Monday, March 29, 2010

The Incredible Edible Egg





What great poll results! Scrambled, fried, and poached all come in neck in neck at the finish line. I love eggs. I love them on their own as a standalone protein, but I also admire their coagulation abilities in making things like custards, puddings, mousses, ice cream, sauces and the such. Eggs seem such an oversight in the professional kitchen. It’s like, “go grab 30 eggs and let’s get going here.” Sometimes you need to stop and smell the roses…or the egg shells.


I suppose the poll really hits home about those eggs we cook at 8 am, in a fog, and hungery. I would have guessed the omelette to garner more votes. I guess they are more of a restaurant item than an everyday thing to make at home. Scrambled eggs are great, but take an extra bowl, and in the home kitchen one more thing to clean is one more reason to not go that direction. Fried eggs are versatile, from soft to hard to sunny side up….ect. The only thing about those two cooking methods is I really hate caramelized/brown eggs. It’s an absolute tragedy in my opinion to cook an egg until it browns.


I’ve really come on to poached eggs lately. No fat, butter, or oil is a healthy decision. Cleaning a poaching pan is easiest of them all. Lastly you can still get that great runny yolk. Three minutes is all it takes! On top of that you don’t have to stop with poached eggs in acidulated water. ElSalvadorian spicy chicken soup with eggs dropped in to poach were a weekly hangover cure for a few years. Eggs poached in a saucy black bean puree topped with Tabasco are equally impressive.

No matter how you enjoy your eggs do your best to support local, humane, organic, sustainable or otherwise responsible egg farmers.
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3 comments:

Rachel said...

I never knew how different an organic home-grown egg could taste. One of my friends here in England has chickens and the eggs have the biggest and most yellow/orange rich yolks. We love to eat them soft-boiled in the morning with toast soldiers. Yum!

Michael Walsh said...

About 18 months ago I visited a farmer who is known in the area to produce top notch eggs. I learned a lot about eggs that day. Prime egg layers produce eggs every 3-4 days. Wow. I had a romantic idea of hens coaxing eggs every so offten. And we got into the logistics of why his eggs are good. This man had a functioning ecosystem of a farm....lambs, chickens, vegetables, honey. I said, "why don't you just feed the chickens all the farm scraps" and it turns out that is the worst thing because the dumb chickens eat up the nutritionally void 'junk food' just like humans and skimp on the expensive out-sourced quality food enriched with the vitamins and minerals that make a good egg.

Like you say the yolks on these eggs are amazing. Large, dark yellow and rich in flavor. Like I said these type of eggs got me into poaching them because it protects the yolk the most out of other cooking methods.

I can appreciate the toast soldiers, but i just dump a soft cooked egg on a piece of toast and go to town. It's the American way i guess. Add some hot sauce for some good down south 'flava'

Best washed down with a light bodied wheat beer in my opinion. ha ha ha

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