Here it is, my pets- my inaugural video blog all about breakfast. Post your comments below and let me know if you love it or hate it. Special thanks to Jessica Albritton at Hair By Jessica for her magic work. As always, thanks for reading (and watching)... now go tell the world what you've learned!
Showing posts with label eggs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eggs. Show all posts
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
We're moving on up...
As always, thanks for supporting my blog, and don't forget to enter to win a gorgeous bottle of Syrah from Flat Creek Estate Winery and Vineyard. Hurry up! The giveaway ends Tuesday!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
What the bleep happened to your eggs?!!
Alrighty my little pets, I started asking for your "what the bleep happened to the eggs?!" photo submissions on my Facebook fan page over Zombie Jesus Day weekend and I thoroughly enjoyed them all, especially the ones of cute kids staining their hands dying eggs. My favorite, however, was from reader Andrew Chandler, who had a spiritual What the Bleep moment in his kitchen. Andrew, thank you for sending in your photo of "zen eggs," fried in sweet cream buddha... er butter.
Thank you to everyone who sent in your photos- I loved seeing all of them! On to the next major holiday- my birthday! Feel free to send me lots of birthday wishes and bottles of bubbly.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Deviled Eggs Without the Mayo= Magic in Your Mouth
My dilemma yesterday was making them without mayonnaise. Yes, "Mayonnaise" is the title of one of my favorite Smashing Pumpkins songs, but it is NOT one of my favorite foods I find it pretty repulsive, all jiggly and strange-smelling. Zombie Jesus told me I needed to find a way to make deviled eggs sans mayo.
A traditional deviled egg recipe calls for you to boil your eggs, cut them in half, scoop out the yolk, and mash it up with a bunch of mayonnaise, some mustard, salt, pepper, and whatever seasonings your cute little face desires. Like this one- let's take a Paula Dean recipe, since she's a fan of the high-fat cooking (And making one syllable words sound like 5 syllable words, bless her southern heart):
7 large eggs, peeled and boiled
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
salt and pepper to taste
paprika to garnish
Halve eggs lengthwise. Remove yolks and place in bowl.
Mash yolks with fork and stir in mayonnaise, relish and mustard. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Fill egg whites evenly with yolk mixture, garnish with paprika.
If you tried to make this recipe and just took out the mayo, it wouldn't work. The egg yolks just get grainy when you mash them up- they need a binder. A binder is any ingredient that holds the other ingredients together. Like mayonnaise in a potato salad- it binds everything together so that your Aunt Sue can glop it all on your plate with one swift thwack of a wooden spoon every 4th of July. I wonder what mayo binds up in your stomach? Food for thought.
So if you take out the binder, you need to find something else that binds it instead. And I think I tweaked it enough to make it work just about the same. It paired perfectly with my Bloody Mary and Mario Kart. Here's my version, free of the mayo and of the southern accent:
7 large eggs, peeled and boiled
1 raw egg white, or 3 tablespoons egg whites from the carton
1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
salt and pepper to taste
paprika to garnish
I just subbed out the mayo for an egg white and olive oil and upped the mustard. And coming from someone who hates mustard too (I know- I'm SO weird! I don't get it either, it's just how my taste buds like to be treated), these deviled eggs were awesome. I also added some cayenne pepper to make them have a little bit of kick. Feeling creative? Try these ideas:
2. Add some chopped up sun dried tomatoes to the egg yolk mixture, and top them with crumbled goat cheese and fresh basil. It's your new dish for girls' night and they're all going to treat you like you just won Top Chef, except you don't have that annoying, overly-dramatic, TV-ready personality.
3. Add a heavy dash of chili powder, fresh cilantro, and a little bit of cooked, finely chopped bacon. Uh huh. It's magic. In your mouth. You're welcome.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Brown Eggs vs. White Eggs
Well, I can't, because that would make me a liar and no one likes a liar.
The only difference between brown eggs and white eggs is... da da dum.... they come from different breeds of hens. That's. It.
Yeah, sorry I just burst your bubble. But that's what I'm here for!
According to my friends at the American Egg Board, white eggs come from white feathered little ladies (with matching white ear lobes) called Single Comb White Leghorn hens, who happen to lay white eggs. Brown eggs come from red feathered little ladies called Rhode Island Red hens. Red hens also have matching red ear lobes. (They accessorize so well!) White hens happen to be smaller, so they eat less. This can sometimes make their production less expensive, so if you see a difference in price, that may be a factor. But it doesn't make their eggs taste any different, or mean that one is healthier than the other.
This all leads me to wonder a plethora of other egg related questions... do the Rhode Island Red hens have accents? Do they talk just like Lois and Peter Griffin? And what do the uniforms at the American Egg Board look like? I think a field trip might seriously be in order.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Help out the Cake Fraggles!
Dear Tricia, I was making a 3 level cake for my boyfriend's birthday, and decided to try and save some time by baking the whole thing in one bundt pan. I tried compensating for baking time, but after the cake mostly baked and cooled, the whole thing collapsed in the pan because there was some uncooked batter in the center. I ended up throwing out the whole thing and not making life any easier. Was there something I did wrong other than not baking it long enough? And in the future, what could I have done to salvage a dessert from a mostly (but not entirely) baked and collapsed cake? And also what are ways to convert 3-layer recipes into something less work intensive?
