our kitchen. With each passing day, another 6 eggs or so were being added. What to do with our new-found egg glut?

I didn’t want to have either leftover yolks or leftover whites going to waste, so I looked into making dishes that used whole eggs.

Here’s one savoury and one sweet recipe I decided on…

• Pickled eggs – We’ve both lived nearly half a century but neither of us has ever eaten a pickled egg! They never look appetising sitting on a shelf, in jars, in a hot chip shop, for who knows how long! I didn’t have whole allspice, only ground, so my pickle liquid became a bit cloudy with a little sediment. You’re meant to leave them for a month before you eat them – so we’ll report back then.
• Egg custard – This was a little disappointing to be honest – a bit unexciting. It had nothing over a traditional egg custard tart baked in a pastry case. Transforming it into either a crème caramel or crème brûlée are other good options.

Pickled eggs

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Course Snack

Cuisine British

Servings 7 eggs

Ingredients

  

• 7 hard-boiled eggs
• ½ tbs chilli flakes
• 1 pint distilled malt vinegar
• 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger rough chopped
• ½ tbsp white peppercorns
• ½ tsp whole allspice

Instructions

 

• Tie the spices in a piece of muslin and boil gently in the vinegar for 5 minutes
• Pour into a bowl and remove the spices. Leave to cool
• Shell the eggs and pack into a sterilised, wide-necked jar
• Fill with the cold vinegar to cover the eggs completely. Screw or tie down and leave for a month before eating

Keyword eggs, pickle, preserves

Egg custard

Nigella Lawson: Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home

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Course Dessert

Cuisine British

Servings 4

Ingredients

  

• 568 ml/1 pint full fat milk
• 4 eggs
• 50 g caster sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• fresh nutmeg

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 140ºC/Gas mark 1 and butter a round oven-proof dish
• Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat until hot but not actually boiling
• In a bowl that's large enough to take the milk as well, whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Then, still whisking, pour in the hot milk
  
• Sit the buttered dish in a roasting tin to make a bain marie. Strain the custard mixture through a sieve into the buttered dish, then grate some nutmeg generously over the top
• Pour freshly boiled water into the tin, to come about halfway up the baking dish, and gingerly (you don't want slopping and spillage) put it into the oven and cook for 1½ hours. You want the custard to set but only just
  
• Take the tin out of the oven, and the dish out of the tin, and let the custard cool a little before eating
  

Keyword custard tart, egg custard, eggs, tart