Runny Eggs

[Busboy]

Poached, sous-vided, sunny-side upped -- seems you can't hardly get dinner any more without some chef springing a gooey egg on you. Sunny-side up on a truffle pizza at a four-star place, nestled in with the bacon and frisee at a cafe (this salad is now officially inescapable in DC) friend on top of black beans at an upscale nuevo Latino (does anyone still use that phrase? Well, you know what I mean -- a place where foams and huitlacoche meet), drooling over scallop at the top Formal French in town. Hell, I'm even forcing them on my own guests. Thing is, I don't think, outside of a diner, Eggs Benedict or steak tartare, I ever saw raw or near-raw eggs on a menu at all until a year or two ago. Where did this come from? Anybody else noticed a similar phenomenon in their city?

[Fat Guy]

I wish more restaurants would do it -- I won't rest until there's an egg dish or three on every menu, giving the egg its rightful place among proteins.

Eggs have of course been used in haute cuisine for ages. I'm sure Jack Lang has at some point posted a list of 752 egg dishes from Escoffier. I think eggs just went out of style for awhile, and are now coming back.

Some factors: Certainly the trumped-up health charges against eggs didn't help over the past couple of decades; people seem not to take that so literally anymore, though, so I'm sure that makes chefs more comfortable about working with eggs. Superior eggs are becoming more available; most good restaurants can now find a local small producer. There are a few modern egg dishes that really resonated in the haute cuisine community, especially the Arpege egg. Also, I think the scarceness of substantial sauces in contemporary haute cuisine creates a need to find ingredients with the lusciousness of the old sauces; eggs are great for that, because if you break a poached egg over anything -- say, a medley of baby seafood -- you have an instant sauce that's in keeping with the fresh, natural, minimalist approach favored by today's chefs.

[jackal10]

The Big Egg List is here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=36904

They were mosty from La Repertoire rather then Escoffier, although the two are close, and its for hard boiled eggs (hen or quail).

More for lunch dishes.

I agree its a trend, and I suspect its because of better temperature control. None the less I'm astounded when an establishment can produce hot runny poached eggs as part of a dish for 200 people served simultaneously at a banquet, as I witnessed recently.

[Holly Moore]

Oh to return to the days of yesteryear when Veal Holstein was on the menu - Wiener Schnitzel with capers and a fried egg or two on top. That was eating.

[Busboy]

I was wondering if it had to do with the release of the new Rocky XXVII (or however many) movie.

In response to FG and Jackal10's comments, I had always noticed that the more traditional French cookbooks I'd been through had a lot of egg recipes.

[Holly Moore]

... Thing is, I don't think, outside of a diner, Eggs Benedict or steak tartare, I ever saw raw or near-raw eggs on a menu at all until a year or two ago.  ...

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Near raw - coddled eggs on the occasionally properly prepared Caesar Salad.

[JohnL]

Poached, sous-vided, sunny-side upped -- seems you can't hardly get dinner any more without some chef springing a gooey egg on you.  Sunny-side up on a truffle pizza at a four-star place, nestled in with the bacon and frisee at a cafe (this salad is now officially inescapable in DC) friend on top of black beans at an upscale nuevo Latino (does anyone still use that phrase? Well, you know what I mean -- a place where foams and huitlacoche meet), drooling over scallop at the top Formal French in town.  Hell, I'm even forcing them on my own guests.  Thing is, I don't think, outside of a diner, Eggs Benedict or steak tartare, I ever saw raw or near-raw eggs on a menu at all until a year or two ago.  Where did this come from?  Anybody else noticed a similar phenomenon in their city?

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A couple of weeks ago I had an experience that will explain the situation.

First, I love eggs with raw or almost raw yolks! Oddly, I can't stand hard boiled or eggs with yolks that do not run. (I do like a good scrambled egg but loose not too cooked).

I love em sunnyside up, poached lightly, on a classic frisee salad, steak tartare--heaven! spaghetti carbonara--my favorite pasta dish, Holly's description of a classic veal dish--I am drooling..

Get the picture?

so

I recently had my usual egg fresh,from a very reputable organic producer fried with a runny yolk. As usual it tasted heavenly.

After years (ok decades) of enjoying raw and lightly cooked eggs, my number came up. Salmonella poisoning.

It is a cruel God!

Hell hath no fury like someone with serious food poisoning--it is so bad suicide would be a viable option if I could have stopped wretching and...long enough to get to an open window (I am on the 9th Floor).

It is a merciful God!

This thing lasted for one day.

So while it will be quite a while before I get back on the horse (I love raw eggs enough to roll the dice again) I can easily see why there is reluctance on the part of restaurants to also roll the dice.

Given the heightened media coverage (having news copter four hovering over your establishment and greta van Susteren assembling a panel to indict your diner) and the proclivity of the public to make a stink and worse, want to hold someone responsible and the plethora of attorneys who are on standby waiting to answer your call to their toll free line--I think i understand why the current scene is what it is.

