If you visit Leeuwarden, Netherlands within the next six months, you might get to sit on one of the giant yolks of Dutch artist Henk Hofstra's art installation, "Art Eggcident." Unfortunately, there are no giant strips of bacon or slices of toast to go with it. [via Coldmud]
Photo of the Day: Meatscapes
Photo of the Day: Melting Ice Cream Truck
Photo of the Day: Pasta Outbreak
"White and tender surround the center / Cozy, sitting in the crackling shell."
What are those high-pitched voices singing about? Eggs! Eggs! So many eggs! Smiling eggs! Ninja eggs! Strawberry eggs! Dear god, this song is now permanently stuck in my head!
If you didn't love eggs before, you will after watching this video. Because you won't have a choice. The voices continue to screech, "I love egg!" in your brain long after the video is over.
Experience the hypnotizing power of singing, animated eggs, after the jump.
Nick Kindelsperger of The Paupered Chef went on a search for the perfect hard-boiled egg, that is, cooking it at 154°F for an undetermined amount of time, and found that four hours was the golden number. I'm rather impatient, so four hours wouldn't cut it for me, but I'm very curious to try these super creamy-yolked eggs that lack a funky sulfuric smell.
Related
Grocery Store Eggs Vs. Public Market Eggs
Photo of the Day: 300 Minute Egg
How To Peel A Hard-Boiled Egg
The problem with whipping up family brunch on the weekends is that it's the one time where everyone actually wants to eat breakfast for a change – and the demand for eggs is at an all-time high. Looks like a job for this appropriately-shaped automatic egg boiler, which can boil up to seven eggs at a time. Just set it to ten minutes for soft boiled, 15 for hard-boiled, or use the special tray to make three poached eggs simultaneously. [via TOKYOMANGO]
No surprise, Cook's Illustrated finds farm fresh eggs are tastier than standard supermarket eggs. If you can't farm fresh, organic eggs are the next best thing and "worth the premium." [via Baking Bites]
I've never thought of making those super-thin omelets (usuyaki tamago) you sometimes find in Japanese dishes—I assumed reaching that thinness would take more skill than I possess—but Biggie at bento-making tutorial site Lunch In A Box shows the easy way to make them by cooking them in your microwave. With an appropriately-shaped plate and plastic wrap (Biggie includes information about the safety of microwaving plastic wrap), you'll be churning out these egg sheets in no time. Chop up the egg sheets to use as a garnish or keep them whole to use as wrappers around other foods.
Of course, you can make these without a microwave; go to Just Hungry for directions on how to make them in a pan.
Gourmet rounds up a gallery of a dozen types of eggs eaten around the world plus information about their consumption, from the typical hen egg to the not-so-typical sea turtle eggs. Of course, chocolate eggs count. [via TasteSpotting]
Most of us have probably heard about the differences between the eggs you buy at a major grocery store and those bought from a small, local farmer, but if you have yet to see the two compared side-by-side, Carl Huber has you covered. He pits eggs from Wegmans against eggs from his local public market in hard boiled and over easy form, and shows how much more yellow the public market yolks are. And even though he says his taste buds are underdeveloped, he found that, "The grocery store brand seemed watered down, flimsy and pale. The robust taste of the public market eggs was immediately noticeable." Although they cost a little more than supermarket eggs, it seems worth it to buy the ones laid by chickens who were allowed to roam around freely.
Related:
Information About Free Range Eggs and Chickens at Mother Earth News
Carl's pig butchering guide
Carl's Bacon tomb
The Grocery Ninja leaves no aisle unexplored, no jar unopened, no produce untasted. Creep along with her below, and read her past market missions here.
Photographs from FotoosVanRobin on Flickr
My mom’s visiting this week, and I’ve noticed something: Every time my Russian housemate asks about one of the more pungent foods she’s eating, Mom will cock her head to one side, and after much deliberation, respond, “It’s like cheese.” Since a great bulk of what she’s eating most decidedly does not taste like cheese, I’ve puzzled over why her mind leaps to associate the punchier flavors in the Asian larder with it. My theory: For Mom, cheese is one of the most confrontational foods she’s had to share a table with. Hence, in her world, “tastes like cheese” is a most apt descriptor—a Western segue to a Chinese reckoning.
Which, of course, leaves you a tad leery about what I’m about to introduce, doesn’t it?
With all the frenzy over eggs this past Easter weekend, I thought it apropos to share the granddaddy of them all: thousand-year-old eggs. Also called century eggs, these are chicken or duck eggs that have been cured in a mix of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice husks over a period of weeks or even months. The resulting preserved egg, with its quivery, translucent, amber colored (almost black) “white,” and Chernobyl sunset yolk, has been described as “cheeselike.”
