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

[Gifted Gourmet]

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

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Ronnie, that is really gorgeous! I may do that for Sunday brunch tomorrow ...

[snowangel]

I didn't take a picture of breakfast today, but Heidi and Paul had cheese omelets, and I had a chive omelet. I snipped some frozen chives from the garden! On the side, an obscene amount of bacon.

[Pam R]

I've wanted to participate in this for a while but I don't have any eggs at home - and I keep forgetting to get some .

So at work yesterday I put together an asparagus and Swiss quiche. Sauteed some onion - blanched asparagus - whipped (or beat) some eggs with cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg - poured over vegetables and cheese and baked.

[Swisskaese]

I've wanted to participate in this for a while but I don't have any eggs at home - and I keep forgetting to get some  .

So at work yesterday I put together an asparagus and Swiss quiche. Sauteed some onion - blanched asparagus - whipped (or beat) some eggs with cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg - poured over vegetables and cheese and baked.

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That looks really yummy. I wonder how that would taste using kashkeval cheese?

[BarbaraY]

Yesterday I woke craving Mexican flavors so I made Hevos Revueltos con Papas y Chorizo (Scrambled eggs with potatoes and Mexican Sausage).

Chorizo, Potato, onion, all sauteeing together until the potato is soft.

The finished breakfast, topped with a sprinkle of Cilantro with whole wheat tortilla.

edited to correct spelling and a screwed up photo

Edited February 26, 2006 by BarbaraY (log)

[Pam R]

That looks really yummy. I wonder how that would taste using kashkeval cheese?

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Thanks . That's a good question - I've never tried kashkeval - but I've had it on order since November! If I do get it, I'll try it.

What do you think about Keter (Tara brand)? I have that - do you think it would be a good quiche cheese?

[ellencho]

I'm not sure how many non-Koreans will be familiar with this but I made gyaehran jjim. Basically it's a steamed egg custard with tofu, preserved shrimp, scallions, and sesame oil in it. It's really easy to make, and if you can't find the fermented shrimp it's not the end of the world.

What you will need:

3 eggs

1 heaping Tb of preserved shrimp

1/2 block of soft tofu

3 scallions, finely minced

1/2 Tb sesame oil

1/2 tsp salt, or more to taste

Start by mashing up the tofu, shrimp and salt in a medium sized, ceramic bowl. Get most of the chunks out to the best of your ability.

Now add your three eggs, the sesame oil, and then three egg shell halves worth of water. Mix to combine.

Add your minced scallions and combine well.

Now, place in a pot and push bowl off to the side so you can pour water in at least 1/2 way up the side of your bowl.

Place lid on, bring to boil, and then lower the heat to a simmer. Allow to cook for 30 minutes. Shut off heat, let sit for 15.

Eat with rice and banchan. It's fine at any temperature.

Edited February 27, 2006 by ellencho (log)

[Chris Amirault]

What a fantastic demo! Where's my shopping list pad?!?

[Lori in PA]

I semi-successfully souffled...

...but you'll have to wait for tomorrow to hear more and see pix, because while I CAN cook, I CAN'T upload photos on egullet.

(Don't point me to the thread that tells me how to do it either. I've read it ten times and I still have to get my daughter to walk me through it. I'm missing the photo uploading gene, heretofore unidentified by scientists, apparently.)

[Lori in PA]

What follows is an essay about my first experience with souffle preparation. It's pretty long. Somebody tell me if I shouldn't post something so arduous to get through.

Dh insisted I post a picture of me -- I guess because he thinks I'm so stunningly gorgeous. Let's not disabuse him of his illusions, ok?

I like French food. I like to cook it. I like to eat it. I’ve worked on a few French culinary projects which were new to me in the past months – pork terrine and cassoulet come to mind. So I decided to learn how to make a soufflé. After those days-long preparations, soufflé should be easy, yes? I’m not sure why I’ve waited so long to make one. I think it may be because soufflé sounds like a dish suited for a quick, last-minute meal, something one would literally “whip up.”

And whipping up is precisely what one does when preparing a souffle. In the classic rendition, egg yolks are added one at a time to a thick béchamel base. Flavorings like grated cheese or pureed cooked vegetables are stirred in. Egg whites are whipped to soft mounds and quickly folded into the cream sauce mixture. Into a well-buttered soufflé dish and thence to the lower part of a hot oven it goes, where the bottom heat and the lifting power of the eggs sends the soufflé soaring above the confines of its dish, to emerge golden brown, its cracks offering glimpses of moist egginess within.

In order for a dish to be truly quick and last-minute, one must comfortably “own” it as part of one’s repertoire. And before one can own most dishes, one must prepare them a time or two, going slowly and methodically, following directions. One needs a chance to translate the knowledge gained from reading and listening into one’s hands and intuition. When dinnertime loomed close, I felt unable to cope with walking through my first soufflé, and when ample time was available to me, I didn’t want to spend it making something so basic. So, soufflé remained floating around in the back of my mind, one of those myriad foods I wanted to master sometime.

