Fun with eggs
Recently, I’ve been experimenting a bit with morning eggs.
I continue to find the base technique that Thomas Keller teaches my preferred method for cooking eggs. For review, that’s taking a generous amount of butter (1 1/2 teaspoons or so) and whisking it in a cold pan with two eggs. I find that a deep, small frying pan works really well with this. As the eggs cook, the curd is kept very small due to the constant motion of the whisk. Just before the egg is complete, I drop about a tablespoon of crème fraiche into it and mix. The cool of the crème fraiche stops the cooking and adds additional creaminess to the egg.
OK, I just spent the last paragraph talking about a technique I didn’t use in the photo. That’s not bad planning — this is a journey. Or something.
In the above, I decided to sauté some baby kale I had in the fridge. I chopped shallots and garlic and included that with the kale. Because of the bite of the kale, I wanted to have something that mirrored that in the egg as well — an over-easy egg allows me to add creaminess with the yolk, while getting the bite from the cooked egg. This is particularly true when using duck eggs, as the white of it is firmer than that of a chicken.
I decided I didn’t really love the result. Let’s try changing the base.
My local market has a great selection of local produce — I managed to get some really beautiful tomatoes and wanted to use some of them as the start base of my egg. My thinking was that the citrus note of the fresh tomatoes would be a great contrast to the creaminess of the egg.
I chopped the tomatoes roughly, added fresh garlic, fresh thyme, butter and let it sauté in the pan. There’s something really magical about the smell of garlic cooking in butter.
After reaching the appropriate level of cook, I transferred it to the bowl, and then put the egg on top. Yes, I’m irritated that the egg fell to one side of the tomatoes when I took the photo. Better than the kale, but not right where I wanted it to be. Believe it or not, drizzling it with a little champagne vinegar really made it pop.
Let’s try the above with a poached egg. Why? Well because poaching an egg is kinda fun. Closer, but not quite right.
Now, we’re finally to the T.K. egg technique. The above is over cooked slightly. It was still good, but not exactly what I wanted it to be. Texturally, the egg becomes too gritty — it’s almost like eating very fine curd cottage cheese.
That said, the Italian parsley was good on top, and the olive oil drizzled over the top combined with it to bring out a great herbaceous note. The only textural note (other than the afore mentioned egg unpleasantness) I had was the salt flake that I put on top of it.
The answer was, of course, to combine the egg porridge over the tomato mixture, complete with chives, olive oil, and salt flake. As it mixes together, there’s a wonderful contrast of the citrus of the tomato with the creaminess of the egg and the herbaceous fat of the olive oil.
I find I think differently about food than I used to. I’m a lot more conscious of texture, balance, and most importantly, acid. More than anything, I’m just more thoughtful about how I cook and how I eat. Maybe that alone is worth it.