Wow, I'm impressed! I've never made a 3 level cake for anyone without it involving a paycheck. Not even my husband. (I got him beef jerky for Christmas though. Pretty sure that counts for something in the Awesome Department.)
Basically what you did wrong was put way too much batter in the pan- there was just no where for it to go. Let's imagine you're back to square one and you're making the recipe in 3 pans. Each pan has... let me think of something cute and memorable... Cake Fraggles. Right, each pan has 3 Cake Fraggles that do the heavy lifting and push the cake batter up to rise and become a fluffy delicious birthday treat. As the cake rises it uses the sides of the pan for some extra support while those Fraggles do the heavy lifting. Got that image in your head? Ok, now imagine taking all of the cake batter, putting it in 1 pan, and expecting just 3 Cake Fraggles to lift up 3 times as much weight. It's too heavy the cake isn't going anywhere- definitely not up. So now you've got 3 exhausted Cake Fraggles who have given up and are moving on to cocktails by now, and cake batter that is just going to sit and sit and sit. Even if you left the pan in the oven for an entire day, the outside would over bake and be a crispy hot mess before the inside came anywhere close to baking. It's too much mass in too small of a space to give you the same results.
I hope I didn't get too far out there with the Cake Fraggle references. In my mind they're adorable and magical and house trained.
So what to do with the mass of uncooked batter? If you're cool with eating potentially raw eggs**, I recommend mixing it in with ice cream or adding heavy cream and putting it in an ice cream maker for some cake batter ice cream. For the stuff that is baked, you cut it into pieces and put it in a bowl or a parfait glass (let's be serious, who owns parfait glasses?) or a martini glass and layer it with fruit and whipped cream for a ghetto version of a trifle. You can also blend it up into cake crumbs, and use that to garnish your next baked goodie (free of What the Bleep moments I hope) like on the top of cupcake frosting or on the side of a cake.
In the future, if you're wanting to make a smaller version of a tiered cake, you've got to make less batter, first and foremost. Take your recipe, cut the measurement of each ingredient in half and go from there. If you fill a pan with batter and the pan is more than 2/3 full, you're in trouble. I don't event like to fill the pan more than half full, but you know your recipe better than I do. You've got to have some room on the side of the pan for the cake to rise. Give the Cake Fraggles a break already.
**For anyone who says "You can't eat raw eggs! I'd never do that! It's gross!" I just want to remind you that, next time you're digging into the raw cookie dough/eating your feelings, guess what's included? Raw eggs. I doubt that knowing that will stop you next time either you flip-flopper.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Last One is a Rotten Egg!
Dear Tricia, Last month I bought 2 -18 count organic eggs around 6pm, put them in my trunk, came home, parked in my garage and forgot they were there… 2 hours later (ugh!!) I remembered and put them in my fridge. I ended up throwing them away, but hated doing it…would you think they’d be good still? I’ve heard that cooking with room temperature eggs is better anyway…how long is “room temperature” before you start letting it rot? Hate wasting food, but hate getting “wasted” more.
Good question! I understand your hatred for wasting food and money. Like I always say, nobody likes a waster. But unfortunately, I have news for you that puts you in the waster category. At 2 hours, your eggs were just fine. Insert sad face here.
What's funny to me about Americans (not that I'm not American, but I just notice that Americans seem to be especially concerned about refrigerating EVERYTHING) and their refrigeration habits, is that they think that anything left out at room temperature is going to go bad immediately. I know people who request ice to pack their groceries in for the 20 minute ride home, which seems a little ridiculous. Let's not forget that produce grows outside in the hot sun, and that eggs come from warm chicken lady holes.
In Europe, you'll usually find eggs at the grocery store out at room temperature, far away from the refrigerators. Their system of putting expiration dates on eggs is based on when the egg was laid, not when it left the farm like it is here in the States. So their guidelines on refrigeration are obviously different than ours, but you don't seen some crazy Egg Plague taking over Europe either. I've also seen eggs out at room temperature in Grenada, part of the British West Indies. I ate them and I was fine. No Egg Plague for me, I've avoided Salmonella, and have only gotten food poisoning from calamari and bad hockey arena food. (Ugh. Never again.)
"But what about eggs giving me Salmonella, Tricia?" Here's the deal with Salmonella: you don't get it from eating undercooked or spoiled eggs. A chicken has to already have Salmonella in their body in order to get Salmonella into the egg. It happens before the egg leaves their body, and before the egg even has a shell around it. And even then, if you boiled the egg, you'd cook the Salmonella right out of it. It's not like an automatic thing that magically happens if you leave an egg out and then it just gets Salmonella. That would be some form of crazy ninja bacteria that doesn't exist yet. But ideally, that's why you're not supposed to eat raw eggs. And people are usually good about that until it comes to eating raw cookie dough. Then it doesn't seem to matter anymore, does it?
Here's my humble opinion... that's why you're here, right? According to the Egg Safety Center (eggsafety.org), you can only leave eggs out for 2 hours at room temperature before they are unsafe. And frankly I think that's a load of crap. A humongous pile of steaming crap, covered in Salmonella. Especially because the health department and food safety books will tell you that you have a 4 hour window. There's no set standard, just a lot of overly cautious, super litigious people who are afraid you might get sick and then sue them. Do you want to avoid eating room temperature eggs if you're like 98 years old with pneumonia, or you have the immune system of an AIDS patient? Probably. But for most of us... its fine. Every bakery and restaurant I've ever worked in leaves eggs out at room temperature all day. I've written about this before when I talked about how room temperature eggs are best used in baking. And you were just fine after you ate that delicious piece of Red Velvet cake that I baked.