What got soufflé to the front of my thoughts was a new cook-off thread on eGullet, a website devoted to all things related to food. The thread was given the odd but descriptive title, “Eggs, Beaten, with Stuff in Them”. The idea that my time for soufflé had come was cemented when Jack, a bloke from Cambridge or Oxford, I always forget which, who seems to know his stuff when it comes to cooking, offered a post with photos about making individual soufflés for lunch. I was surprised to notice he mentioned nothing about making a béchamel base for them. When questioned, he said it wasn’t necessary, except perhaps for a cheese version. When I read that I realized that the idea of fooling with a béchamel had been the thing that was really blocking me from making soufflé. Enlightenment! Without the béchamel, all I’d really be doing would be making a sort of airy crustless quiche. This I could do – quickly and easily!

Of course, being me, I had to complicate things. It occurred to me that what would REALLY be good would be a sort of soufflé taste test: Jack’s quick, flavor-intensive version pitted against the classic sort. And also, being me, I chose an unlikely day for the grand experiment. A close friend had died, early and unexpectedly, at the beginning of the week. Grief had occupied most of my thoughts and practical assistance with funeral plans had taken up much of my time. The morning of the funeral dawned crisp and beautiful. I sat at my computer reading more on the Eggs thread and thought, “Why not make soufflé for supper tonight? We’ll want something light after the funeral reception anyway.” That is how I found myself, late that afternoon, cradling four or five cookbooks in my lap as I compared soufflé recipes. They were pretty much alike: 1 ½ cups béchamel, 6 eggs, a cup or so of flavoring ingredients, an eight-cup soufflé dish. Straightforward stuff.

My plan was to make a carrot and cheese soufflé in two versions. First problem: I only have one soufflé dish. Second problem: it only holds six cups. No worries, I thought – I’ll just refrigerate part of the mixture to make into an omelet or something in the morning. After a bit of head-scratching and cupboard-gazing, I decided to use the soufflé dish’s sibling, a vegetable bowl with somewhat rounded sides and bottom, for the second version. I vaguely remembered reading somewhere long ago about the importance of a soufflé mold having straight sides, but easily waved that thought aside in favor of necessity’s inventiveness.

Of course, making two styles of soufflé at once added a good deal of complexity to the process, particularly since I needed to get them into the oven at the same moment and didn’t know how long they would “hold” after being scooped into their dishes. Some parts of both recipes could be done at the same time, such as grating the cheese and pureeing the carrots. For one, I had to make the béchamel, add the yolks, add the flavoring, and then fold in the egg whites. For the other, I merely had to mix the flavorings with the egg yolks and then fold in the whites. On top of all this juggling of steps, I was directing my husband to take photos at various points for the benefit/amusement of my fellow eGulleteers. He was much bemused my antics, as was his mother, who happened to be here and decided to join us for dinner once she got sucked into my intrigue.

Jack's method -- the bechamel-less souffle:

It was only after my almost-twin soufflés were tucked safely into the oven (“Under no circumstances may the door be opened until the baking process is almost finished!” intoned Julia Child) that I remembered that I had forgotten to reserve some of the béchamel-based mixture – the full amount thought it was in an eight-cup dish and was expanding accordingly as I stood helpless on the other side of the oven door. I comforted myself with thoughts of my oven’s self-cleaning feature as I washed the counter-full of dirty prep dishes.

8 cups worth of souffle in a 6-cup dish:

I threw together a salad (Madame Julia: “…you accompany it only with a salad, or something like artichokes or asparagus vinaigrette…”) and ignored her further directive, “Dessert cannot, of course, have anything to do with eggs, but could be a beautiful fruit tart…,” feeling she wouldn’t be too horrified if I served the shoofly pie (one egg) I had leftover from the funeral reception.

I commanded everyone to come to the table five minutes before my timer was set to ring. (“The guests must wait for the souffle, for the soufflé will not wait for the guests.”) I chanced a quick look into the oven at that late moment and laughed out loud. Jack’s béchamel-less version in its entirely unsuitable vegetable bowl had risen almost not at all. The classic soufflé in its too-small authentic soufflé dish looked like a wild thing, teetering far out of bounds but amazingly not quite broken off and tumbled onto the oven floor. It put me in mind of a Jack-in-the-Box, popped up and swaying gently and precariously. I whisked it to the table amidst actual gasps, everyone amazed at its defiance of physics.

We ate. Maddeningly, the verdict was split as to the favorite version, but both were enjoyed by all. Our long, sad day was capped by laughter and sharing around the table. I thought of my friend while I ate. I certainly didn’t decide to tackle soufflé for the first time in tribute to him – he was the quintessential West Virginia good old boy and scoffed at anything “foreign.” In a way, though, I think what I did was fitting. Lucky lived his life appreciating God’s gifts as he knew them. He savored life. He liked to test himself physically. To me, food is a gift and I savor it. I like to test myself in the kitchen. Perhaps he would have appreciated my fancy eggs after all.

