Adventures with eggs

[oyceter]

For some strange reason, I decided I wanted to try to make scrambled eggs last night. And by this, I mean that around 9:15, just as I was going to start watching VMars (ah Tivo, how I love you! Even though half the time I forget to fast forward through the commercials anyway), and ended up making scrambled eggs till about 11:30.

I'm not quite sure what my brain is up to sometimes!

But yes, it is strange and difficult being ambushed by the desire to eat scrambled eggs at nine at night when a) one does not cook on anything even nearly resembling a regular basis, b) one does not usually like scrambled eggs, c) one has delusions of grandeur formed by watching 10 hours of Food Network a week (I have a life, I swear! I'm just, eh, not sure where I put it...), and d) one's kitchen is entirely understocked for stealth cooking ambitions.

So I dug out my copy of The Joy of Cooking (it's the new ed. Do not blame me! It was a Christmas present! I complain not about free books!) and looked up scrambled eggs. Directions are something like: the lower the heat, the fluffier the eggs. Beat eggs very well with some salt and pepper, heat butter, when butter foams, add eggs. Stir and/or fold.

I was somewhat confused, despite having seen the Good Eats "Egg Files" episode. I beat together four eggs with a bit of salt and pepper and dried parsley. With chopsticks! Even now, using a whisk or a fork to beat eggs seems wrong somehow. Had no butter, and since I had a strange egg craving at night, I wasn't about to go out and get butter, so I used olive oil instead (I figure, adds a bit of taste, low smoke point like butter, maybe is similar?). I think I added too much olive oil because it pooled up on the top of my eggs when I poured them in.

Then I realized that I was using my sauce pan instead of the sautee pan and the eggs looked more like soup than premature scrambled eggs. Oops.

So I stirred, and then I folded, and then I stirred again (just to cover all the bases). The eggs cooked veeeeeery slowly. Curds formed, only to be broken by me. After a while, the eggs sort of congealed. On the one hand, they were not rubbery or overcooked (I could tell because there were not lumps of egg in runny water). On the other hand, after some curds, the rest of the mixture refused to thicken and looked like the inside of a not quite cooked through egg yolk. I ate it anyway, and it was tasty, though now I fear I gave myself some horrible bacteria.

Analysis: potentially too much olive oil interfered with setting. Heat may have been too low (?) but I wonder because Joy said the French style was over a double boiler, and that's pretty low heat, right? Olive oil in and of itself may be bad for eggs. Pan may have been too small for amount of eggs. Cook may have been very lousy egg folder (quite likely).

By that time, it was too late to watch VMars, so I decided to try again, after looking up Alton Brown's recipe! It has more instructions. I like Alton Brown. Unfortunately, I didn't have the egg episode Tivoed so I couldn't actually see what stage curds were or whatnot (I figured out what curds were, but I wasn't sure how big they should be).

(this time it was only two eggs, so I figured I'd reuse the sauce pan anyway, and I still had no butter. A bit of olive oil on the bottom of the pan, turned the heat up a notch)

I was very good and followed all the instructions and stirred until curds formed, and then folded. The eggs congealed more this time, and there was less runny stuff. And all the recipes said to plate before the eggs looked quite done, since they should finish cooking on the plate from internal heat. And Alton Brown said they were platable if no more liquid was running around on the bottom of the pan... but I couldn't tell if the half-congealed thick egg yolky looking bits counted or not!

Results: more curds this time. Still yolky. Did not look fluffy at all. Were not cooked so long as to completely break all the protein bits and leave curdled masses of protein and water, at least.

Analysis: even in small degrees, olive oil may not be optimal for egg cooking. Cook's folding skills may be severely impaired. Cook's curd-checking skills may be severely impaired.

Need to try again! This time, I shall get butter! And eggs that haven't sat around for a few days. Apparently freshness is very important, according to Alton Brown and Joy, and that fresh eggs will be perkier (hee!). Stomach is a little upset today... not sure if it's from eating undercooked eggs or from eating too much milk product this week (I am very lactose intolerant one week out of the month... it should have been a few days earlier, but I suspect the wisdom teeth drugs may have interfered or something, so I think it's kicking in now). But I like the eggs anyway, so I don't mind eating my really ugly mess.

This is fun ^_^. You may all mock me mercilessly about my lack of egg skills.

This is why I need Good Eats DVDs, yes yes!

Comments

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Unless it's a really sudden craving, take the eggs out of the fridge about two hours before you use them so that they have time to come to room temperature; they'll cook better. This is actually true for all egg dishes, not just scrambled.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

New Joy of Cooking is an awesome cooking reference book. I rely on it regularly (and ignore it regularly, since they are always talking about best practices for the food snob, and I am rather not the food snob).

