Eggs, Beaten, w/ Stuff Inside -Cook-Off 19

[Jensen]

I was looking at my old cookbooks, and I'm thinking about making a strata. Remember them?

[...]

Does anyone still make these? It's been awhile since I cooked one, but I remember it was very good!

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I've made a spinach and cheese strata within the last year or two; recipe from Epicurious.

[Osnav]

Chris, is it okay if the stuff in the scrambled eggs is eggs? I've recently noticed a few dishes in different books -- most recently Jose Andres's tapas book, and also in some books of Mideastern recipes -- that are variants on this theme: you cook some scrambled eggs and then towards the end of cooking you crack some whole eggs over them. This creates not only a dramatic presentation but also you get the curdy scrambled eggs and the gooey texture of a fried/poached/soft-boiled egg at the same time as the yolks run all over the scrambled eggs.

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God this sounds good. I don't care if this qualifies or not. I'm heading for the kitchen NOW!

[mizducky]

Okay, there's nothing particularly special about this omelette, except that I thought it came out purty ...

... and it's made with egg substitutes.

Other than the flavor being a tad flat, they're pretty decent. And they behaved very well in the cooking process.

(I don't even try flipping my omelettes. I simply fold it in the pan, and slide it out onto the serving plate.)

ETA: oh yeah, the green stuff is sauteed scallions.

Edited February 20, 2006 by mizducky (log)

[laurenkusa]

Howdy,

I realized that I fit into this thread as I recently made a "leftovers" frittata.

I took a basic frittata recipe from Bittman's How to cook everything and just substituted my leftover pasta, sauteed mushrooms, bell pepper, onion, garlic mixture, cheese, and of course 6 eggs. I cooked it on the stove for a few minutes then transferred it into the oven to cook for another 20 minutes or so.

Came out great, brown on the bottom, fluffy in the middle. I used a 12 inch stainless steel calphalon pan.

[craft-G]

We just did an egg dish at the restaurant for an amuse.

Bacon and Eggs w/ Hollandaise

Egg whites that have been whipped to stiff peaks. Fold in extremely fine chopped bacon and bake

ile flotant style. When the meringues are done then carefully with a squeeze bottle, inject the meringues with hollandaise and serve fast.

In the end it resembled a poached egg and when you cut into it the yolk (hollandaise) oozes out.

Fun and easy dish.

[fou de Bassan]

egg nets...

They aren't pretty. I've been cooking from David Thompson's awesome Thai food, but I can't seem to achieve the elegant results he does. They taste delicious anyway.

[bleudauvergne]

I decided on this family homespun souffle from Mme Saint Ange - the potato souffle. I'm seeing how little money I can spend on food and still make it taste good. I scaled the recipe down to one serving and it only cost 45 centimes to make. I also took awful and strange photo of it and I apologize in advance for it. I am stuck in a terrible hokey photography spiral. Help!

[bleudauvergne]

Put in the oven for 25 mins.

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Jack, I saw in Mme Saint Ange's technique for the souffle that she says to put it on the floor of the oven, and you have done this too. Can you explain why?

[Shalmanese]

Jack, I saw in Mme Saint Ange's technique for the souffle that she says to put it on the floor of the oven, and you have done this too.  Can you explain why?

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You want the heat to rise from the bottom to give more lift to the souffle.

[jackal10]

Amen Shalamanese!

The bottom of my Aga oven is hot.

Thats is why I recommend putting it on a pre-heated pizza stone.

Herve This, in an article on Souffle in his Molecular Gastronomy book, just released in English, says you should beat the egg whites to a stiff, dry foam, and suggests briefly grilling the top to seal it to give an even rise.

Edited February 21, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[bleudauvergne]

While Madame St. Ange reccomends painting the top with melted butter before going in the oven, which I suppose might not give the desired effect. Thanks for those tips!

[torakris]

I should have taken more than one picture, many apologies for my lack of photographic talent....

This is tamago-toji.

