Nearly Easter, so let’s look at some egg
recipes, as we stuff ourselves with chocolate goodies that we don’t need. I’ve just
found a new chocolate bar, coffee-flavoured, with bits of coffee bean in it:
from the Oxfam shop, so ya see, it’s laudable,
not sinful. …Oh, dear.
Once
I’m over that dose of cholesterol and sugar, not to mention the caffeine high—it
felt good, mind you—I might buy a dozen eggs. Just so long as the latest Aussie
scare (was it salmonellosis again?) is over…
“If there’s an egg in the house, there’s a meal in the house”
—or so the story goes, according to the
spate of TV ads that we got for several years from the Australian egg authority
(whatever that may be). They seem to have gone off lately—though they may well
come back, the phenomenon is not unknown. Apparently the sentiment is
general—at least, if the big Aussie cookery website, BestRecipes.com, may be
taken as the authority on today’s tastes. Their 2018 posting, “12 easy
dinners starring eggs” would certainly seem to support this stance.
That
is, until you start looking closely at the recipes! Which I admit I did—well,
obsessive, yes. The thing is, I was unconvinced that in the 21st century they
could produce as many as twelve egg-based recipes for main dishes. I’ve been
collecting recipes for fifty years now, and the egg dishes in my database, as opposed
to the meat dishes, the poultry dishes, the fish dishes, the pasta dishes, the
rice dishes, the vegetable dishes and even the pulse-based dishes, are by far in
the minority.
And
so it proved. The phrase “starring eggs” is particularly well chosen: congrats
to whoever came up with that brilliant piece of Internet-speak! Quite
unchallengeable, and one could not possibly sue them for misrepresentation!
’Cos many of these recipes are not egg-based, at all. Frequently the eggs merely add the finishing touch
or just an extra fillip. Acting as the star—right. Or you might call it merely
skirting round the subject?
Here’s the list of the BestRecipes recipes. If you go to the website and
follow the arrows beside the pickshas, you’ll find the links to each one. As
you’ll see, there is a distinct bias towards the fleetingly trendy, In thing
(or possibly now going Out—the overpriced caff in the South Australian Museum was
already offering “Buddha Bowls” (no.4) several years back).
1. One-Cup Quiche
This is NOT a quiche! It has no crust. It’s
one of 2 recipes in this set that call themselves "quiche" but are
actually the crustless Middle Eastern dish, “eggah”.
The
author writes: “…Great to
eat hot or cold. This is a base recipe and can be changed to suit personal
tastes. Add other ingredients such as shredded chicken, ham, corn, asparagus or
capsicum.”
Main
ingredients: eggs, cheese,
bacon, onions, tomatoes.
2. Easy Bibimbap
A version of a Korean dish served in a bowl,
which uses an per egg person as just one of the ingredients.
The
author writes: “Bibimbap is
a traditional Korean dish full of raw veggie goodness topped off with a fried
egg, making it the ideal family health bowl.”
Main
ingredients: rice, beef
mince, baby spinach, carrots, cucumber, spring onions, egg.
3. Scotch Eggs
An excellent version of the good old
traditional recipe.
The
author writes: “Great for a
picnic lunch as well as a family meal.”
Main
ingredients: eggs, sausage
meat.
4. Egg Buddha Bowls
An offering from Australian Eggs, doubtless
an attempt to promote eggs as very With-it and Now. It’s not at all clear,
though the picture helps, what the result is meant to be. I finally decided it
was a kind of salad, some ingredients possibly warm(ish). It entails a lot of
different types of preparation, and what with separate oven-roasting, etc, it
seems to use up a lot of power for a fairly feeble result. It’s expensive, too:
in addition to the main ingredients there are loads of Asian-style flavourings.
The one boiled egg per bowl sits on top, halved.
The
authors write: “A healthy
meal you can enjoy for breakfast, lunch or dinner, that crushes hunger pangs
and takes a good photo too!”
Main
ingredients: quinoa, roast
pumpkin, broccolini, carrots, Spanish onion, egg.
5. Easy Quiche
No, NOT a quiche. The second of the 2
crustless recipes in this set that are actually “eggahs”. These recipes, whether
or not the writers knew it, are revivals of a trendy dish of the 1970s (for
example, the “eggahs” in A Book of Middle
Eastern Food, by Claudia Roden, 1970, or recipes such as “Baked Carrot
Pudding” in Gail Duff’s Vegetarian
Cookbook, 1978). They are distinguished, however, by their cheese content:
the increased cholesterol & high dairy content is typical of popular
Australasian food (at the time the set was posted, “Easy Quiche” had 128
reviews by users).
The
author writes: “…Add 2 cups
of any type of filling of your choice to this base mixture.” (The suggestions
are: bacon and onion; leek and mushroom; diced cooked chicken breast; corn
kernels.)
