EPTFun with Eggs
Introduction
...Specifically, eggs of the chicken. Most people will agree that chicken periods are considerably more palatable than human periods. Furthermore, they are cheaper. Requests for human egg donors in the classified section of newspapers often offer thousands of dollars for a single egg.
This blog entry isn't as much about egg dishes as it is about what you can do with eggs. The first dish is a broccoli and tomato salad with home made mayonnaise. The second dish is a cherry clafoutis. Both dishes use eggs in a supporting role, but the eggs are critical enough that the dishes will not work without them.
If you hate eggs, this is not the blog for you. And shame on you for hating on eggs.
Module 1: Tomato and Broccoli Salad
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RDwoc.jpg)
What came first, the chicken or the egg? The chicken, of course. Eggs can't come.
Prep Time: ~30 minutes
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
1 lb broccoli
1 lb tomatoes
1/3 cup grated parmesan
1 tbsp salt
Mayonnaise
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup dijon mustard
2/3 cup oil*
1/2 tbsp salt**
1/4 tbsp pepper (white pepper if you want consistent coloring)
1 1/2 tbsp wine vinegar or lemon juice
*Typically you will want to use a neutral tasting oil. I used half olive oil and half vegetable (sunflower) oil. Pure olive oil will have too strong a flavor for making mayonnaise.
**I tend to under-salt my dressings and my food in general. You might wish to up this to a full tablespoon.
Cooking
Bring about two quarts (2 liters) of water to a boil in a pot with 1 tablespoon of salt. Meanwhile, cut your broccoli into bite-sized pieces.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cxQfo.jpg)
I bet you can't spot the egg in this picture.
Blanch the broccoli (which means to cook something briefly in boiling water) for about a minute, keeping the heat on high. When you first put the broccoli into the water, it may cause the water to stop boiling. The water should come back to a rolling boil before the minute is up. This will quickly cook the broccoli until it is slightly tender, but the broccoli should still retain some of its crispiness.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pfD9A.jpg)
Just kidding, there weren't any eggs in the previous picture.
Lift your broccoli out of the water and let it cool in a colander. Do not dump the hot water yet. As the broccoli cool, you can start on your mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is quite easy to make, but also easy to screw up if you do not pay attention. Crack open an egg and separate the yolk and the white. Discard the white. Deposit the egg yolk in a medium sized bowl. Add the mustard. Mustard is a good emulsifier, which means it will help bind the oil to the egg yolk.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1xp6U.jpg)
Salmonella? Never heard of her. Is she hot?
Whisk the mustard and the egg yolk together while holding the bowl over the hot water. You will want to bring the two to room temperature without overcooking the eggs, so check the bottom of your bowl every now and then to make sure that it is not too hot. Oftentimes mayonnaise recipes will tell you to use "room temperature eggs", and this is the best and safest way to bring eggs to room temperature. Simply leaving egg outside for a few hours will "age" the egg significantly and it will be considerably less fresh than if you used the method described here.
Once the yolk and mustard mixture is well whisked and at room temperature, you are ready to make mayonnaise. Have your oil ready at hand and add ONLY a few drops to the yolk. The key to mayonnaise is to start adding oil very slowly. If you add oil too quickly, the mayonnaise will never form and you will have to restart.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ILRRL.jpg)
The mayonnaise starts out yellow and becomes paler over time. As a Chinese living in the United States, that's the story of my life right there.
Whisk the few drops of oil into the yolk until it is smooth and uniform. Add a bit more oil this time, and whisk the oil in. Continue to add oil, increasing the increments each time, and whisk the oil completely into the mayonnaise before continuing on.
Whisk until all the oil has been incorporated. Now you can season the mayonnaise. Add salt and pepper, and vinegar or lemon juice for acidity.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ULCn3.jpg)
The primordial ooze of French food
The time for salad assembly is now. Cut your tomatoes into bite-sized pieces. Throw in parmesan and toss your vegetables together with the mayonnaise (add as much as you need). Serve right away, or refrigerate and serve chilled.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TCvVR.jpg)
If Idra never gg's, then does that mean eggs are just e--s to him?
Module 2: Cherry Clafoutis
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OK4bE.jpg)
A custard had sex with a flan once upon a time. The flan got pregnant and gave birth to the clafoutis.
Adapted from Julia Child's recipe
Prep time: ~1 hour
Serves 3-4
Makes 1 8-inch cast-iron pan
2 cups ripe cherries*
5/6 cup milk (or part milk, part cream)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tbsp vanilla eggstract
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
butter, for buttering pan
1 tbsp powdered sugar
You will also need: a vessel which is both stove-top and oven-safe, such as a cast iron pan.