[K8memphis]

Poached, sous-vided, sunny-side upped -- seems you can't hardly get dinner any more without some chef springing a gooey egg on you.  Sunny-side up on a truffle pizza at a four-star place, nestled in with the bacon and frisee at a cafe (this salad is now officially inescapable in DC) friend on top of black beans at an upscale nuevo Latino (does anyone still use that phrase? Well, you know what I mean -- a place where foams and huitlacoche meet), drooling over scallop at the top Formal French in town.  Hell, I'm even forcing them on my own guests.  Thing is, I don't think, outside of a diner, Eggs Benedict or steak tartare, I ever saw raw or near-raw eggs on a menu at all until a year or two ago.  Where did this come from?  Anybody else noticed a similar phenomenon in their city?

←

A couple of weeks ago I had an experience that will explain the situation.

First, I love eggs with raw or almost raw yolks! Oddly, I can't stand hard boiled or eggs with yolks that do not run. (I do like a good scrambled egg but loose not too cooked).

I love em sunnyside up, poached lightly, on a classic frisee salad, steak tartare--heaven! spaghetti carbonara--my favorite pasta dish, Holly's description of a classic veal dish--I am drooling..

Get the picture?

so

I recently had my usual egg fresh,from a very reputable organic producer fried with a runny yolk. As usual it tasted heavenly.

After years (ok decades) of enjoying raw and lightly cooked eggs, my number came up. Salmonella poisoning.

It is a cruel God!

Hell hath no fury like someone with serious food poisoning--it is so bad suicide would be a viable option if I could have stopped wretching and...long enough to get to an open window (I am on the 9th Floor).

It is a merciful God!

This thing lasted for one day.

So while it will be quite a while before I get back on the horse (I love raw eggs enough to roll the dice again) I can easily see why there is reluctance on the part of restaurants to also roll the dice.

Given the heightened media coverage (having news copter four hovering over your establishment and greta van Susteren assembling a panel to indict your diner) and the proclivity of the public to make a stink and worse, want to hold someone responsible and the plethora of attorneys who are on standby waiting to answer your call to their toll free line--I think i understand why the current scene is what it is.

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I Love sunny side up luscious yellow gooey eggs encircled by pristine white rings like a planetoid of delight on my plate friiiied in bacon grease. Mmmm, come to Momma! It took three, count 'em three near death experiences before I made the logical choice to forego said delicacy permanently having promised God repeatedly if He'd just let me live this one more time... And I had sworn off bacon grease years earlier at that. Although I don't know if it was salmonella as much as it is my age and personal plumbing--tmi. (too much information-sorry : )

But I'm off to finely shred some fresh perfectly timed hard boiled eggs on my lunch salad. JohnL, shredded fresh hot hard boiled eggs are a different animal on a nice salad. Maybe try it some day.

Or keep the activated charcoal handy. Runny yolk egg addictions don't die easy. Good thing we didn't either.

Edited January 11, 2007 by K8memphis (log)

[Shalmanese]

Potatoes, Onions, Asparagus, Bacon and Eggs, all topped with a little truffle salt.

Oh my!

Edited January 11, 2007 by Shalmanese (log)

[K8memphis]

Potatoes, Onions, Asparagus, Bacon and Eggs, all topped with a little truffle salt.

Oh my!

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I'm glad no one can see me licking the monitor screen.

And no, I am not slurping!

You are a cruel cruel man

<Hold your nose and say in a high pitched sing-song voice> "all topped with a little truffle salt"

sniff

[markk]

Where did this come from? 

It may have come from France. As I was explaining to a newly cholesterol-conscious friend, in France, there seems to be an unwritten law that you must consume at least 2-4 eggs a day, at least two of them runny. I've had them there served poached, in soup (Oeufs en meurette), definitely on salad (Salade Lyonnaise), and one more that I thought of when I started this post but can't remember. (In the case of what I told my friend, these are in addition to the eggs in the other things in France that you must consume daily which contain fully cooked eggs ; e.g., but not limited to, savoury tarts, desserts (such as pain perdu), and most verything else they cook.) Runny oeufs, they're not just for petit déjeuner anymore.

[hjshorter]

Surely you're not suggesting that this is a bad thing? I'm with Steven. Every restaurant need at least three egg preparations on its menu.

Jack, that's quite a feat. It's not hard to do at home, but I can't imagine pulling that off for 200 people.

Edited January 11, 2007 by hjshorter (log)

[Pontormo]

Wasn't there just an article on this very topic somewhere?

[Dave the Cook]

. . . . .

Jack, that's quite a feat.  It's not hard to do at home, but I can't imagine pulling that off for 200 people.

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Here's how you do it.

[Busboy]

Surely you're not suggesting that this is a bad thing?  I'm with Steven.  Every restaurant need at least three egg preparations on its menu.

Jack, that's quite a feat.  It's not hard to do at home, but I can't imagine pulling that off for 200 people.