Main
ingredients: eggs, cheese,
bacon.
6. Caesar Potato Salad
A nice, if fairly standard, potato salad. There
are only 2 hard-boiled eggs to 6 servings: it’s in no wise an egg salad. The
“Caesar” dressing is half-and-half commercial mayo and Paul Newman's Own Caesar
salad dressing.
The
author writes: “Delicious
potato salad made with creamy Caesar salad dressing.”
Main
ingredients: potatoes,
bacon, eggs, carrots, spring onions.
7. Chicken and Egg Pasta Salad
Using both cold cooked chicken and eggs strikes
me as redundant. You could call it egg-based in that there are 5 hard-boiled
eggs for 4 servings, but with 500g of chicken as well, you can see why the
chicken comes first in the name. It’d be a hefty family meal for
football-playing teenagers, that’s for sure.
The
author writes: “A quick and
easy lunch in the summertime.”
Main
ingredients: chicken,
pasta, eggs, tinned red kidney beans, ham, spring onions.
8. Asparagus, Smoked Chicken,
Capsicum & Egg Pizza
Sorry, BestRecipes, but this is the epitome
of silly! Well, for a start, asparagus on a pizza?
The egg, poached separately, sits on top of each small pizza. The finishing
touch? I think it’d finish me off.
(Gulp.)
The
author writes: “It’s
Asparagus season, let’s celebrate. This recipe brings out the best in all the
ingredients as they compliment each other so well. The soft yolk egg brings
another level of yum. A brilliant brunch dish or easy meal. It’s an oz Italian
pizza.”
Main
ingredients: tinned smoked
chicken, asparagus, preserved roasted capsicums, cheese, passata, egg.
9. Mongolian Chicken Egg Net
Omelette
Another with-it Asian-inspired effort. In
spite of the claims to the contrary I have a feeling this would be fiendishly
difficult to bring off successfully—unless you learned the technique at your
Mongolian granny’s knee. The one-person “net omelette” (more like a wrapper) contains
one egg.
The
author writes: “I love
Asian inspired dishes, they’re quick and easy. It takes so little time to
prepare a healthy meal that's full of flavour, with ingredients that are easy
to have on hand. This is my turn to dish [i.e. turn-to dish] when I want a
special dinner for one or two without having to spend a lot of time in the
kitchen.”
Main
ingredients: chicken, celery,
carrots, capsicums, baby sweetcorn, mushrooms, spring onions, egg.
10. Warm Bacon and Egg Salad
Okay, it’s a mixed vegetable salad with
bacon and egg dumped on it. The amount of putting stuff in and out of the pan
seems unnecessary to me—however. There’s one egg and three bacon rashers per
person.
The
author writes: “Who says
‘You don’t win friends with salad’? This little number is sure to please even
the most dedicated salad dodger.”
Main
ingredients: bacon, eggs, lettuce,
tomatoes, cucumber, cheese.
11. Bacon and Egg Baked Spud
One egg and one rasher of bacon (this is becoming
a familiar theme, isn’t it?) per each large potato. A second hearty dish for
your teenage footballers. And I’d certainly fancy it myself on a chilly
evening! Yum! Well done, “Jessann”.
The
author writes: “Baked
potato with bacon egg dash of cream and seasoning.”
Main
ingredients: potatoes, eggs,
bacon.
12. Meatloaf Stuffed with Eggs
and Wrapped in Bacon
More enterprising, but actually a variation
on Scotch Eggs! I think it looks tricky, but then I’m hopeless at wrapping sticky,
fall-apart things in other sticky, fall-apart things.
The
author writes: “This recipe
is very nice when you have visitors. Looks delicious and is yummy as well.”
Main
ingredients: pork mince,
beef mince, “kransky” sausage, bacon, eggs, potatoes, mixed vegetables, onions.
That’s it. Where did all the soufflés go?
Well, Veronica, they’d be too hard for the 21st-century cook.
I
do applaud the website for the effort, but in spite of the claims in its
“difficulty’ column that all these recipes are “easy”, most of them are not:
you’d have to have a goodly number of culinary techniques under your belt to
bring them off. And as I say, if you were expecting “starring eggs” to mean
egg-based, you were wrong.
And
most of them are, alas, fairly pricy also. The fashion for giving the actual
cost of each dish, as with Mrs Wicken’s recipes circa 1894 in The Art of Living in Australia, has long
since gone out—and no wonder! True, eggs are still cheap in Australia today,
but asparagus, baby spinach, baby corn, broccolini, rice wine, tins of smoked
chicken (wot?) and sesame oil, to name only a few of the ingredients in these
dishes, are not. Some of the recipes would make a cheap and tasty main dish for
a family, yes. But not all, by any means. Like most of the online cookery stuff
these days, they’re aimed at those on comfortable middle-class incomes, with
the family’s main breadwinner in a well-paid, secure job.