Coincidentally, I made eggs last night. But I made a cheese-onion-herbes de Provence omelet, rather than scrambled eggs. I do not put olive oil or butter into the pan before I start; actually I just sort of throw everything in together, and cook by wiggling the pan until the middle doesn't wiggle along any more.

[loligo.livejournal.com]

Cook's Ilustrated suggests a very different method, which I like better. Web site is subscription-only, so I stole this for you:

Fluffy Scrambled Eggs
Written: Jan 1998

For soft, pillowy eggs, you need a slow hand, a heavy nonstick pan, and (despite much advice to the contrary) high heat.
The Problem: Getting the simplest things right can be the trickiest because we don't think much will be expected of us. Scrambled eggs are a good example. Seemingly easy to make, they can easily go wrong, and overcooking is probably the most common problem. As it turns out, a lot of considerations go into the making of a perfectly scrambled egg.

The Goal: Scrambled eggs that are a dreamy mound of big, softly wobbling curds, yellow as a legal pad, glistening, a hair-breadth away from undercooking. When cut, the eggs should be cooked enough to hold their shape but soft enough to eat with a spoon--a cross between a custard gone right and gone wrong.

The Solution: Combine eggs, salt, pepper, and milk in a bowl and whisk lightly (overbeating can cause premature coagulation of the egg proteins, thereby making the eggs tough before they hit the pan). Use a nonstick pan appropriate to the number of eggs you're making (too large and the eggs will spread too thin and not cook properly). Cook the eggs in butter over high heat for less than a minute, keeping the eggs in constant motion. For big, fluffy curds, fold rather than stir the eggs.


Fluffy Scrambled Eggs
These eggs cook very quickly, so it’s important to be ready to eat before you start to cook them.
Serves 4
8 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon table salt
Ground black pepper
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1. Crack eggs into a medium bowl. Add salt, pepper, and milk. Whip with a fork until streaks are gone and color is pure yellow; stop beating while the bubbles are still large.

2. Meanwhile, put butter in a 10-inch nonstick skillet, then set the pan over high heat. When the butter foams, swirl it around and up the sides of the pan. Before foam completely subsides, pour in beaten eggs. With a wooden spatula or a nonstick-safe egg turner, push eggs from one side of the pan to the other, slowly but deliberately, lifting and folding eggs as they form into curds, until eggs are nicely clumped into a single mound, but remain shiny and wet, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Serve immediately.

For two eggs, season with 1/8 teaspoon salt, 1 grind of pepper, and 2 tablespoons milk. Heat only 1 1/2 teaspoons butter, use a 8-inch skillet. Cooking time is only 30 to 45 seconds.
******
Personally, I prefer my scrmbled eggs well-done: just started to brown on the outside of the big clumps, but not tough inside. This method makes achieving eggs like that easy.

[fiveandfour.livejournal.com]

Cool - this is how I've always done it. You see, my husband does it a different way (without the milk, for one thing) and I've never liked his scrambled eggs. But then, the cookbooks all seemed to side with him. So now I have Cook's Illustrated on my side. Boo-yah!

It's true that simple things like scrambled eggs usually are the hardest to quantify and explain.

[oyceter]

Mmmmmmmm. I found my prejudice against scrambled eggs were completely dissolved by the wobbly, custard-like eggs that this recipe has. Thanks! I must try this!

[graygirl.livejournal.com]

Alton rocks. :) So do scrambled eggs. I always use a smidge of butter.

[ann1962]

If you use butter, you can add just a couple of drops of oil to raise the burning point temperature which allows for a little more leeway when cooking eggs. Or anything else you cook in butter too.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Now I'm craving scrambled eggs and I have no eggs in the house. DAMN YOU!

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

You are so cute. My scrambled eggs:

Stick a pat of butter in a big frying pan that's probably nonstick. Turn on the heat kinda medium-like.

Crack a couple of eggs into the pan, stir them around real fast with the edge of the kind of wooden spoon that's flat and wedge-shaped. Wisking or forking is also an option. Shake salt and pepper on it.

Wait a minute until the edges are kind of solid but the midddle is still liquid, then start stirring around a bunch with the spoon. Keep flipping egg bits until everything looks vaguely done.

Option #2: Attempt to make fried eggs, get annoyed when the yolk breaks, stir eggs in fury until they're "scrambled." *g*

This is all via my mom -- eggs are a very inexact science in my house. But have you tried a fried egg sandwich on buttered toast? Mmm...

