4 February 2008
Eggs for Breakfast
I’m not sure when the idea of eggs as an essential part of breakfast took root in my mind. I was raised with boiled eggs for breakfast at weekends, and if I recall correctly, fried eggs occasionally. We had our own chickens, so supply wasn’t a problem. But I don’t recall thinking that eggs were an necessity - rashers, yes, porridge, perhaps, although I didn’t much like it until I was older, cereals, certainly. Nonetheless, I now think of them as being a quintessential element of breakfast. Even when they’re not directly there on the plate, they can be present as part of pancakes, brioche, pastries, or the like.
I recently inherited a goodly stack of canned and jarred New Mexican food from friends who were leaving the country. They’d had it sent to them from the US, and hadn’t got to using it. One of the cans contained something called “huevos rancheros sauce”. I had never as much as heard of this stuff - Mexican food is just about known in Ireland, and we still think of it as burritos, guacamole and salsa.
But the illustration on the can, and the instructions on the side were reasonably clear, so I gave it a shot. It came out pretty well, but next time, I’m going to chase after more authentic ingredients. I’ve only just discovered that tortillas are made from nothing but maize flour and water, and once I work out whether rolling will subsitute for a tortilla press, I should be well on the way to making them. I’ve made a more European flatbread from plain or wholemeal flour and water, with a little salt and pepper, and that was fine to roll, if a little sticky.
This time, I poached the eggs, although I see from some further research that frying them is probably more authentic. I had kidney beans, rather than pinto beans, and potato waffles rather than hash browns. But I suspect that once I get the tortillas down, everything else can be varied. The sauce doesn’t seem to be too complex, either, being basically a green salsa. And I think that maybe a red one could be used without purists thinking too badly of me.
The more homely scrambled and fried eggs allow for a fair degree of experimentation as well. To my mind, the best scrambled eggs are moist, fairly coherent, and not too thoroughly scrambled, so that there are bits of white in among the yellow still. This is remarkably hard to get right; there’s a combination of temperature, timing, and proportions of ingredients that I can’t seem to quite get right. I’ve produced very good scrambled eggs, but never yet perfect, and I think a lot of my problems lie in the temperature - I’m starting to think that an even, fairly low temperature, just enough to have the butter bubbling a little, is what’s needed.
Fried eggs, now… it’s hard to do perfect fried eggs. The ideal here is to have the white firm and solid, but not rubbery, with the very edges a tiny bit crisped, and the yolk in a single bubble on top, pinked over, and still a little runny at the centre. My mother could do these perfectly - which is no doubt why I think these are ideal - but the technique, as I remember it, seems to call for more oil than seems reasonable, and tipping the pan sideways with one hand while you flick hot oil from a spatula onto the top of the egg with the other. Turning the egg right over is workable, but not pretty. Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking suggests that you could add a little water to the oil, cover the pan, and let it steam to a cooked state, which I’m going to have to try.
Now I just need to work out how to either make my own huevos rancheros sauce, or find a place in Ireland that sells it. And that can’t be too hard, can it?
posted 4 February 2008 @ 11:54 by Drew Shiel
2 Comments currently posted.
Sarah@lettersonlunches says:
Cissa says:
Tortillas are not quite just maize flour and water- they’re masa harina and flour. Masa harina has been processed with lime, which changes the consistency somewhat and also makes the corn proteins more accessible. It really does make a difference, as I discovered many years ago when I couldn’t find masa harina and tried corn flour.
Now, a rolling pin will work fine. The trick is that maize has little gluten, so the rolled-out tortillas will be fragile. Figure out how to transfer them to the pan, and you’ll be fine.
The steam method works GREAT for fried eggs, by the way!
Post a comment on this entry:
Tortillas are not quite just maize flour and water- they’re masa harina and flour. Masa harina has been processed with lime, which changes the consistency somewhat and also makes the corn proteins more accessible. It really does make a difference, as I discovered many years ago when I couldn’t find masa harina and tried corn flour.
Now, a rolling pin will work fine. The trick is that maize has little gluten, so the rolled-out tortillas will be fragile. Figure out how to transfer them to the pan, and you’ll be fine.
The steam method works GREAT for fried eggs, by the way!
I remember Marco-Pierre White saying on Hell’s Kitchen, that the secret to a good fried egg, is to use alot of butter and shallow fry them!!! My mum puts a lid on the frying pan which heats them through so the white cooks quicker without burning the base. They always turn out delicious… Poached eggs are my favourite though!!!