Basically anything you feel like is simmered in a gently seasoned broth (dashi, soy sauce and mirin) then a couple beaten eggs are added and it is cooked until just set.

This is the same way a dish like oyako-don (Japanese chicken and egg topped rice dish) is cooked.

Last night I used satsumage, a fish paste product, with gobo (burdock root) and mitsuba (trefoil). The mitsuba was added after the eggs.

[DianaBuja]

So I'm working on a version of shakshouka. This is a dish you find in various forms (and spelled various ways) around the Mideast and North Africa. The one I'm talking about involves a base of very slowly scrambled eggs with diced tomatoes. A small subset of people who cook shakshouka use this trick: at the very end of cooking, you crack some whole eggs over the mixture and the gooey stuff permeates the soft scrambled eggs.

My preliminary results were neither photo-worthy nor particularly good. But I'm now receiving some instruction from my friend Sigal Seeber, who used to be Geoffrey Zakarian's pastry chef at "44" (and is also the author of Light Quick Breads) and learned how to make shakshouka from him. I've had the dish at her house and loved it. If I can ever figure out how to make a version that doesn't suck, I'll post some photos and comments.

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Best [commercial] shakshuka I've had - was at the Filfila restaurant in central Cairo. The dish is not really made in rural Egypt, where plain boiled eggs that are dipped in fresh cumin [not salt] are a common b'fast dish, with white cheese, onions, bread and tomatoes.

Last year an Israeli friend told me that 'shakshuka' originated as a jewish [i believe sephardic] dish, thence spreading to North Africa and etc.... or, perhaps, from North Africa and then taken to Israel... Certainly, the word 'شاكشكا' is not derived from a common arabic root.

Any thoughts on this?

I make shakshuka with onion, tomatoes, green pepper, some hot pepper - sometimes, also, a few cubes of eggplant and white cheese ['gibna bayda'].

Simmering the veggies, then breaking the eggs either on them - or keeping the eggs whole and breaking them into indentations in the veggie mixture.

Look forward to your experiments and pix!

Dianabuja.

[Lori in PA]

Well, in the middle of a cooking frenzy yesterday here at my house, I managed to flip a full dozen eggs out of the too-full fridge and upside down onto the floor. It was one of those suspended animation moments for me -- stupefied expression, dismayed gasp, and all. The carton landed squarely, so the result was not the slimy mess I expected when I picked up the carton; rather, every egg but one was extensively crackled across the top.

I'd like to say I dropped everything and made a lovely, bechamel-free souffle, but twouldn't be true. I knew I was making four shoofly pies for a funeral this morning, so I cracked four eggs into one bowl and put the other eight into another. The eight got whipped up with salt and pepper this morning for a couple of eggs worth of scrambled for dh before he left for work. The rest of us will polish them off shortly for our own breakfast, I guess. I WANT to make a souffle, but I seem to be blocked. I went so far as to get out my one and only Julia Child cookbook, but saw the directions for an eight-cup souffle dish and thought, "Does my (one and only) souffle dish hold eight cups? It seems smaller than that...", plus, that whole foil collar thing seemed to be just too much work in the middle of all my other cooking enterprises. Somebody tell me I don't need to bother with that...

[jackal10]

You need not bother with a collar!

Souffles are real easy...and no more work than making those scrambled eggs

seperate the yolks and the whites.

Flavour the yolks - booze, chocolate, cheese, veg or fruit puree or what you will.

Beat the whites as hard as you can.

Use ramekins or a straight sided bowl that the egg mixture will fill

Preheat the oven (preferably with a pixxa stone or heavy baking sheet)

Butter the dish

Mix the beaten whites and the yolk mixture, pour into the bowl. Out into oven. Wait 20 mins. Serve at once

Nobody has yet made a tortilla de patata...