*The traditional dessert can be made with either apricots or cherries (pitted or not). I used unpitted bing cherries, which allegedly gives a more intense flavor. You can either pit the cherries, or use pitted canned cherries. Drain the canned cherries of syrup before use.
Cooking
A clafoutis is like a mix between a flan and a custard. It can be eaten either as a dessert or for breakfast. It is fast and easy to make. First, pre-heat your oven to 350F (175C) sift your flour into a bowl. Add eggs to the flour and mix together into a thick, yellowy batter.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sv2RS.jpg)
Chopsticks, so named because they are excellent tools for chopping objects. If you disagree, it means your kungfu is weak.
Add sugar, mix thoroughly again, then add the milk slowly while mixing to avoid lumps. Add salt and finally vanilla extract. You should end up with a very thin batter.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xGN6P.jpg)
If you stir 13 times counter-clockwise using your feet while doing a handstand underneath a ladder with a black cat as witness, a unicorn will appear and grant you one wish.
Prepare your cherries however you want them to end up in the clafoutis. Butter your pan. Turn the heat to medium on the stove top and place your pan on the stove. Pour a thin layer of batter into the pan, just enough to cover the bottom. Heat the bottom just enough for the layer to thicken slightly, then pull the pan from the heat. Place all of your cherries into the pan in a single layer and pour the rest of the batter into the pan.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mcNGZ.jpg)
This clafoutis just got clafruity.
Stick the clafoutis into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes. Check in at about 40 minutes. Once the edges are puffed and brown, and a knife stuck into the center comes out clean, the clafoutis is ready. Dust with powdered sugar and serve at room temperature.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CDsvV.jpg)
Don't forget to warn people about the cherry pits when you serve this to them, unless you secretly hate them.
Conclusion
Aren't eggs useful? And not even in the impregnation/reproduction way either. Even when they are not the centerpiece, they serve as critical instruments that bind many dishes and sauces together. I like eggs, and so should you. Eggs are there to serve. They exist for your nourishment. Instead of beating your children or your wife, consider beating your eggs instead. You will discover that the results are much more desirable.
This concludes the 10th installment of Hasu Cook, as well as my commemorative 2641th milestone post on Team Liquid. As always, questions and comments are welcome. All past installments of Hasu Cook as well as my other series The Ghetto Cook can be found on my main blog,
http://foodinmind.wordpress.com
Until next time, keep your egg consumption in check. The cholesterol isn't good for you!
P.S. A Note on Poached Eggs
On July 13 2012 18:49 r.Evo wrote:
Speaking of fun with eggs, can you explain to me how to make this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poached_egg ?
The few times I tried had pretty horrible results with the egg doing everything but looking the way it does in those pictures. =S
Speaking of fun with eggs, can you explain to me how to make this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poached_egg ?
The few times I tried had pretty horrible results with the egg doing everything but looking the way it does in those pictures. =S
Ahhh, yeah.... I've never actually made poached eggs, so I had to go make some for the first time lol. But I do know a lot of the tricks that you can use to make poaching eggs easier (a lot of them are listed in the wikipedia article). In terms of actually poaching the eggs, the important thing is to sweat the small stuff and make sure you're doing them. Here are the tips off the top of my head:
1) Use eggs that are as fresh as possible. They don't need to be at room temperature, so keep them in your refrigerator. Leaving them out in the open to warm will just make them a lot less fresh.
2) Keep your water at a bare simmer. A rolling boil will cause too much motion and wreck the shape of your eggs
3) Add a splash of vinegar to the water, it will help keep the egg white clumped together
4) Lower the eggs slowly into the water, as close to the water as you can get. You can use a bowl (I tried doing it with the bowl and without), but it isn't necessary.
5) Use a pair of spoons to gently nudge the whites towards the center of the egg as it poaches
6) Cook the eggs for about just over 3 minutes. The whites should be fully cooked and the yolk molten.
7) Poached eggs don't actually come out as beautifully oval as you see them in the pictures in fancy restaurants AFAIK, they do trim bits of the white off to achieve the look before using the eggs.
Here is a picture of the eggs I made, along with a serving suggestion (I don't actually do this at home, ever, but there are people who do).
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/P0vMb.jpg)
One of the eggs is broken into to show the yolk. Also note that there is a crack in the white of the other egg, because I tried to lift it out of the water a bit too roughly. Practice makes perfect I guess. These aren't the greatest looking poached eggs but I thought they turned out okay. If yours actually look better, disregard everything here >_>
GJ!