Why are eggs closely tied with Easter? Why do we paint them different colors? And what's with all the bunny-related imagery? Get some basic answers from Food Timeline's page about the history and symbolism of Easter foods.
Photograph from Ariel Bariel Long on Flickr
The horror splashed across these eggs' faces almost makes my soul cry. If they weren't so simultaneously adorable. In a weird, twisted way.
Mmm...I could go for an omelet.
Previously: Photo of the Day: Mmm...Omelette!
Maki at Just Bento shows how you can have fun with Japanese egg molds, my favorite mold being this overly adorable bunny head. Cooking and peeling perfect hardboiled eggs takes some effort, but if you want cute, blemish-free food, you have to put in some elbow grease.
After Hervé This explained how to "unboil" an egg (by unraveling its protein molecules from one another using sodium borohydride), blogger Michael Pusateri of Cruft tries it for himself, to less-than-stunning results. If we can get our hands on some magic chemicals, I'm thinking of trying it here at Serious Eats. [via Kottke]
I've heard of chicken soup to heal colds, but sake and egg? Tamagozake, or egg sake, is a traditional home remedy in Japan for the cold. Mix together 3/4th cup of sake, an egg, and a tablespoon of sugar and heat until just before boiling. Serve with chopsticks. And let the healing begin! [via Peter Payne]
Photograph from ognavneterjanne on Flickr
To make an omelette, you first have to crack open the horrified faces of the eggshells. Can your conscience bear it?
...Yeah why not; omelettes are awesome.
Frustrated by differing advice, Rob Manuel at b3ta tests and documents four methods for poaching eggs, with results ranging from "I wouldn't feed this to a dog," to "It's bloody perfect." So what's the secret to making perfect poached eggs? Plastic wrap, possibly. [via David Jacobs]
Related: How to Poach an Egg tutorial video by cia_b. View all of cia_b's egg cooking tutorial videos.
Leave an egg in an oven at 220°F for 300 minutes (5 hours) and voila: you get what looks like a brown, hard boiled egg.. Is it tasty? According to François-Xavier, yes—the long baking gives the egg white a nutty flavor.
La Petite Americaine came across a shocking item at her local Parisian supermarket: pre-poached eggs. Because there just isn't enough time to leave an egg in a pot of simmering water for three minutes these days.
Of course, she couldn't get away with being in the presence of poached eggs-in-a-box without actually trying them. So she did, with questionable results.
It may not carry the same fear-inducing firepower as challenging foods like tripe, brains, or other "variety meats," but there's an ingredient in occasional use behind the bar that sometimes rattles the unsuspecting customer: raw eggs.
Mixing eggs with liquor has a long heritage. A prime mover at colonial taverns was the flip, a drink typically made with a spirit such as rum, cream, and raw eggs (other ingredients such as hot beer or sherry were not uncommon); and while it's now thought of primarily as a holiday tipple, eggnog was once a fairly common concoction to call for across the bar. Egg whites became a staple ingredient in drinks such as the gin fizz and the whiskey sour, adding foam and body to the drink while slipping a little sustenance to the imbiber. And for sheer decadence there was the Knickerbein, composed of several liqueurs in a glass topped by the unbroken egg yolk and a mound of whipped egg white; the drinker was instructed to first inhale the froth, then drink the liquor while leaving the yolk untouched, and finally to gulp the remaining spirits while breaking the yolk in the mouth.
If you cook with bell peppers, you've probably cut one open at some time and have seen the phenomenon of the pepper within a pepper. But an egg within an egg is a little more freaky and rare.
It was the first Sydney University poultry science professor Tom Scott had seen in his 30-year career. He says a normal egg disturbed in the shell gland could move back up into the oviduct and start production all over again, resulting in an egg inside an egg.
Sorta puts a new spin on the "which came first" debate.
A few things in Pro-Zak's photo of Egg Depot caught my eye. First off is the happy egg caricature, sporting a gaping hole of a mouth large enough to fit a human, wearing red mittens and booties, the top accessories for today's modern egg. Next is the seemingly extraneous "EGGS" sign above the door in case the awning doesn't give enough information. And if you think the store is only about selling eggs, you're wrong—it also sells paper bags, provisions, and drinks.
I'm tempted to visit just to see how egg-tastic this egg depot really is. ...Or so I can take a picture in front of the gate fashioned in such a way so that the egg looks like it's about to step on my head.
It's been 50 years since the British Egg Marketing Board promoted their unfertilized product by telling the public to "go to work on an egg". While its series of advertisements about the benefits of eggs was deemed appropriate in the 1950s, on Tuesday the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) banned the ads from being shown on TV because the ads do not promote a varied diet. Here's more explanation behind the ban from Guardian Limited:
A BACC spokesman said the issue was not whether a daily egg with your breakfast would be harmful; only that it should be served with fruit juice or toast.