[Lori in PA]

Ok, Jack. I'm pledging in front of you all to make some kind of souffle within the next few days, barring natural or manmade disaster. I have some leftover roasted carrots and turnips from dinner last night, but while I can picture liking a carrot souffle easily, I'm not so sure about the turnip flavor. And, since I'm still training some of my children to enjoy turnips, perhaps I'd best not present them with their first souffle infused with pureed turnip. Perhaps broccoli? We all like broccoli.

What to serve it with? Julia said rather decidedly that her souffles need only be accompanied by a crisp and cold salad and a non-egg dessert such as a fruit tart. Does anyone serve savory souffles as a side dish to accompany a meat dish, or is that too much?

[jackal10]

We are all with you Lori... Carrot souffle is great. Maybe with some cheese in it

The problem with a souffle is that it starts to deflate as soon as you take it out of the oven, unless you put lots more egg yolks in it. It really is best eaten straight away, as a light meal.

You could have a double-cooked souffle as a side dish - make extra souffle, let them go cold and deflate, then turn them out and reheat them in a sauce - reheated in jus or meat demi-glace to go with a meat dish would be yummy.

Edited February 24, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[snowangel]

If I want to make individual souffles, what size ramekins are best? If the ramekins are the 7 oz size, how many eggs per ramekin?

[jackal10]

Two eggs per ramekin, and you may have a bit over, depending on the size of the eggs

I use 4oz ramekins (3 inch diameter), one large egg per ramekin

[mrbigjas]

Nobody has yet made a tortilla de patata...

no they haven't. but in the spirit of the cookoff, i will mention that over last weekend i made

1. eggs, beaten, with cheese in them, scrambled, twice.

2. eggs, beaten, with bread in them, aka french toast.

neither of those was anything of interest to take a photo of, so instead, here's dinner from the other night, made the same way as a tortilla but with different ingredients instead of potatoes:

eggs, beaten, with leftovers in them

leftovers included: roasted cauliflower, sauteed royal trumpet and hedgehog mushrooms, and the last little bit of balsamic/garlic braised mustard greens, all of which were dinner the night before. oh and i mixed some grana padano into the eggs.

i considered pureeing the cauliflower and making a roasted cauli souffle, but decided against it.

edited to add: there are really not that many vegetable based leftovers that don't take well to this treatment, and we do it all the time--turning the night before's leftover sides into tonight's main course. and i agree with julia that generally with egg dishes, nothing more needs to accompany them than a salad and some bread.

Edited February 24, 2006 by mrbigjas (log)

[MicBacchus]

OOH - tortilla de patata - haven't made that in a while, but it is now on an upcoming-menu. I first had it in college when my Spanish roommate's mom sentone up -- don't know how we avoided getting sick A friend from Puerto Rico made it last year for her Spanish students, and it brought back such good memories!!

So easy and filling, especially for my meat-and-potatoes-minded husband.

Edited February 24, 2006 by MicBacchus (log)

[snowangel]

I souffled, successfully!

Before:

After:

I used 8 oz ramekins. Bechamel with 1 cup of milk, a mess of odd bits of cheese that were rattling around, 3 eggs. I think I could have beat the egg whites a little longer. 400 oven for about 25 minutes, but could probably have gone another couple of minutes, maybe not.

Very successful. It was just Heidi and I tonight, and I got part of one of the souffles, and she inhaled the rest of them!

Lori, fear not. Really rather simple!

[purplewiz]

Very successful souffles indeed! They look gorgeous!

Marcia.

[Lori in PA]

I really want to do this for supper tonight -- we'll see. A very close friend's funeral is today and there will be a "reception" (What DO you call that?) after it, so I'm sure a light supper is in order. What is uncertain is what my level of energy will be.

Edited to add: Susan, your souffles look very appetizing!

Edited February 25, 2006 by Lori in PA (log)

[ronnie_suburban]

Not really a Cook-Off project per se, but since this is the usual Saturday morning fare around here, I figured I'd snap a shot and add it in.

I give you salami and cheddar omelette . . . (aka eggs stuffed with cooked salami and cheddar cheese )

=R=