[oyceter]

But have you tried a fried egg sandwich on buttered toast?

Oooo. No! But that sounds good! I've lately become totally addicted to the company cafeteria's breakfast on an English muffin - toasted and buttered English muffin with a fried egg, melted cheese, and bacon.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I use butter and medium heat, but don't make scrambled eggs that often. My Dad makes delicious ones with the addition of chopped bell peppers, onions, and salsa or tomatoes (finely chopped) and/or Tabasco, but he cooks them fairly firm, which is how we like them. I detest mushy eggs.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I love scrambled eggs, and omelets, and frittatas, and all sort of egg-y things. I use a fork to beat the eggs with milk just enough that they're mixed up, and then I cook them in butter over medium heat. The pan has to be hot before I add the butter, and the butter has to be foaming before I add the eggs. And I fold rather than stir, because I feel like overstirring results in dried out, nonfluffy eggs that remiind me of brunch in my college dining hall.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

My partner can't have anything from cow's milk, including not just butter but most margarine, which has been infiltrated by the minions of the Whey Council. Olive oil is therefore his egg-grease of choice, and it works fine. Eggs just take practice, though freshness does help.

[canandagirl.livejournal.com]

My husband's the same. It's amazing what food companies think they need to add milk products in...bread? Give me a break.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I read somewhere that milk protein can be processed into MSG (http://www.truthinlabeling.org/nomsg.html), and that it's in so much stuff partly for that reason. Some of it may be because of the "enriched flour" recipe in Joy of Cooking, too, which has powdered milk. I'm sure it boosts the protein content. It's just really annoying that they do it with allergens.

[canandagirl.livejournal.com]

My husband started taking vitamin E before eating things he suspects of being evil (ie restaurant food, or his personal weakness, Reese's peanut butter cups). He says it really helps him, and he's able to tolerate a bit of dairy without terrible consequences. You're partner may want to try it.

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

Heh! Don't feel bad, I think cooking eggs properly can take a while to perfect 'cause it's all about timing. I've been making omelettes just about every weekend for years now and I don't think I've quite got it down. I'm definitely in favour of olive oil, just in verrrry small amounts. I also use milk, but then I just use egg whites so the milk thickens things a bit.

My best results are when I leave things alone. Yes, an initial stir when it hits the pan - in the case of an omelette a once around the edges and some tilting to get the runny stuff off the top, but beyond that give it a chance to set. Scrambled are fast yes, but they only need a couple foldings, otherwise the eggs break up and overcook.

Of course if the eggs overcook or just generally look unappealing, melt some cheese into them and lay them into a soft tortilla with salsa. Instant breakfast burrito goodness!

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize that you don't cook! All the food posts, you seemed to know what you were doing. I think you should continue cooking and telling us about it!

I like to beat a little milk or water into my eggs. I go back and forth on which one I think makes the eggs fluffier. Right now water is actually winning. I make my scrambled eggs on medium heat stirring slowly in roughly a figure eight. Or if I'm lazy, on high heat and I just go at it. The latter yields a firmer product.

[oyceter]

LOL! Aka, delusions of grandeur ;). I actually cook very, very rarely and never really learned how (well, except for peas, which are cooked every Sunday after farmer's market), but I keep being tempted!

The problem is that I know how I want the food to taste like; I'm just not sure how to make it get there. Also, I battle between wanting to be a good cook and being lazy! I really am going to try more though!

[canandagirl.livejournal.com]

Scrambled eggs shouldn't take you so long. Basically, you want to cook them until it stops being runny. If you make sunny-side up eggs, and you like your eggs not crunchy, you can tell the eggs are done when you poke the whites with a fork, there is a bit of resistence which you wouldn't get with liquid raw egg.

I actually use olive oil all the time instead of butter because I like it and I'm lazy, but you don't need a lot of it, especially if you have some of those non-stick pans. Depending on how hungry I am, or how many people I'm making this for, I crack 2-3 eggs (per person) in a bowl, add salt, pepper, thyme, a little paprika and if I'm feeling really special, some cream (soy milk, half-half, whatever's handy). I just beat that with a folk for a minute while I just put in a little bit of oil in the pan and heat it up on high. I want to break the yoke and mix it up a bit. When I put the eggs in, I turn down the heat to low-medium and just move it around (the chopsticks are o.k.) or spatula so when it doesn't make a giant egg mass. I turn off the heat when it's stop being runny. Should take about 5 minutes or so. If you're feeling really unambitious, (and someone else is doing the dishes) you can combine everything in the pan and skip the bowl.