I think
we can fairly say, in summary, that it’s ruddy difficult in the 21st century to
provide a set of recipes “starring” eggs in which the eggs are the main
ingredient and to which you don’t have to add many other ingredients, usually
protein-based into the bargain, such as bacon, cheese, mince, chicken (smoked
or otherwise) or sausage meat, in order to make the thing up to the size of an
actual meal.
Ancient History, With a Poacher
It was never easy, actually. Back in the bye
and bye, of course we had eggs: they were a staple in every Australasian
household, then as now. But in the 1950s Mum never did anything more exciting
with them as a main dish than add a lot of grated cheese to one beaten egg and,
if we were very lucky, a small scrap of bacon, eke the result out with milk and
spread it on bread, then toasting the lot in the oven for Sunday tea’s “Mousetraps”
Mmm! Apart from that it was often boiled eggs with “dippers” (soldiers to some),
either for breakfast (though only as a regular thing when we were very young)
or, later, also for Sunday tea. Scrambled eggs also got served fairly often,
but not omelettes, and never fried eggs (fried food was sinful).
She
could do a really nice traditional poached egg, but she had a poacher that she often
used instead: Dad was fond of poached eggs, and it was much, much more convenient
when feeding the family. One of those lidded flat pans with a detachable insert
featuring four large holes, that in their turn held little saucer-like neat
affairs with tiny metal handles. Unlike many models, our pan didn’t have a long
handle, just two small metal loops. It was very light-weight, so I think it must
have been aluminium. These days egg poachers have gone up-market, natch, and
you can buy all sorts of fancy non-stick and/or fully electrified things, and
even special microwave ones, but ours just sat on the stove with the water
bubbling gently in the bottom compartment. By the time “slices” came in, the
handy all-metal bottom compartment was also used for baking them: just the
right size and depth! (See earlier blog articles, Condensed
Cholesterol & Sugar Blindness: The Australasian “Slice” (1) and Snap, Crackle— Slice?
The Australasian “Slice” (2))
Let’s see if we can find some options for
main dishes in which eggs are essential, and which don’t contain bacon (6 of the 12 do!) or cheese (4), and are actually egg-based.
Eggahs
The technique appears in several cuisines,
under various names. Let’s start off with a couple of classics from Claudia
Roden. She writes:
“An eggah is firm and sound, rather like an egg
cake. It is usually an inch or more thick … with a filling of vegetables, or meat,
or chicken and noodles… The egg is used as a binding for the filling, rather
than the filling being an adornment of the egg. For serving, the eggah is turned out on to a serving dish
and cut into slices, as one would cut a cake. It is sometimes cooked in a rectangular
dish, especially if baked in the oven. In this case, it is usually served cut
into rectangular or square pieces.”
(Claudia Roden. A Book of Middle Eastern Food. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin,
1970. (First published 1968))
Eggahs
are very versatile. They are served as a main dish, often with a salad, but
they are also served in the Middle East as hors d'oeuvre (cut into small
pieces), or as a side dish to grills and meatballs. They can be eaten hot or
cold.
When
cooked, the eggah should be firm, even in the centre.
General instructions for cooking are:
Pan
cooking: Large heavy frying
pan to give an even distribution of heat, with a lid which fits tightly. 15 to
30 minutes over very gentle heat, according to the number of eggs used and the
type of filling. Usually cooked covered.
Oven
cooking: Ovenproof dish
with a lid. The tray or dish must be greased. Cooking time in a moderate oven
(177°C, 350°F) from 1/2 to 1 hour, depending on size and type of filling. Covered
to begin with, uncovered towards the end to allow the top to brown.
Recipe 1. Kuku Sibzamini (Persian Potato Eggah)
6 eggs;
2 medium-sized potatoes;
4-5 spring onions, chopped, or 1 bunch
chives, chopped;
2-3 tablespoons butter; salt and pepper;
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley [to
garnish]
Peel and boil the
potatoes, and mash to a smooth puree. Mix with about 2 tablespoons butter. Beat
the eggs and add to the puree gradually, beating all the time to achieve a
smooth texture. Add onions or chives, and season to taste.
Pour into a
buttered baking dish and bake in a slow oven (325-350 F. or Mark 2-3) [165-177
C] for about 3/4 hr, or till set and coloured.
Turn out onto a
heated serving dish, garnish with finely chopped parsley and serve cut in
slices like a cake. (Serves 6.)
(Claudia Roden. A Book of Middle Eastern Food.
Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1970. (First published 1968))
Recipe 2. