Brown Eggs

Here's a basic recipe and explanation from the web, with my additions and alterations, ie what I usually do.

Ingredients

10 – 12 eggs

Some olive oil

Some salt; not too much

A ton of pepper

1 – 2 Tbsp ground coffee or a tea bag will do, if you prefer

Dried onion peeps (optional)

Slice of lemon (optional)

Step 1

place eggs in a pot or saucepan of water together with plenty of onion skins (if using) and coffee. add oil. bring to a boil and allow to boil rapidly for at least five minutes. I generally don't bother to boil. This gets the flavors going faster but I don't think is necessary.

Step 2

put the gas or electric on as low as it can go. and cook and cook and cook. minimum time I think is 8 hours. 12 is better. if you cook that long, the water is gradually going to disappear. the traditional method that nona used was to take an old rag or dishcloth, wet it, and put it in the water on top of the water, covering the whole pot but still keeping the pot a bit porous as it cooks. what i do when i'm lazy, which is most of the time, is just cover the pot and let it keep cooking slowly. after a few hours, check to see that there is enough water to cover the eggs; if they are not covered, the shells will crack. (It's normal for one or two of the shells to crack anyway, by the way.)

Step 3

Remove the eggs and wipe them clean. Serve plain, hot, warm, or cold. Leftover eggs are easy to reheat. They are also wonderful sliced in salads (they make a terrific egg salad) or as a garnish for saucy stewed vegetables, like ratatouille.

Step 4

one classic way to serve them, besides just eating them for breakfast: cut them in quarters, lengthwise (so egg quarters are the long way). put on plate, sprinkle olive oil and lemon over the slices. sometimes you can add basil or oregano or some other spice over it if you want. nona and papoo and the whole family used to serve these a lot as an appetizer, especially on holidays, and I loved them!!!!

Notes

You can also do this in the crockpot or oven.

Crockpot

Save the papery outer layers from onions, or get them from the grocery store. Put onion papers in the crock, and put whole eggs in the shell in a single layer (may work with more than one layer if you have enough onion skins). Layer more onion papers between the eggs and on top of the eggs. Add water, filling the crock to ⅔ or more. Add a few glugs of olive oil. Cook on low for 4 – 10 hours. The eggs will be colored brown from shell to yolk and have a delicious taste. They're excellent plain or in egg salad, etc.

Oven

Preheat oven to 175 degrees. Put everything into 2-quart ovenproof casserole. Cover tightly. Put casserole in oven and allow undisturbed cooking for at least 12 hours.