"We are not questioning the effect it would have on your health," Kristoffer Hammer told GMTV this morning. "Our role is to ensure that advertising that goes on television is in compliance with the [Communications] act. It's quite clear from the act that they should be presented as part of a balanced diet."
You can sign a petition to vote for the airing of the ads.
Is the BACC afraid that the people watching these ads will think, "Gee, I guess I should eat loads of eggs and nothing else"? On the other hand, do people who watch ads for breakfast cereal think, "I should eat a bowl of cereal only if accompanied by fruit and toast because the ad told me to have a balanced breakfast"? In either case, some people may follow the ad, some will not. I'd like to believe that most people have enough common sense to figure out that an egg-only diet does not make for optimal body functioning. Aren't there more dangerous ads out there than a 50-year old campaign about eggs?
For someone who really loves fried eggs, this egg coffee table would be perfect! There's also an orange slice table for sale by the designer, in case citrus is more your style. I can imagine thinking this is a great idea and then in about six months wondering, "Why did I want a fried egg coffee table?" But maybe I don't love eggs enough. [via AT Nursery]
After reading the story in the New York Times about the two branches of the Benedict family who both claim to have invented eggs Benedict, all I can say is, who knew? Apparently, at least according to a 1942 New Yorker article, in 1894 a hungover ladies' man, Lemuel Benedict, created the first version of the brunch standard when he ordered two poached eggs, bacon, buttered toast, and a pitcher of hollandaise sauce at the old Waldorf Hotel (now the Waldorf-Astoria. Lemuel Benedict would not tolerate substitutions, so the English muffin and the Canadian bacon must have come later.
Not so, according to Bon Appétit magazine, which in 1978 published an article crediting Mr. and Mrs. LeGrand Benedict with requesting the eggs Benedict fixin's around the turn of the century at the legendary Old New York restaurant Delmonico's. To bolster that claim, in 1894 Delmonico's chef Charles Ranhofer, according to the Times, "published a huge cookbook called The Epicurean that included an almost identical recipe, Eggs a la Benedick."
Who's right? The only people who really care are descendants of Lemuel Benedict, who continue to maintain that he is the eponymous creator of eggs Benedict.
Related: Serious Eats's own contributing editor Adam Roberts wrote a piece on eggs Benedict: Eggs Benedict Arnold.
Photograph by Adam Roberts
I've had egg salad sandwiches foisted on me all my life at picnics despite the facts that a) I think they're gross and b) no one I know actually likes them. I mean, c'mon now—mushy cold eggs and mayo on soggy bread, what's to like? Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks hates egg salad sandwiches so much she went and made a good one, something I didn't think was possible. Add a little bit of chopped bacon, and I'll be happy to eat it!
Like a Halloween costume for your Easter egg. Photograph by Rakka.
I couldn't resist the obvious pun—or double-dipping into Lia's earlier post about the Master Shake Easter egg. Blogger Rakka also made the cool Lego-themed eggs above.
While we're talking about Scotch eggs here on Serious Eats, reader Karen Resta points us to this gargantuan example on Blogjam. It's made from an ostrich egg.
"It does pose the philosophic question of whether bigger is better, but it is rather mesmerizing to view, anyway," Karen says.
According to Blogjam:
Boiling an ostrich egg is not quite as simple as it sounds. For a start, you need a saucepan with a vast capacity. Even using my biggest pan, the top fifth of the egg is exposed during the cooking process, so I keep a close eye on things, rotating the egg frequently and topping up the water as it evaporates.
It took one pound of pork to coat the egg, which was roasted instead of deep-fried. Can you imagine deep-frying an egg that large?
I've made these scrambled eggs, and they are amazing.
What's the difference between cage-free or free roaming, free-range or pasture-fed, kosher or kosher-certified, organic, vegetarian, nutrient-enhanced or pasteurized eggs? The American Egg board explains in this story on eggs in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
"Shake-zula, the mic rulah, the old schoolah you wanna trip, he'll bring it to ya," says Flickr user Rakka, who created this amazing Master Shake Easter Egg.
Fans of Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force, is this not the best Easter egg of all time? We at Serious Eats love the rest of Rakka's Easter Eggs too though; Alaina likes the Lego eggs and I have a soft spot for the KISS eggs—nothing says "Happy Easter!" quite like Gene Simmons painted on an egg.
Eggs are getting safer, says Goody Solomon of the Washington Post: "In 2002, the last year for which numbers are available, 10 percent of reported Salmonella enteritidis outbreaks in the United States were related to eggs, compared with a spike of 80 percent in 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These days, according to the CDC, salmonella outbreaks are more likely to be caused by other foods: juices, salsa, meat, sprouts, fruits, and salads."