Plated -- Jack-style on the left; classic on the right:

Edited February 27, 2006 by Lori in PA (log)

[jackal10]

wow! Well done Lori!

In defence, I think my version had risen, but was hidden bu the bowl shape...for spectacle the bowls need to be filled to he brim with souffle mixture before baking

[Chufi]

Our long, sad day was capped by laughter and sharing around the table.  I thought of my friend while I ate.  I certainly didn’t decide to tackle soufflé for the first time in tribute to him – he was the quintessential West Virginia good old boy and scoffed at anything “foreign.”  In a way, though, I think what I did was fitting.  Lucky lived his life appreciating God’s gifts as he knew them.  He savored life.  He liked to test himself physically.  To me, food is a gift and I savor it.  I like to test myself in the kitchen.  Perhaps he would have appreciated my fancy eggs after all.

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Lori, I am sorry for your loss. I love your writing and it's never arduous to me! To me, it feels like you were honouring your friend through your souffle experience. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Both souffles look delicious to me!

Oh and OT - you look exactly as I imagined you from your screenname. Really!

[Lori in PA]

You are exactly right, Jack. There's no defense needed for your version. My attempt at it had two problems:

1. The bowl -- wrong shape and too large

2. I don't think yours needed as much oven time as the classic version, but I was nervous about opening the oven partway through the baking. Yours would have been more tender if it'd come out earlier, but a couple of my kids prefer well-done eggs and voted for yours as the favorite even with my errors.

I'm sure I'll make what our family will ever after call "Jack-style souffle" often because it is truly fast and easy. I'm a big fan of economical, clean-out-the-fridge, healthy, and fast food that pleases everyone, so souffles are here to stay in our household.

Edited to add: I must publicly thank my very computer savvy 17 yodd for getting the photos here. Snowangle/Susan gave much help to dd, not to hopeless me, so thank you to you too, Susan.

Edited February 27, 2006 by Lori in PA (log)

[Jake]

Great essay, Lori. Your writing is so evocative that I couldn't imagine it being shorter. My condolences on your loss, and congratulations on your souffles.

[little ms foodie]

So I'm still getting use to my convection oven, if I make a souffle in it should I use the convection feature or just put it on normal bake??

I had a weird thing happen to puff pastry when I had it set on convection......

[Pan]

Lori, as far as I'm concerned, you can write arduous posts like that anytime! That was a great demonstration! I'm very sorry for your loss.

[mrbigjas]

I'm not sure how many non-Koreans will be familiar with this but I made gyaehran jjim. Basically it's a steamed egg custard with tofu, preserved shrimp, scallions, and sesame oil in it.

ellencho, thank you for this! i love gyaehran jjim, but never knew it was that easy to make.

[snowangel]

So I'm still getting use to my convection oven, if I make a souffle in it should I use the convection feature or just put it on normal bake??

I had a weird thing happen to puff pastry when I had it set on convection......

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I used regular bake, but decided that next time I would try convection and see if it made any difference. I"ll probably get to this fairly soon since Heidi was so taken with the souffles.

While we're asking questions, when I made them, I used individual ramekins. I wonder how much difference there would be if I just made one big one?

[Jake]

Susan, I was just thinking I've always made one large one and reading this was wondering about individual ones and scaling down as per Jack's suggestions just to make 2 individual ones for a quick meal. I can say from my experience, one large is easy as pie (no pun intended) and mine always rise, touch wood.

[Pille]

May I present my yummy feta and spinach mini omelettes, handily baked in the oven in muffin tins:)

and here's a close-up:

Definitely using eggs, beaten, with stuff (spinach & feta cheese) in them

[Chufi]

Wow. Why did I never think of that? That's such a great way to do frittata's for large parties! I make very large ones in baking pans, but cutting them in individual portions is always messy. Thanks Pille!

(and by the way, they look delicious )

[Lori in PA]

Those look really appetizing, Pille!

[snowangel]

These little omelets look fab. How would they keep? I'm hosting a rather large party, and would be hard pressed to make them ala minute.

And, Lori, thanks for your pictoral and thoughts on the two different souffle methods and cooking vessels!

[Pille]

Wow. Why did I never think of that? That's such a great way to do frittata's for large parties! I make very large ones in baking pans, but cutting them in  individual portions is always messy.  Thanks Pille!

(and by the way, they look delicious )

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Thanks, Chufi! They are a great size indeed - a mouthful, and just one more.. Perfect fingerfood.

Those look really appetizing, Pille!

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Thank you, Lori!

These little omelets look fab.  How would they keep?  I'm hosting a rather large party, and would be hard pressed to make them ala minute.

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Snowangel - I imagine they'd keep well. I've never had any to keep, so I cannot really confirm it though But they're delicious both hot and cold, and thus can easily be prepared a little in advance for a larger group of people.

I sometimes use paper muffin cases, just to make sure I can get them out of the tins quickly.

The recipe is here. The last few times I just divide the chopped spinach and feta cheese between muffin tins, and ladle the egg mixture on top.

[BarbaraY]

Those do look and sound delicious! You did a good job.