How To Barbecue An Egg

Working out how to barbecue an egg has become a bit of a family conundrum for me and this is why:-

It all started one drunken afternoon way back in the 1970’s when my Uncle Harold bought a new oven for his ultra modern kitchen. Of course, me being a very young lad was completely oblivious to what went on next.

The new oven came complete with a very fashionable spit roaster and after my uncle had proudly explained everything about the appliance, more beer was consumed and the conversation turned to what type of food could be spit roasted. The obvious one was spit roasted chicken and I’m happy to say that this method of cooking chicken is as popular today as it was then, but as the drunken silliness prevailed on this occasion, the question then to be answered by my Uncle and my Father was whether it was possible to spit roast an egg.

Fortunately on that day there were only half a dozen eggs or so in the house so there could only be half a dozen or so failed attempts before the females of the house could restore a modicum of sensibility to the afternoon. The days event have been recounted on many family occasion and of course it’s led me to think a little more about how you can grill an egg on the outdoor barbecue grill.

Boiling an egg is just about applying heat to the shell at a continuous temperature for a period of time so it must be possible to do the same on a charcoal BBQ grill. The problems are understanding the temperature of the grill and the fact that you can’t apply the heat all over the egg at the same time. When boiling, the heat is standard at 100°C so you can approximate how long to cook it for, the only variable being the size of the egg. I’ve tried to grill an egg in its shell and for me, it doesn’t work. After giving it plenty of time, I cracked the top only to find the white still needed more time to solidify. Having said that, I left the egg on the grill and gradually it cooked and I was able to eat and very tasty egg but to be honest it left a bit to be desired on the presentations stakes.

The best way is to mimic the frying process and cook the egg in oil. Slapping a frying pan on the grill isn’t quite cricket and a ground base will take forever to warm through so I try to make it a little more fun. I make small individual foil trays that will hold one egg each, just fill the tray will a little oil and crack the egg. Heat transfers well in foil and you can see exactly when they’re done so you get the perfect egg every time and the individual little trays add for the fun element.

If you’re in the party mood try making your foil trays in different shapes, after all, not many people have had a triangular shaped fried egg have they and what better way to round it of than with a homemade BBQ sauce?