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I'm all over it. Every time I get it served a new way, I end up eating it that way at home. Stephanie just fixed me rice and black beens topped with a runny egg last night.

[hjshorter]

Surely you're not suggesting that this is a bad thing?  I'm with Steven.  Every restaurant need at least three egg preparations on its menu.

Jack, that's quite a feat.  It's not hard to do at home, but I can't imagine pulling that off for 200 people.

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I'm all over it. Every time I get it served a new way, I end up eating it that way at home. Stephanie just fixed me rice and black beens topped with a runny egg last night.

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Faaaaabulous. Now I want huevos rancheros.

I've got a very good recipe for eggs cooked in a tomato sauce with Indian spices. Excellent with basmati, sauteed spinach, and naan to soak it up.

Barring the $5/a dozen organic, free range specimins from the farmer's market, eggs are for the most part inexpensive and an excellent background for many flavors (scrambled with truffles, anyone?) And they provide a rich counterpoint to acidity (the ubiquitous salad) or spicyness (the aforementioned Rancheros).

Edited January 11, 2007 by hjshorter (log)

[Fat Guy]

Even at US$5/dozen, eggs are a bargain. That's like 42 cents an egg. Still, I only pay $3/dozen for organic ones at my local grocery, which is a quarter an egg. Presumably high-end restaurants are paying less than that for better eggs, so as a question of food cost it's an insignificant ingredient in a $15 appetizer. Heck, it's barely significant in a $3 appetizer.

[Fat Guy]

By the way, pasteurized shell eggs are available these days and they're quite good -- I think they could easily spearhead a revival of Caesar salad made the right way. In addition, irradiation will eventually end the salmonella problem altogether. But really, the egg supply is now so safe that an egg may not be a heck of a lot more likely to transmit a foodborne illness than, say, spinach, and certainly eggs are as safe or safer than plenty of other things they serve in high-end restaurants, like oysters.

[hjshorter]

I'm curious how common pasteurised eggs are in other areas because I've been unsuccessful in trying to locate them in the DC area. Luckily my kids are past the age where I need to care about that anymore.

[K8memphis]

I'm curious how common pasteurised eggs are in other areas because I've been unsuccessful in trying to locate them in the DC area.  Luckily my kids are past the age where I need to care about that anymore.

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They are available here in Memphis. I think they Eggland's Best brand.

Edited to add correction: No, I was incorrect Egg-land's Best is vegetarian fed chickens. However we do have pasteurized eggs here.

Edited January 12, 2007 by K8memphis (log)

[docsconz]

As for where this trend came from, I would have to think it has a lot to do with the increased exposure and popularity of sous vide cooking. It is easier than ever to cook eggs perfectly time and time again by cooking them in the appropriate temperature water bath in their own shell rather than plastic.

[Busboy]

As for where this trend came from, I would have to think it has a lot to do with the increased exposure and popularity of sous vide cooking. It is easier than ever to cook eggs perfectly time and time again by cooking them in the appropriate temperature water bath in their own shell rather than plastic.

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Most of these places are using sous-vide, though. Or not always, anyway.

Actually, I didn't like the texture of the one sous-vide I had (at Citronelle) the outside seemed like some sort of bathtub sealant.

[Fat Guy]

It's pretty easy to poach eggs. As the link Mr. The Cook provided uptopic indicates, a regular restaurant with nothing more than a vat of simmering water can poach hundreds of them. For basic egg-poaching, sous vide seems like using an atom bomb to swat a fly.

Heather, try Safeway. They're listed on the Davidson's website as carrying the product in DC.

http://www.safeeggs.com/markets/pavailability.html

[hjshorter]

Actually, I didn't like the texture of the one sous-vide I had (at Citronelle) the outside seemed like some sort of bathtub sealant.

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Egg white can be tricky stuff, even with a failsafe method. What was it served with?

Thank for the tip, FG. I've not seen that brand at any my local Safeway but maybe somewhere farther out in suburbia carries it. I buy most of our eggs at the farmer's market, unless we're doing hard-boiled eggs and need some that aren't quite as fresh.

Busboy, try frisee with lardons, wild mushrooms, and a duck egg. Make a dijon vinaigrette with fresh thyme, heavy on the vinegar. Good stuff.

Edited January 12, 2007 by hjshorter (log)

[docsconz]

It's pretty easy to poach eggs. As the link Mr. The Cook provided uptopic indicates, a regular restaurant with nothing more than a vat of simmering water can poach hundreds of them. For basic egg-poaching, sous vide seems like using an atom bomb to swat a fly.

[

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Hardly! Basic egg poaching requires keeping an eye on the time for many individual eggs. While that is not necessarily the most difficult chore, setting the eggs to cook to a specific temperature with which the timing does not need to be precise after a certain period is even easier and can be cooked to the exact degree of doneness with great consistency. It is the consistency that is the real value of sous vide .