Fat Guy

I guess there are stages of overbeating. When I do more than light beating, what I observe is more puff but also a more plastic-like texture. Maybe if you beat beyond that, you lose the puff as well. More experiments to be performed.

Most recipes and instructions I've seen indicate "lightly beaten eggs" for classic French omelettes. To me, omelettes made with lightly beaten eggs retain more of that essential egg flavor and texture than ones made with heavily whisked eggs. The heavily whisked ones definitely do puff up a bit more (though not so much given the very short cooking time of this type of omelette) but they taste like they're made from a batter rather than from actual fresh eggs. Heavy whisking would be more appropriate, I think, for an omelette like Sailor Stan describes above.

I've found that you can do the whole process just fine with no utensils at all -- you get an effective swirl just from moving the pan itself a bit.

That's why you should eat two of them! There are a whole lot of good egg dishes that involve loading a bunch of stuff into the eggs. The only one I particularly object to is the standard overcooked American diner omelette where a rubbery sheet of eggs is folded around an overwhelming ration of fillings. What you're making sounds more like a "fluffy omelette," which can be delicious though you don't really taste much egg. If you want to get it fluffier and you have the patience, separate the yolks from the whites, beat them separately, recombine, and cook. That will give you serious fluff. Also, you may prefer a frittata, because it's cooked slowly and therefore preserves a better flavor and texture than a standard overcooked omelette.

Jin, I totally agree with your definitions of cook and chef, and I think the statement "the restaurant is worse when the chef isn't there" is just about the most insulting thing one can say about a chef because it strikes at the most basic executive competence of a chef. That being said, restaurants decay for many reasons, and my guess is that many of the problems at UP (as well as at Tuscan and Rocco's) have to do with the fact that Rocco is in unsustainable business relationships where he's asked to perform at one level but only given the funding, resources, and authority to perform at another level. Of course, he should have learned by now. Victor, I hope you won't consider this a dis, but I just don't think it would be credible at all to give Union Pacific less than two stars. The star system is more than a literal reflection of the tally of good and bad dishes that a critic had over the course of a few recent visits. There's a larger context. And lxt, I agree: there is no disconnect for me in Burros's review (though there was in an earlier one, or two). However, I could see how somebody accustomed to reading Grimes might see a disconnect.

Most of the time when I visit someone with a serious espresso setup, or I see non-styled photos online, the espresso station is a big mess: coffee grounds all over the place, wet towels lying around, etc. What's up with that?

Jonathan: I suppose if one cares about the appearance of one's omelettes that much, that method might be very effective from a cosmetic standpoint. But it's a very old-school attitude that I can't relate to. It seems fussy and unnecessary: you can make an attractive-enough omelette using the home-cooking method, and I can't think of an instance where I wouldn't rather have integration between the eggs and the filling.

(That's because it's a secret.)

Or perhaps we're projecting an inapplicable set of expectations onto her reviews.

True enough, although "your impeccably clean hands" are the better tool.

Sorry for that apparent omission, Mark. In developing this course, Carolyn Tillie (whose class on souffles will appear tomorrow) took responsibility for the copper-mixing-bowl discussion. At first I thought we'd do meringues and souffles on the same day but, well, at some point the planning became less coordinated. Hopefully Carolyn and I won't contradict each other on any major points! In any event, when I read through Carolyn's draft course materials this past weekend, the copper discussion was in there -- so you should see it tomorrow. There's even a quote from someone with a Ph.D. As for acids, yes, vinegar and lemon juice will also work. And if you clean your bowl with salt and vinegar, you will get a little vinegar residue contributing to the mix. I prefer cream of tartar for the main additive, though, because it's not particularly detectable (at least not to me -- apparently professional pastry chefs can tell). If you use much lemon juice, for example, you will taste it clearly.

I want to make clear that I didn't think of it either! It's just part of the classic technique. And I suppose other liquids, to the extent they contain a lot of free-floating water (in other words, skim milk as opposed to corn oil), might have something of a similar effect. But with water, as it evaporates, it leaves nothing behind to change the flavor of the eggs.

A lot of people add milk or cream to scrambled eggs. Cream in particular makes scrambled eggs . . . well . . . creamier. I think that practice may have carried over to omelette-making somehow.