Now would you use those eggs to make cookies if you cracked them open and they smelled rotten? No, of course not. You always want to use your best judgment when it comes to food safety, and you can read more about that here. So remember to use your eyes, nose, and brain. And when you go to Italy and eat that fritatta at breakfast that is oh-so-delicioso... just remember that those eggs didn't ever see a refrigerator.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Easy, Cracker!
So I'm going back to an oldie but a goodie again, but for two very good reasons that all happened yesterday. Yesterday morning while my fiance was making me some post-birthday hangover eggs, he asked me for help on how to crack an egg without getting shell in it. And then last night while I was up late obsessing over this cool new show called Future Food, I saw an infomercial for a product called the EZ Cracker. It's a little plastic contraption of sorts that cracks an egg for you without getting the shell in it. Here's what they claim:
EZ Cracker is the new and easy way to crack and separate eggs. It cracks eggs, separates egg whites, and strip shells from hard boiled eggs in just seconds. Now you can enjoy eggs without any mess or hassles. You no longer have to worry about tiny pieces of egg shells getting into your food.
Right, because I stay up late at night, losing sleep, worrying about tiny egg shells in my food.
One of the first questions I received when I started this blog, was "What's the proper way to crack an egg? I always get pieces of shell in mine." I'm going to rewrite that blog here so that you can learn how to crack an egg with your own two hands, like a big boy, without having to shell out $20 bucks (Pun Alert!) for a plastic piece of shit that sounds like its a large African American man, yelling at me. "Easy, cracker!!"
1. Use a FLAT surface to crack the egg. If you use the lip of a bowl or the corner of the counter top, the edge just causes more unnecessary breakage that create tiny broken pieces of shell. What you're trying to do is create one simple broken line so that you can put your thumbs in there and open up the egg. You don't want to smash the daylights out of it. Then you'll look like one of the stroke victims in the commercial who act like they only learned hand-eye coordination yesterday. So just tap the egg on a flat counter, and put your thumbs in the crack to open up the shell. Easy peasy.
2. Don't be an idiot and bang things against the egg like in the commercial. Seriously, don't. The "actor" (I wonder how much she got paid) was banging a fork against an egg and it cracked all over the place and made a mess. Its just you, the egg, and a counter top. Leave the foreign objects out of it. (And why a fork?? Why not something substantial, like a meat tenderizer or something?)
3. If you get shells in your egg, use a big piece of shell to get the little pieces out. I know, it tempting to stick your fingers in there and chase that piece of shell around for like 10 minutes because "I can grab it, just wait a second," but swallow your pride and use a piece of shell. It works the fastest, every time.
4. If you're baking something and you have to add eggs to a recipe, crack the eggs in their own bowl first. Then if there's any shell in it, you can pick them out first before you add them to your Aunt Tillie's morning glory muffins. If you try breaking an egg over the side of a bowl (that's your first mistake. I said to use a flat surface.) to add them right into your recipe mix, you're probably going to get shells in everything, especially if you're new at this whole cracking of the eggs dilemma. And then you'll be digging around the batter trying to find a piece of shell, when you could have followed my advice and cracked the eggs in their own bowl.
5. To peel boiled eggs, all you need to do is put those eggs in a bowl of ice water as soon as they're done cooking. I swear by this trick. Its called "shocking" the eggs. Let them chill in the water until cold and they'll take off their shells like they were on "Huevos Gone Wild."
6. To separate egg whites from the yolk, crack the egg on a flat surface. But then, when you break open the shell with your thumbs, keep the egg in the biggest of the two shell halves. If you tip the shell and jiggle it around a little, the white will pour off the side and leave the yolk in the shell. If that's too difficult, you can break the egg into a bowl, and then use one of the shell halves to scoop the yolk out.
** My Aunt read this entry and emailed me, reminding me that you can use your fingers to separate eggs. You can crack the egg into your hand, an let the white slip through your fingers while the yolk stays in your hand. While she's right, one of my mentors in a restaurant I worked at wouldn't let me do this. We saved all of our whites to make meringue and she insisted that the oil on our hands could interfere with how fluffy the eggs would whip up. Since her resume is WAY more impressive than mine, I've never been able to use my hands to separate eggs since.**
So, to sum up, you have to trust your own two hands here. If you create one simple crack in that egg, let your thumbs do the work and just pull the egg apart. You don't have to get violent. Because, as much as I love cool kitchen gadgets, I do not love unnecessary ones that waste your money. (Although I'm sure an arthritic old lady could benefit from an EZ Cracker, but she's in a very small minority.) I'm sure you could use that $20 for something much better, even if you really want the Bacon Wave that comes as a free bonus gift. Call me old fashioned, but we got along fine without it until now (and the Bump It... and the iPad...), so I think you'll survive if you just learn how to break eggs with your own two hands like a real man. Or woman. And I'm looking at you, Rachael Ray.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel, I Made You Out of Egg...
