Weekend food with Darina Allen

EGGS are a totally magical ingredient, the quintessential fast food, versatile and nourishing. Think about it: if you have two boiled eggs or, in the case of hungry chaps, three or four for supper with a few slices of brown soda bread, you’ll feel deliciously sated.

They need to be good eggs, of course, really fresh and preferably free range and organic.

The exciting thing is that a growing number of people have been smitten by the ‘fancy fowl’ bug. All over the country people are keeping a few hens in their back gardens and have discovered the joy of collecting and eating their own freshly laid eggs.