Foods We Love : The Egg and I

” All cookery rests on the egg. The egg is the Atlas that supports the world of gastronomy; the chef is the slave of the egg. . . . And should all the hens in the world commit suicide, tomorrow every chef in France worthy of his name would fall on his spit, for . . . egg is the cement that holds all the castle of cookery together. “

--French chef, Stacpoole

Except for the butter I was supposed to have eaten straight from the package as a toddler, and the macaroni and cheese I used to want for dinner every night, also the McDonald’s Fillet O’ Fish sandwiches I loved through my entire sixth year, eggs were it .

I loved the way they tasted, I loved the way they looked, but mostly I was intrigued because, to a kid experimenting in the kitchen, eggs were available and fun. They were the first food I learned to cook.

During summer vacations, when my mom was away at work and I got bored with afternoon TV reruns, I headed to the kitchen. Most often, I wanted to make eggs: hard-boiled for sandwiches, or fried so I could practice my flipping technique, or as an omelet so I could do my Galloping Gourmet impression. Scrambled was the way I thought eggs tasted best, soft and creamy, just the thing to eat with a cold glass of milk.

The thing I know now about eggs is that they are both the easiest thing in the world to make, and the most difficult. I mean, anyone can crack an egg, fry it in butter and have a perfectly fine thing to eat. Even if you mess up, there’s almost always an escape: Break the yolk when flipping and you can easily change course and make a fried egg sandwich. Put a little too much vigor into an omelet in its early stages and you can always have scrambled eggs for lunch. Forget to turn the heat off a three-minute egg and you can have a nice hard-boiled egg. (Just don’t forget completely; I know from experience that if you leave eggs on the stove too long they do explode . . . and leave a stink.) Almost foolproof, one might think.

But after eating more than my share of eggs in careless restaurants, in cafeterias, on airplanes, I know that eggs are among the easiest things in the world to ruin.

This is most true, I think, for scrambled eggs. Nothing is sadder than a plate of tough, dry scrambled eggs, like something out of a 99-cent Vegas buffet. But then there are perfect scrambled eggs, just past the liquid stage, cooked to what food writer Richard Olney calls a creamy suspension. At La Toque in West Hollywood, Ken Frank turns scrambled eggs almost into a custard, perfumed with black truffles. At L’Orangerie, eggs are slowly, slowly scrambled with lots of butter, topped with caviar, and served in their own shells. The French, I think, understand scrambled eggs best.

After all, the secret of great scrambled eggs is butter--lots of it. You also need plenty of patience. Every cook has his or her own opinion on how to make great scrambled eggs, but almost all agree you need to go slow.

M.F.K. Fisher recommends you put eggs and cream directly into a cold skillet, “stir quietly” to blend the mixture, turn on a very low heat and then stir the eggs as seldom as possible for about a half hour. Richard Olney says to combine plenty of diced butter with the eggs ( 1/2 cup for eight eggs), then put the mixture into a bain-marie (or a pot nearly immersed in a pan of simmering water) and stir constantly with a wooden spoon. Ken Frank’s method, from his “La Toque Cookbook,” is to melt the butter first in a bowl placed over boiling water and then add the eggs and stir. This is a variation of the method in “Larousse Gastronomique,” though that book suggests adding even more butter (or heavy cream) to the eggs just as they set.

Sometimes I’ll take the trouble to fool around with a bain-marie (and get wonderful eggs), but most of the time, I just go slow over direct heat. My problem is that when I’m hungry for scrambled eggs, I want them immediately. I’m always tempted to turn up the heat and hurry the eggs along. But every time I do the eggs start setting too fast and I have to whip the pan off the stove and finish the eggs away from the heat.

I’ve learned to take my time. Even still, those first few minutes when nothing seems to be happening are agony when your stomach is rumbling. The only solution: Get a good cook to make the eggs for you. And fill up on toast in the meantime.