Tag Archives: eggs

My First Soft-Boiled Egg

Two Sundays ago, after a morning of bird-watching with our ornithologist friend Morgan Tingley, I ate my first soft-boiled egg. We were at Cafe Sabarsky, one of my favorite places in New York, and Morgan recommended the Wiener Frühstück for breakfast: a continental breakfast of orangensaft, ein weiches ei, weißbrot, butter, marmelade & honig von staud. Translation: coffee, orange juice, brioche toast, country bread, butter, jam, honey from Staud and, our subject today, a soft-boiled egg.

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Weekend Brunch: Poached Eggs on Roasted Potatoes with Hollandaise Sauce

Last weekend, I decided to make a very ambitious breakfast of poached eggs on roasted potatoes with Hollandaise sauce. It took a whole carton of eggs (three for the Hollandaise, four for poaching and the rest for throwing away after the yolks bled into the whites) but the resulting dish, as you can see, was pretty dazzling. It’s the kind of breakfast that makes you, the chef, feel proud and triumphant, roaring with the might of a culinary lion. “I made that!” you keep saying to yourself, reluctant to disturb the plate with a fork. “I really made that.”

“Yes,” says your companion, digging in.

“I’m a culinary lion!” you continue. “Rawwwwwwwwr!!”

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Steam-Scrambled Eggs

Those of you with cappuccino makers, may I have your attention? I have a weekend project for you. When you make your scrambled eggs this weekend, instead of melting butter in a pan, beating the eggs with a fork, plopping them into the foamy fat and stirring them round and round, why not find inspiration in the picture above? Those eggs, you see, are the work of renowned New York chef Jody Williams. I ate them last Sunday with my friend Jimmy at her lovely little restaurant, Gottino, and they were so cloud-like and delicious I thought they might float right off the plate. But the best part was how they were made…

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Eggs Adam Roberts

Immortality is not something food bloggers can look forward to. Even though the internet feels permanent, who knows where we’ll be in ten or twenty years? These posts that you love and cherish so much might vanish into the ether and then what? What will food bloggers have to show for themselves? Nothing, I tell you, nothing! That is, unless we start naming recipes after ourselves. Which is why I bring you a recipe that should hit restaurant menus as soon as I click “post”: behold, Eggs Adam Roberts.

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Deviled Eggs

There are certain dishes that I don’t like until I make them myself. For example, this may come as a shock to you, but I used to hate–and I mean hate–macaroni and cheese. I know! But I grew up in a non-cheese household (longtime readers know that my dad hates cheese) so whenever I’d go to someone’s house and there’d be mac and cheese for dinner, I’d have to make up an excuse not to eat it (“I’m allergic,” I’d say.)

But then, once I got into cooking, I made a few mac and cheeses (here’s one here) and once I understood the basic components of the dish–the bechamel, the way the cheese melts into the sauce, the way it all bakes in the oven–I could stomach other people’s mac and cheese because I understood what it was and how it was made.

Now, after last night’s effort, I feel the same way about deviled eggs.

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Weekend Breakfasts

Weekends are for making breakfast. I used to think weekends were for going to brunch, and we still do go out to brunch every now and then, but I’ve started to embrace the simplicity, comfort and relative cheapness of making those same dishes at home.

Take the dish you see above: that’s called a dutch baby; a big, puffy, baked pancake. I got the recipe from The Joy of Cooking, but Molly has a pretty gorgeous looking one on her site too (click here.) Whichever recipe you choose, it couldn’t be simpler: you mix melted butter, eggs, flour and milk (or in Molly’s case, half-and-half), pour that into a skillet and bake in the oven. I’d recently purchased a cast iron skillet, and there was something especially satisfying about making a dutch baby in a cast iron. How much would this be if you had this at a restaurant? I’m guessing, at least, $12. At home, assuming you already have milk, eggs and flour in your fridge, it’s free.

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Uneasy About The Egg

I am so grateful for today’s New York Times story by Catherine Price: Sorting Through the Claims of the Boastful Egg.

Nowhere am I more overwhelmed, more confused, more baffled by food shopping than when I am buying eggs at the Key Food across the street. Differentiating what’s ethical from what’s merely claiming to be ethical is a Herculean task; and, as the article tells you, very little is to be believed on an egg box. If it says “Cage Free,” if it says “Organic” but doesn’t have the National Organic Program emblem (a circular seal with ‘U.S.D.A.”) your carton is not to be believed.

With this in mind, let’s look at the two egg cartons in my refrigerator to see how they fare…

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Spaghetti Carbonara For Beginners

I frequently have to remind myself that there was a time when any exotic-sounding, technique-heavy recipe would fill me with terror. Cook the pasta until al dente? How will I know when it’s al dente? Toast the garlic until golden brown? What’s golden brown? How’s that different from brown brown?

And by facing my fears head on, tackling recipe after recipe, the fear is gone and now I love to cook. But I remind myself of my old fears because I imagine there are many among you who experience similar fears: “Me? Make spaghetti carbonara? Oh no, I couldn’t. Me? Little old me?”

But spaghetti carbonara is a good recipe for beginners because the payoff is huge and the techniques required are basic and quickly learnable. Here, let me prove it.

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