I discovered this technique on my own. The key elements are a lot of butter as with Hollandaise, and sour cream or crème fraîche at the end. That acidic element is what makes scrambled eggs a sauce, it is to scrambled eggs what lemon juice is to Hollandaise.
For one serving, take a large mug and fill it with hot tap water.
Take three eggs from the refrigerator and warm them up in the water. This takes only a few minutes to get the chill off.
Bringing the eggs to quite warm, warmer than room temperature is best. It will go fastest. Eggs begin to denature at 140℉, my tap goes high as 120℉. So, that is a very good start.
The eggs are cooked in your smallest pot, not in a pan. They are whisked throughout. Add a large lump of cold butter but no salt. Season when they are done. Whisked eggs go a bit funny with salt. Unsalted butter is best. Whisk over heat reaching into the corners. As soon as the butter begins to melt, that should be almost immediately, then the eggs are beginning to cook. They will thicken together immediately and before they form curds. If they begin to form curds then the curds can be whisked out when lifted off the heat, eventually the proteins will tighten up so much all the water is squeezed out. You must decide how thick to take it.
A fast dollop of sour cream halts the cooking action making further whisking unnecessary.
I don't make scrambled eggs all that much. These pictures make it seem like I do. In a court of law they could be used as fairly cogent proof of a longstanding affection for scrambled eggs, but that is not so. Scrambled eggs are not among my favorite things.
I keep thinking of all those dead baby chicken embryos being scrambled around like I am a deranged abortionist and it takes the shine right off.
Originally I was only going to show the first picture. It makes the point. And then I thought, eh, "Why hold back?"
A while ago I discovered by accident a technique for creamy scrambled eggs that surpassed anything I had previously. This was quite an epiphany because I come from a egg-abusive household. My family's idea of scrambled eggs is to fry them so thoroughly that all trace of moisture is evaporated and the eggs tighten up so firmly they amount to another vulcanized substance altogether. The sequence goes like this:
raw --> cooked --> overcooked --> impossibly overcooked --> ridiculously abused --> done.It is all that I have ever known.
The trick, and there is a trick, is to continuously remove the pot from the heat as soon as anything noticeable happens. The whole point is to avoid the formation of curds. You can see this happening as you whisk so pull off the pot and continue whisking off the heat so that the egg solidifies as a sauce and not as a pile of curds and then return to the heat and continue the thickening. The sequence goes like this:
raw --> sort of perhaps a little bit thicker --> seems like it's thickening --> yeah sure, it's getting thicker --> by golly we're on to something here --> well I'll be doggone, this is actually working --> this would make a good sauce --> hey look! I can control how thick this gets --> it's starting to stand up on its own --> I can probably stop now --> done.All that happens in a minute.
I looked at a dozen YouTube videos searching for something that matched this approach. All I can say is, there are a lot of truly horrible scrambled eggs out there. I weep for my country for they know not what they do. Even the chefs are creating egg curds on excessive heat. And then at length I encountered my nemesis, Gordon Ramsay. Finally! One person out of all those housewives, husbands, cooks, and chefs, describes precisely the technique I landed on by accident -- a failed sauce.
Myself. I've been talking about this a long time.
I talked about this already here. I showed Gordon Ramsay doing scrambled eggs. I showed the book Eggs by Michael Roux. I repeat it now because it is so critically important to your wellbeing and because the guy at MoZaic is paid to make scrambled eggs and cannot make them as well as any one of these examples.
He just cannot.
Why? Because he didn't read my blog. Because he didn't see Gordon Ramsay's video. Because he hasn't bothered with Michael Roux's book. Because he hasn't seen these photos. Because he hasn't received an egg-epiphany. Because he does not know there is a much better scrambled egg world out there.
18 comments:
A quick spin on the internet informs me that MoZaic is a restaurant chain. I find the spelling to be annoying.
I'm taking Simvastatin. When I told the doctor I was eating 2 or 3 eggs a day he shook his head and said, "The jury's still out on that one."
Still, I now eat one hard-boiled egg a day, at the very most, and almost no butter, whatsoever. When the National Egg Board claims it's perfectly safe to eat one egg a day, so long as you are perfectly healthy . . . well . . . I think you know where I'm headed with this.
Not that my life is so precious or anything, but heart disease/stroke runs in my family, and I'm sort of a knee-jerk non-conformist.
I expect to die from something like alcohol liver disease, anyway.
How original.
I dislike going to restaurants, in general. It takes only a tiny smattering of cooking skill and dining experience to realize that one can do much better, much cheaper, at home.
And at home you can get as hammered as you want, which is a pleasure, without having to worry about driving home and getting caught in a DUI traffic stop, which most emphatically is not a pleasure.
Still, the wife likes to go out so we do. She likes brewpubs which is lucky for me.
I usually order something on the menu that's not breaded and fried. I try to avoid mega-carbs. The beer has got enough of that.
A month or 2 ago we went to a brewpub and I ordered some big salad with some kind of marinated beef strips, and some fancy cheese, and some "house made" dressing their chef/copy writer was all boastful about.