I got a voicemail from a friend the other day asking me if I knew how to tell a hard boiled egg from a raw egg without cracking the shell. He knew, and of course I knew (because I know everything and am the smartest woman alive), but he was with someone who didn't know. I was caught a little off guard by this. I posted a poll on my What the Bleep fan page on Facebook (Have you checked it out yet?) to find out who else knew... and everyone knew. I assumed it was this thing we all learned in 1st grade science, or maybe on 3-2-1 Contact! for those of you Gen X-ers, but apparently I was wrong. Some are still in the dark. Let me turn the light on for you.
When an egg is raw, the yolk and white are still in their liquid form. Obviously. You can shake the egg, roll it around the counter top, whatever... and the yolk and white will be able to move around inside of the shell. When you boil the egg, the white expands briefly before it finishes cooking and the cooked yolk stays put inside of the white. In their solid forms, they are stuck in place and can't move around.
If you stand a hard boiled egg up on its butt- the bigger end- and spin it like a top, it will spin for like ever. If you do the same to a raw egg, it will just wobble and fall over because the liquid insides are moving around and making the egg lose its balance. This is the trick. Just spin the egg like a top (or a dreidel, if you're Lexi) and see if it keeps spinning or if it falls. Simple as that. And if you didn't know this, I'd send an email to your school board and ask them why they never taught you the stuff you really needed to know in elementary science. Jerks.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Its a Nice Day for a White Wedding Cake
Dear Tricia, How can I make WHITE white cake? Can I bake with the yolks? Do I have to separate them?
I'm going to refer back to an older blog from last winter about how to get white butter frosting:
OK friend, easy answer. Your icing turned yellow because half the ingredients in your recipe are YELLOW. The only way to fix this is to use icing with no yellow ingredients, or perhaps one of the following:
1. Learn to breed albino cows that make white butter with their milk.
2. Use only egg whites, or even better... use the white shell too for extra whitening. Hell, throw in some whitening toothpaste while you're at it. And a dash of Oxy Clean!
3. Re-construct the color spectrum so that our eyes see yellow as white. I see this one as the most feasible option.
For real though, anytime you want white icing, you're going to have to use mostly shortening as the fat because it's white. Even with butter cream icing, and listen up brides because this is directed at you, you'll never get solid white frosting because butter cream has BUTTER in it. It is yellow. It is not white and it never will be. (Although I've seen some crazy mothers of brides get away with some crazy stuff... maybe one of them will figure out how to change the color spectrum.)
This question is along those same lines, but on a less-extreme level that I promise I will judge you much less for. I think I might have been having a bad day when i wrote that.
You can't get white cake that is truly white if you add a bunch of whole eggs because yolks are- you guessed it- yellow. So the goal here is to add as few yellow ingredients as possible, or a large amount of whipped egg whites to offset the color. Think of angel food cake and how virginal white it is: the main ingredients are sugar, egg whites, flour, which are all white. However, those ingredients don't make for a very sturdy cake... Angel food cake would be like the Michael Jackson of cakes: super frail and white. But if you're looking for a sturdier (isn't it weird that "sturdier" is a real word? I think its weird.) cake that is less squishy and more suitable for decorating, you're going to have to add a few extra ingredients that will also make it less white, like whole eggs or butter, and that's ok, as long as the white stuff is the main ingredient.
Here's a recipe for a basic white chiffon cake with the whole egg, but you separate the whites from the yolks and beat them separately. It involves a few more steps than your average cake recipe, but if you can master it, is a traditional cake recipe that you will be able to use forever. When I was in pastry school, this was the type of cake we used for our basic white wedding cakes. It does have a fair amount of butter, but because of all the egg whites you're using, it will still be pretty white. My favorite recipe is from the Fanny Farmer Baking Book, but I've made some modifications to it.
1- 10' Cake
2 1/4 cups cake flour*
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
6 egg yolks
3/4 cup water
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
8 egg whites
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
1. Combine the flour, 3/4 cup of the sugar, baking powder, salt, and sift them together into a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the oil, egg yolks, water, and vanilla and beat until completely smooth.
3. In a separate large mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until they begin to foam. Slowly add the remaining 3/4 cup sugar and beat until the whites are stiff. **
4. Gently stir in 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter.
5. Drop the remaining whites on the batter and fold them in.
6. Pour into ungreased cake pan with parchment paper on the bottom.***
Bake until top is golden brown and the middle springs back when you press it with your finger. If you're using my oven, that's 25-30 minutes, but it could take way less in yours. Stop letting your oven timer rule your life and just check it every now and until for golden color and to test it with your finger.
*Refer to my "Hyper Hypo Loves Christmas Cookies" blog entry on why you should use cake flour instead of all purpose flour.
** Refer to my "Diana Ross, Daryl Hannah, and Your Meringue" blog entry on more tips for whipping super fluffy egg whites.
*** If you grease the pan, the batter won't have anything to grab on to as it rises. When its done, use a butter knife to loosen the cake from the sides of the pan and turn it upside down on a rack to cool.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Diana Ross, Daryl Hannah, and Your Meringue
Dear Tricia, The meringue on my key lime pie always weeps. Why does that keep happening?
I'm going to go back to one of my older blogs about egg whites and re-teach it here today because this is an email I frequently receive. Plus the original blog entry was really about why you add cream of tartar to play dough, so it might have been a little round-about. Before we begin, I want to point out to the non-bakers that meringue is a fluffy topping made out of egg whites and sugar. You whip them up until the egg whites turn from goopy clear stuff into a billowing cloud of solid white awesomeness. You just beat the egg whites and sugar together, right? No, not exactly.