Now that is a thing of beauty, and a beautifully poached egg!

To at least as great an extent as the star rating should logically follow from a review, a review should be read in light of the star rating. It's entirely possible to give a very negative three-star review if, for example, you're demoting a restaurant from four stars to three. Likewise, it's possible to give a no-holds-barred super-enthusiastic one-star review. Some restaurants, no matter how well they perform, will never be more than one-star restaurants -- they are self-limiting in that regard. Some restaurants, even when they underperform, still merit quite a few stars. I've had some bad experiences at Union Pacific, but also some fantastic ones -- so I see it as an underperforming three-star restaurant. Didn't Amanda Hesser write a "Diner's Journal" on UP recently? Am I imagining that? I seem to recall it was a rather positive assessment.

Okay, then, I'm going with a working hypothesis that your saucepan was the culprit in the self-destructing-egg scenario. I'd love to see you repeat the experiment in a thicker piece of cookware. Eggs tend to sink towards the bottom when poaching, but it's not particularly pronounced, and sometimes they kind of hover and then rise (especially in deeper pots). The density of egg-innards and the density of water seem to be rather close.

Or the cooking medium. Could hard (i.e. alkaline) water account for what sounds like failure of the white to coagulate properly? Since there's so much hard water in the US, my guess is that this issue would have been explored by the various test kitchens if it made a big difference. In any event, I'm pretty sure even a small amount of vinegar would overcome it. And it doesn't really sound as though there was a coagulation problem. I'm wondering about the cookware itself -- perhaps it's very thin and too much heat got transferred to the egg as it was sitting on the bottom?

Well, chickenlady, I would definitely like to get all these factors accounted for and dealt with. Perhaps when the pace of classes slows down, we can have a more in-depth dialog and really get to the bottom of your specific egg issues.

Chickenlady, if my understanding is correct, has her own chickens and is getting these eggs into the water within hours of laying. I'd have to watch the whole process to know what went wrong with chickenlady's eggs. It seems she has had unusual results both poaching and hard-cooking, so it's within the realm of possibility that none of the information I've relayed is entirely applicable to straight-from-the-chicken eggs of this sort. Or, maybe there's something about her equipment that's affecting these processes. I'll try to learn more.

Or both. One of the best restaurant egg dishes I've had in recent memory was a seafood medley (scallops, lobster, calamari, and other white-ish fish, all poached or steamed or otherwise minimalistically cooked) with a poached-then-deep-fried egg on top. The egg, once cut open, created the sauce.

I'll take some temperature readings this week.

ExtraMSG: many thanks for posting those photos. My results have been similar, and like you I prefer the 9 minute egg for eating straight. To address chickenlady's point, however, I think the ideal level of doneness and moistness really depends on what you're using the egg for. If you're going to eat the hard-cooked egg while it's still a little warm, well, you will most likely want to tend towards a moist specimen. If you want to make coherent egg salad, you want the yolks to set up quite a bit more. I wouldn't be able to explain chickenlady's results without a lot more information, but there are many factors that can affect the speed at which eggs cook even if you start them in cold water: the amount of water used, the size of the eggs, altitude . . . and now I'm wondering about freshness and also absence of refrigeration.

If what you're doing works for you, by all means keep doing it! My personal experience with the vortex/swirling method is that it does more harm than good when I try it. This is also the opinion of the experts at the American Egg Board, who state, "Swirling the poaching liquid or creating a vortex merely serves to ruffle the delicate egg protein. Nicely-shaped eggs are easier to produce in relatively quiet water that is gently simmering." One hypothesis: perhaps the "swirl it some more" phase you describe is similar in function to shaping the egg with a spoon. Maybe next time you'll try using still water, and then doing your post-egg-insertion swirl. In any event, please keep us posted on your poaching adventures!

The do indeed act very much like regular raw eggs. No trickery needed. As Rachel mentions above, you may find that a slight bit gets left behind in the shell, but it's not significant.

The photo Rachel posted tells the whole story: the answer is yes, poached eggs reheat very, very well. I won't go so far as to say they're exactly the same as if you serve them straight from the poaching liquid, but they're pretty damn close. Some people even prefer the reheated ones because the whites set a little more.