The thing was a mess in a bowl. Tasted exactly like one of those whoppers you get from Burger King at one of those rest stations along the interstate.
It is a good technique. I have seen Gordon Ramsey make eggs and I agree.
The only exception are french omelets where they beat the shit out of the eggs and then cook them at high heat.
But if you do a side by side comparison the delicate cooking method does taste better.
And eggs are good for you. An egg is almost perfect food and an egg a day will not harm you.
Chip, as far as that embryo thing, I never got it with fresh egg. But you can have Vietnamese duck eggs which start with fertilized eggs and go late term. That sort of thing will turn you off eggs (don't look unless you really want to because you can't unsee).
Beef however…that will kill you. Or me. Don't eat beef.
The only exception are french omelets where they beat the shit out of the eggs and then cook them at high heat.
Keith Floyd described that as a peasant omelette only good for taking with you out into the field.
Jacques Pépin teaches both styles.
He's more polite about it than Mr. Floyd but you can tell he's got a little bit of a low-grade disdain thing going on for the harder omelette.
You pay me $7844 monthly and I will tell you what to eat so as not to die.
That being said, this is a great post. Do any of you advertise on other blogs to attract more readers?
I cook by the Salted Fats method, which is more fat and more salt but not too much of either, just the right amount.
raw --> cooked --> overcooked --> impossibly overcooked --> ridiculously abused --> done.
That is my experience with scrambled eggs. Only recently, thanks to you in part, have I discovered that I really do prefer my scrambled eggs cooked so that they are still moist. I cannot stand runny or slimy eggs. There is a fine line between softly yet fully cooked eggs and slime. No slime for me, please. Your suggestions and video are all great. I myself have not tried to place so much emphasis on the details of fine and proper scrambled egg preparation because - I'm lazy. But I see that the rewards of a deliciously cooked egg are worth the trouble. do I have unsalted butter? no - I'll have to go get some.
I will say that I have recently discovered a new non-stick frying pan that I adore. LOVE. In my attempt to slowly rid the cupboards of all cheap "Made in China" cookware, I have made a delightful discovery.
(I don't trust the manufacturing process from a communist nation that is so horribly polluted)
& I will pay more to avoid rewarding that pollution.
I found a brand called "Scanpan".
The stuff is made in Denmark.
cool. It's a tad pricey.
What I really like is that the pans are truly flat on the bottom, they heat up evenly, and they are just fantastic to work with. They cook scrambled eggs beautifully & brilliantly. - even without all the fuss. Yes - you cannot walk away from an egg & the temp needs to be just right and all that.
I assume that if some of your brilliant techniques are employed, the results would be perfection.
Dear Lord you write too much.
Less is better.
"The eggs are cooked in your smallest pot, not in a pan."
There's that to over-come. My small paradigm won't let me...
I always ruin eggs so thanks much for the tip!
I'm going to confess to something...
At a Dinner I once ordered eggs "sunny side up" because I like the sound of it. Not knowing they would be virtually uncooked,
I could not eat them but I didn't have the wherewithal to return them. So ate the home fries along with the partly cooked egg white.
The style is getting too predictable. Branch out! Make something less American, but not too much less American. Make spotted dick!
I microwave "poached" eggs. The dog gets the yolks and I get the whites, which go into a bacon sandwich.
The other high point of the dog's day is chicken and rice for lunch.
I had eggs benedict at a restaurant and the eggs were raw. When I order enchiladas (stacked with an eggs or they're something else) I say "over easy" because they at least need to be cooked enough to flip, but there's no point to it if the yolks aren't runny.
At home I've been making soft scrambled with the cold butter in the pan while they're being stirred for my kid. Husband likes over easy and I tend to make mine with the yolk broken, flipped, with cheese. I did eggs benedict today, though, and do those eggs in a frying pan with a lid with enough water to steam the tops white, so it's sort of cheating but it works, even if it's a bit of a trick to get them off the heat before they overcook.
My favorite way to eat eggs is soft boiled. You put them upright little egg stands. Then you gently saw through the top straight across like a skull cap. Then you take a little egg spoon and scoop the soft egg out, pausing to sprinkle a little salt and pepper on each bite. In the end, you have a whole shell.
Very Euro. I learned that in Europe, of course, not in some over-priced, pretentious Boston bistro populated with wannabee fabs on their way to the Cape.
I always rate restaurants on their Hollandaise sauce which I'm quite good at making. Again, I learned it from a French language sauce book and not from some hirsute bear in P-Town.
Great photos of great looking food. I'm more likely to be chosen as the next Dali Lama than cook something well, but seeing those photos make we want to try it anyway, like the way Ritmo keeps trying to justify his voting. Both of us should just give it up. The results speak for themselves. Being the more self-aware one, I don't try to cook anymore.
Chip --
You converted me; I now do my scrambled eggs the way you describe. I noticed a few additional tips this time, so thanks!
Post a Comment