Its common for meringues to "weep", or start to fall and leak out water. This is because when you whip egg whites, you're "coagulating" the protein in the eggs, which is a fancy pants term for protein bonding with other protein. When the proteins bond together, they hold in all the water that is floating around the meringue. If the proteins aren't doing that properly, the water will find a way to leak out, or "weep."
Under a microscope, egg whites are tiny strands of tightly wound protein. They look like a big mess of little corkscrew-y, spring-y shapes. Actually, they look a lot like Diana Ross' hair, post 1980. In order to get the egg whites to expand and turn into a fluffy meringue, you have to get them to straighten out. When they're fully expanded, they'll look like long waves of protein, triple the size of the corkscrew ones. If we're comparing apples to apples, the fully expanded protein will be shaped more like Daryl Hannah's mermaid hair in "Splash," all long and loose and wavy. If Daryl Hannah's mermaid hair is going to hold in water and actually remain stable, there are a few things you have to do:
1. Add about a half teaspoon of cream of tartar while you begin beating the eggs. Cream of tartar is like hair spray for Darryl Hannah's hair. If the proteins are bonding with all the other proteins, cream of tartar will make sure they stay bonded.*
2. Use room temperature eggs. Egg whites can be like demanding Hollywood actors: they have all their requests for how big they want their trailer, what kind of food they'll eat, who their co workers are, before they can do their job the best way they know how. Egg whites demand to be room temperature before they'll whip up into a meringue. It works better than using cold whites, so let them come to room temperature before you start whipping them. And no, leaving the egg whites out won't make you sick. A lot of bakeries, if they know what they're doing, leave egg whites out all the time for this exact reason.
3. Don't just turn the mixer on high and expect the whites to instantly fluff up. You have to gently persuade the proteins to unwind. Imagine trying to style Diana Ross' hair into Daryl Hannah's hair: you wouldn't just put a comb in at her scalp and pull, would you? No, that would probably break some of her hair off. Protein will also break if you just start whipping it as hard as you can. Start off by turning the speed on low for a few minutes. Let the whites loosen up a little and then turn it up to medium for a few minutes. Then move into high speed to finish off.
4. Don't dump all the sugar in at the beginning. As if trying to get the proteins to coagulate isn't hard enough, you're adding an extra ingredient to it that can get in the way. After you turn the mixer speed up to medium, wait for the eggs to start to get foamy. Then, and only then can you start to slooooowly add the sugar. How slow? You want to still be adding sugar to it right before the meringue is finished. This just makes sure that while the proteins are bonding with each other, the sugar doesn't interfere too much.
So, to summarize, be gentle with the egg whites, keep them at room temperature, and don't dump the sugar in at once. Got it? Avoid being rough, cold, and dumpy. In meringues and in life.
*Harold McGee's book, "On Food and Cooking," (also known as my Bible) recommends adding 1/16 teaspoon of cream of tartar per egg white.
Monday, June 29, 2009
You say Omelet, I say... Omelette.
Dear Tricia, I need you to settle a bet. How do you really spell omelet? Is it "omelet," or "omelette?"
I hope you haven't said any regrettable words during this spelling argument because you're both right: it is correctly spelled either way. Its more common to see "omelet" on American menus and "omelette" on French menus, but because French food is fused into lots of American dining, you'll see "omelette" make an appearance on plenty of American menus too. Deciding how to spell it for yourself just depends on how pompous you want to portray yourself as. If you have a mustache, I'd recommend the French spelling.
Originally, the spelling "omelette" belonged to the French; they named it in the mid 1500's way before America was even happening. But when Americans decided to start making omelets, they changed the spelling, because the English language likes to make everything harder than it needs to be.
When you look up "omelet" on Wikipedia, it immediately takes you to the page titled "Omelette," so it may be proper to lean more towards the French spelling. But when have you ever been proper? (I know my readers probably don't fall into that category.) Or perhaps Wikipedia is run by little Frenchies, which is just fine, because Wikipedia happens to do great things for the world, like not letting Scientologists edit their own page on the site. Thanks, Wikipedia.
Also, when I spellchecked this, the french spelling, omelette, came up as incorrect. Again, more proof that either way could be correct.
Other fun facts about omelets:
The Cambodian version of an omelet is called Bi pong moun. Try using that one in a sentence today.
In Japan, the omelet is "Tamagoyaki." But they also came up with a version of it called "Omurice," (and NO, I did not make that up. It really is a combination of the words "omelet" and "rice.") that is an omelet filled with rice and served with a lot of ketchup. I'd like to know who's eaten one of those so I can give them a big hug. Or a slap on the face... I haven't decided yet.
The Iowa Egg Council has a website (www.iowaegg.org) where they give you directions on how to make an omelet in the microwave. Personally, I'm more concerned on why there is even a Council for Eggs, let alone one in Iowa, than I am about the weirdness of a microwave omelet.