Ah, the Scotch egg. Although apparently considered downmarket in the UK (at least according to Wikipedia), this one looks absolutely appeeling. Or, perhaps not, depending on your tolerance for sausage-encased, deep-fried foods.
Scotch Eggs
Ingredients
6 hard-cooked eggs, well-chilled
1 pound breakfast sausage
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup fine bread crumbs
Vegetable oil, for frying
Procedure
1. In a dedicated deep-fryer or large pot, preheat vegetable oil to 350°F. Meanwhile, peel eggs and set aside. Divide sausage into 6 equal portions. Roll hard-cooked eggs in flour; press a portion of sausage around each egg.
2. Dip sausage-encased eggs in beaten eggs; roll in bread crumbs.
3. Cook each egg in oil for 4 to 5 minutes or until sausage is cooked and browned. Let drain on paper towels. Serve warm or chilled, according to preference.
Instead of dying eggs for Easter this year, I think I'm going to make some pickled red beet eggs inspired by A Chicken In Every Granny Cart's post and accompanying photos.
There's a theory to which many people I know subscribe which basically says that any delicious food can only get better if you coat it in a tasty batter and then deep-fry it.
Well, FHM got Food Network host George Duran to try it out by submitting five classic comfort foods to Trial By Fryer: White Castle sliders, microwave pizza, hard-boiled eggs, gummi worms and chocolate chip cookie dough. Four out of the five did well, but you might be surprised which food came out tops and which one was a let down. I know I was!
If you are fortunate enough to be able to buy your eggs locally, Eat Local has a great post on what to look for in your eggs and questions you should ask your local farmer (via Eat Well).
I still remember when the most virulent strain of food hysteria was about how eggs were horrible for you—a very painful thing to hear when you are a devotee of brunch—and so it lifts the spirits to read this long paean by Betty Hallock in today's LA Times:
A coddled Maran egg served in its dark-chocolate-colored shell, a sunny-side-up duck egg nestled into a salad, a slowly, slowly cooked egg — with its yolk bright and creamy and the white barely opaque and tender — dropped into a steaming bowl of noodle soup.
At long last, chefs are celebrating the egg. They're just as likely to highlight a beautiful, starkly simple egg in a dish as they would braised pork belly or smoked eel or hamachi sashimi. Chefs love eggs not just for the emulsifiers in their yolks or the way their whites can be transformed into billowy foam, but as a luxury ingredient on their own.
I think these breakfast food pillows are adorable (if a little pricey) but I don't know if I can wholeheartedly support a brand with a tagline as heretical as "more fun than the real thing". I'm sorry, but no matter how cute the pillow, the equation will always be fake fried egg < real fried egg. It's what you can actually get in your belly that counts!
[via roboppy del.icio.us]
Southern Fried Eggs Benny is kind of like Eggs Benedict, only with a fried egg instead of poached, sausage instead of Canadian bacon, and cream gravy instead of Hollandaise. If your mouth isn't watering by now, I'm not sure we can be friends.
The New York Times introduces a new column today: A Good Appetite by Melissa Clark. Its first installment is A Morning Meal Begs to Stay Up Late, exploring polenta's potential as a dinner item (it of course being the first cousin of grits): "It’s a perfect first recipe for this column devoted to foods I’m hankering to eat and proud to feed to anyone willing to pull up a chair ... or a couch. These are foods that are easy to cook and that speak to everyone, either stirring a memory or creating one."
Other highlights:
Marian Burros discovers the unexpected delight of unlaid eggs, which are eggs in varying stages of development that haven't been laid and are harvested from hens sent to slaughter. "[Dan] Barber tried lightly scrambling the eggs with fresh herbs from the greenhouse garden and served them in eggshells. This is what the unlaid egg should taste like: a deep, concentrated flavor, a hint of sweetness, but not overly rich. “You don’t get that in a full egg,” Mr. Barber noted."
Koreans Share Their Secret for Chicken With a Crunch by Julia Moskin: "Korean-style fried chicken is radically different, reflecting an Asian frying technique that renders out the fat in the skin, transforming it into a thin, crackly and almost transparent crust. (Chinese cooks call this “paper fried chicken.”)"
Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen reviews PoachPod Silicone Egg Poachers and gives them a thumbs up. I've never made Eggs Benedict myself because poaching eggs is a pain... but now I'm thinking $9.95 + shipping is not that much of a barrier between me and a delicious lazy at-home brunch treat.
Not yet available in the U.S., this device takes the Egg Muffin maker concept to the next level with the addition of a coffee maker.
Here's an an ingenious way to make a complete breakfast at home without having to inundate your kitchen with single-use appliances. This new product from Japanese company Chuo Sangyo lets you make coffee, eggs, and toast all in one breath. It only takes 10 minutes and one outlet. Amazing.
One Machine Makes Toast, Eggs, and Coffee [TokyoMango]
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