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how to halve an egg for scaling


KennethT

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I don't do a lot of pastry, so I was hoping some more experienced hands could, um, give me a hand....

 

I was looking at a recipe to make roti prata - it's basically 1 kg of flour, some oil, water and 1 egg.  But it makes a lot more than I'd want to make, so I wanted to cut the recipe in half...  I assume that I'd need to use half an egg, but the volume of water and fat in 1 egg is pretty miniscule compared with the amount of oil and water in the recipe (300ml and 450ml respectively), so would it be safe to assume that I could just use the whole egg, or should I beat the egg in a separate bowl, measure the volume and only use half?  Is it necessary to go through that step?

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So the half recipe is 500 g flour, 150 ml fat and 225 ml water?  Yeah, you could probably use a whole egg,  just look for the smallest one in the carton ;) And a bit more flour or touch less water if needed, though I'm not sure how roti prata dough is supposed to feel, your guess is as good as mine.

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When trying out a new recipe, I prefer to halve or even sometimes quarter the formula, so I’ve dealt with many “1/2 egg” situations.  If I want to use the exact recipe, what I do is beat the egg really, really well so that there are no visible goops of white, weigh it (I use a scale that measures to the tenth but you don’t need that), and then just use half.  The remaining half usually goes into an equally tiny cookie batch, or the world’s smallest portion of scrambled eggs. 🤗

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I wound up using the whole egg as the volume of liquid was pretty low when compared to the total volume of oil and water.  I haven't fried them up yet, but when stretching, they came out the best yet!  I can't wait to try them!

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When I get the chance I buy the giant double yolkers and the pee wee eggs. That means I've got lots of options. I use a double yolker in place of 1 egg and 1 yolk and a pee wee in place of half an egg. Of course there is a place on my way to work that sells flats of both so I am fortunate.

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all great suggestions I have used and Judith Jones in her book about cooking for one person said she put an egg in a small glass jar with a lid then shook the heck out of it and used half of it for what she needed.

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Nothing is better than frying in lard.

Nothing.  Do not quote me on this.

 

Linda Ellerbee

Take Big Bites

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