In 1994, Japan held the record for making the biggest omelet in the world, but it has since been beaten by Canada, who made an omelet weighing in at 2.95 Tons in 2002. Leave it up to North America to show Japan that yes, bigger is indeed better.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Dwarf Eggs and Crack
Dear Tricia, Sometimes on shows I see chefs carefully pouring eggs into a pan like they're trying to get the yolk and just a little bit of white. The visual result is a little "mini" egg where the yolk is half or more the diameter of the entire cooked result. Is this just some silly fanciness or is there a point and trick to it? I've heard it's better to crack an egg on a flat surface as opposed to a lip, what do you think?
Honestly? Its silly fanciness. The people who made up that trick are the ones who will serve you "roasted leg of songbird with aspirin sauce," as David Sedaris puts it. If you're referring to something you've seen on "Hells Kitchen," then I don't know what you're talking about. For some reason, when people find out I work in a restaurant kitchen, they always ask if I watch that show. I have NEVER watched that show. I live it every single day of my life. I'd rather spend my rare hours with the TV watching "Labyrinth" and examining David Bowie's spandex. But if you're referring to something you saw on "Top Chef," then its just an episode I've missed. Did I ever mention that I used to drink beers with Marcel, one of the early seasons' villian-esque competitors? His hair isn't really that weird looking. He's also not quite as villiany as he appears on the tube. But once again, I digress.
If you'd like to recreate the silly fancy small-white egg trick (and I don't know why you'd want to), just take your egg and separate the white and the yolk. The easiest way to do this is to crack the egg in half (more about that in a few. Be patient.) and keep it in the shell. Keep it over a bowl to drop the white into and just shift the yolk back and forth between the two egg halves until the white drops off into the bowl. The yolk will naturally have some of the white still attached to it and you can cook it as such.
As I was asking my fellow crazies (ahem, I mean... fellow colleagues) at work about this "mini egg" dilemma, none of them had ever heard of it. Their immediate response was, "Is he referring to a quail egg?" which are tiny eggs that fry just like regular chicken eggs, but obviously come from quail. Sounds like you're asking about something different, but I just wanted to put that out there. If you want tiny eggs, you may be able to special order quail eggs from a specialty grocer (like the ones who ruthlessly fired me... Whole Foods.... you know who you are...).
Now, about cracking eggs. As I've stated before, it's all about what works for YOU. There really is no "proper" way to crack eggs, you just have to be mindful if you get some shell in there. I have found that in my years of cooking breakfast for a living (I'm guessing 20,000 eggs?), cracking eggs is much more successful on a flat surface, as opposed to the corner of the kitchen counter. But if you've found that the opposite works for you, then stick with that. I'm not going to tell you what's right or wrong. Try them both. Pick which one's better. Problem solved. Also, you may want to crack your eggs into a bowl before you put them into a pan, just in case you break a yolk and wanted it to be whole.
Another tip: the easiest way to get pieces of broken shell out of your eggs is to use... an eggshell. It cuts right through the white and picks up said broken shell much faster than using your fingers. I've tried to be smarter than the eggshell so many times but I just ended up chasing the tiny bit of shell around with my fingers for like 10 minutes. Allow me to make that mistake for you and just go with the eggshell on eggshell method.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Elusive Poached Egg
Dear Tricia, I swear I cook more things than just eggs, but I need help on how to poach those bad boys?
I used to have a huge fear of poaching eggs. Like being in jail or working in a cubicle, I was certain it was something I just wouldn't be any good at. Then I started working in a hotel where I made the breakfast everyday, so poaching and I were forced to become friends. It's easier than you think.
To start off, bring a pot of water to boil. You're actually going to poach the eggs at about 180 degrees, but go ahead and bring it a boil and you can turn it down later. Add some salt to the water (I hope you've read enough of my blogs to realize how passionate I am about adding salt to everything. Maybe that's why I drink dirty martinis too. Curious.) and you'll also need to add about a tablespoon of white vinegar. Vinegar is so important when it comes to poaching because it helps the egg keep its shape in the water. (Read the "How did Diana Ross' Hair get into my Eggs?" post for more information on that fancy word called "coagulation.")
So while you're waiting for the water to heat up, crack the egg into a small bowl or ladle. You do this just to make sure that the yolk isn't broken. If it is, use another egg and save the first one for throwing at your nosy ass neighbor who's always peeking over the fence. When your water comes to a boil, turn down the temperature so that the water isn't moving around. Small bubbles on the bottom of the pan are just fine, but make sure it doesn't come back up to a boil. If the water is moving too much, it'll just tear up the egg and you're back at step one. On the other hand, if the water is too cool, the white and the yolk will try to separate before they can cook, so don't be a baby about turning the temperature down either. If you have a cooking thermometer, you can use that in the water to make sure you're somewhere around 180.
Then comes the fun: take a spoon and start swirling the water around in one direction. You're going to make a little whirlpool and drop the egg into the center of it. That helps the egg whites start to wrap around themselves and again, keep their shape. You may want to turn down the temperature again, just to make sure it isn't coming close to boiling. Seriously, the second your water starts to boil, you're not poaching: you're boiling. Obviously. So be mindful of the temperature. The egg should be done in a couple of minutes: When the white starts to solidify and isn't translucent anymore, its done. If you have a slotted spoon, use that to take the egg out of the water to drain it easier. A perfectly poached egg has a white that gives easily to a fork or spoon and the yolk is still very runny but warm.
There's also special pans you can buy meant specifically for poaching eggs. If you like to eat poached eggs often, I'd recommend buying one because they're so convenient and make it impossible to mess up.
I'm a fan of the poached egg. Its one of my comfort foods: when I was having a semi-nervous breakdown last year, I once ate 9 of them in one sitting. Yes, I said 9. Don't judge me! What, you've never eaten your feelings before?
For a video lesson on poaching, there's plenty of videos on youtube, but my favorite is on wikihow.com because the guy has an Irish accent.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Alotta Frittata
Dear Tricia, What's a fritatta? I saw it on a menu but it seemed just like a quiche. Are they the same?
You're asking the queen of breakfast-making the ultimate question. No seriously, I used to make breakfast for a living when I was running a little hotel kitchen for a couple of years and I learned everything about my favorite meal of the day. That's also where I met some of my favorite celebrities and got to see them up close and personal, first thing in the morning. Thank god for photoshop, or those people wouldn't have a career.
A fritatta is different than a quiche for a couple of reasons. A quiche is basically an egg custard with cheese and other fillings that gets baked in a pie crust. It's made with about half milk and half eggs so it has a very non-eggy, light consistency. A frittata is eggs that are cooked in a pan with fillings as well. But you scramble up the eggs and fillings until its halfway cooked, and then let it finish cooking in the oven or under a broiler until the top is golden brown. No pie crust required.
A fritatta is basically the Italian version of an omelette, but without all the fancy flipping and folding that those fancy pants French prefer. Not that I'm anti-French or anything, I just prefer to use the quicker option so that I can spend more time doing more important things like exercising. 6 ounce mimosa curls usually do the trick.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The devil and his eggs
Dear Tricia, I love deviled eggs, but I can't hard boil an egg to save my life! They always crack or are under cooked. Mom says bring the water to a boil with the eggs in it. Grandma says she's a soulless atheist who shouldn't have married her son, and that I should boil water drop them in, and then turn off the heat. No matter what I do my eggs and family dynamic still make me cry. Can I get some help here? If you could throw in some bonus deviled egg tips too that would be sweet, and probably piss of my overly religious grandma - she hate the devil and all of his finger foods.
Who doesn't love deviled eggs?? Someone un-American, that's who. When you bring a tray of deviled eggs to a party, you're going to be the most popular person there. It's true! 8 out of 10 doctors agreed on it. The other two doctors were probably educated in El Salvador or something. Let's get down to it.
In honor of one of my personal heroes, Bill Nye the Science Guy, I took your dilemma to my test kitchen (also known as my parent's kitchen) to do some hard boiled experimenting. I boiled 5 different eggs using 5 different times and methods, including the atheist's method and Jesus Christ's BFF's method. Every egg was boiled in 3 cups of salted water with the heat on High. My first instinct was that I have been over-boiling my eggs all along because your mom and grandma's methods didn't involve much boiling time. However, there were some surprising results that I'll touch on in a minute.
1. Jesus' BFF's method of dropping the egg in boiling water and turning off the heat for 10 minutes yielded a a very soft white and a runny yolk: basically a soft-boiled egg.
2. The atheist's method of bringing the water to a boil with the egg in it (I pulled out the egg when the water came to a boil) also yielded a runny white and egg yolk. I tried this two ways:
3. The third method was similar to the atheist's method of bringing the water to a boil with the egg in it, but I let it boil for 5 minutes. The yolk was much closer to being cooked, but still not firm enough to devil.
4. I brought the water to a boil, put the egg in for 5 minutes, and then pulled it out. The white was firm but the yolk was still soft... similar to the method number three.
5. My original way of boiling eggs: let the water boil, put the egg in for 10 minutes, turn off the heat and let it sit for 5 minutes. The end product was a hard boiled egg with a firm yolk.
Since method five worked best for deviling eggs, this just re-establishes the facts that I know what I'm talking about so more people should be reading this blog, and that I might be the smartest woman alive.
I also realized that letting the water come up to a boil with the egg in it doesn't give that different of results than if you put the egg in boiling water; what makes a difference is how long you keep the egg in the water once its boiling.
Okay, now let's talk about cracking eggs. My dad said that's why he always let the water come to a boil with the egg in it; that it was less of a shock to the egg's cold temperature. This might be the reason why the atheist is doing the same thing. However, I've never had a problem with cracked eggs going directly into boiling water, BUT I SALT THE WATER, just like when cooking pasta. I also gently lower the egg into the water with a spoon so that it doesn't collide with the bottom of the pan and crack. So, salt the water and that may eliminate the cracking. I have no science to back this up: only experience, and I think experience would win in a cage match against science.
Also, when you pull the egg out of the water, put it in a bowl of ice water. This helps the shell come off easier. The most basic deviled egg recipe is my favorite: it'll taste like Jesus' BFF made it. There are more elaborate recipes online that involve all kinds of spices and fillings, but this one is a classic.
Cut 12 boiled eggs in half and mash up the yolks with:
4 Tablespoons mayonnaise
2 Tablespoons mustard
2 Tablespoons relish
salt and pepper to taste
Paprika to garnish
Spoon the mixture onto each egg white. Sprinkle the paprika on each egg. Enjoy your new found popularity, even if you're not so popular in grandma's eyes anymore.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Eggs that make you say "Eww"
Dear Tricia, Eggs. I need to know everything about eggs. How do I never get that white ewwwww on the bottom of my pan? How do I flip an egg? Enlighten me.
Eggs happen to be my favorite food of all time. You can make them a million ways, they're cheap, and easy to cook. I once accidentally went vegetarian, basically because I was on a really tight budget, and eggs made it totally do-able.
OK, so the reason why you're getting the white "ewwww" on the bottom of your pan is because eggs are made of 2 parts: the fatty part (yolk) and the protein part (the white.) When I say fatty, I mean good fat: egg yolks are full of lecithin and other good fats that keep your healthy cholestorol doing its job well, and it makes your skin and hair nice. The white is a completely digestible protein that, at only about 15 calories a pop, is a dieter's perfect food. However, unless there's butter or oil in the pan, the protein part will stick to the pan and make a mess, just like if you tried cooking chicken in a pan without butter or oil. So first and foremost, use butter, oil, or nonstick spray. I'm a fan of non-stick pans for cooking eggs because they're easier to clean, but you should still use some oil to keep the whites from making the layer of ewwww on the bottom. Also, if your nonstick pan is scratched or chipped, your eggs will stick. Get a new pan, and hand wash it with a non-metallic scrubby to keep it clean and scratch free.
Second, make sure your pan is nice and hot before you put the oil/butter/nonstick spray in the pan. I have no scientific reason for this; I do, however, have a 10 year career in kitchens, and the rule is, was, and always will be: Let your pan get hot and then put your oil in. I have many a mean chefs who would surely come hunt me down and cut off my hands if I told you any different. Seriously.
So, we have a hot, nonstick pan, and then we're putting our oil (or butter, or nonstick spray, blah blah blah... you get the point) in the pan. Let the oil get hot, and then add your beat-up eggs. Make sure you beat it well before they hit the pan. Beat it. Beat it. No one wants to be defeated.... It's ok to take a Michael Jackson dance break during this part. I do it all the time.
The best tool for cooking eggs and getting them to not stick is a rubber spatula. That's the flexible kind that you usually use for baking when you scrape down the sides of the bowl. Seriously, get a rubber spatula if you don't have one. They're awesome. So when you're cooking your eggs in the hot pan that you added oil to after it got hot, just use the spatula to gently move the eggs around on to keep them from sticking. You don't need to angrily stir the eggs until they're all broken up and the size of peas. Just move them around enough to keep the bottom from getting covered in egg ewwww.
For flipping eggs, start out again, with a hot pan, and then add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the eggs. Let the eggs sit there and cook. Don't try to move them around until the whites start to become a solid colored white and not all snot-like. Really, just let the eggs cook without disturbing them. Once they're white, gently use your trusty rubber spatula to work your way under the eggs to loosen them from the pan. The more the egg cooks, the easier it will be, so if you're just breaking the egg up and making a mess, that means you need to let it cook a little longer. Once the egg is completely loosened up from the pan and slides around on its own, use a regular spatula (like the kind you use for flipping pancakes) and scoop up the eggs to flip them over. If you're a risk-taker (or a masochist, or if you just like to clean), you can certainly use a little wrist-flipping action and no spatula to flip the eggs in the air like a professional, but if its your first try, have another couple of eggs ready to cook after you completely miss and the eggs land on the floor. Ewww not included, of course.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
How did Diana Ross' hair get in my eggs?
What the hell is cream-of-tartar? Why do I have to put it in my kid’s homemade play dough?
This is my favorite kind of question because I totally geek out over food science and chemistry. I got kicked out of high school chemistry every day, but once I learned how much chemistry was involved in food, I got interested again. But I digress.
So, cream of tartar, is the solid salt form of tartaric acid. It is naturally occurring and is used in baking and candy making quite a bit.
For your kid’s homemade play dough, first of all, you’re totally super-mom if you’re making your own play dough. So congrats on that. The cream of tartar keeps the salt from crystallizing. Without that, the play dough gets grainy. I think that it makes the play dough taste like play dough too, but I’m not positive: I just guessed that because I checked and “magic play dough flavor” isn’t in the ingredient list.
For meringues, when you are beating egg whites, the egg whites have to “denature” in order to stand up straight and make foam. Here’s a visual for denaturing: Imagine Diana Ross’ hair. Under a microscope, that’s what egg whites look like before they are whipped: lots of tight little curly masses that don’t want to loosen up. When they denature, they loosen up and start to look like Darryl Hannah’s mermaid hair in “Splash,” very loose and wavy. As you keep whipping the egg whites, imagine Darryl’s mermaid hairs all starting to hold hands and stay together. Its cream of tartar’s job to make sure everyone is holding hands really tight and don’t let go. Cream of tartar is like the hair gel in Darryl Hannah’s mermaid hair. When you don’t add cream of tartar to your egg whites, you may notice it start to “weep” or fall. That’s when you get a lot of liquid at the bottom of the bowl and your meringue starts to droop and look really sad. Adding a 1/8 tsp of cream of tartar will prevent it.
In candy making, cream of tartar keeps your sugar crystals from joining together and making a hot mess in your pan. Unlike denaturing, where you want the eggs to hold hands and stay together, in candy making you don’t want sugar crystals to join together. But that’s really hard when sugar crystals are naturally attracted to each other. Seriously, they just can’t stay away from each other… don’t leave them alone for the weekend or you’re asking for it. In this case, cream of tartar “inverts” sugar, or just breaks it down into its basic form so that it can’t run and join the neighboring sugar crystal for a party.
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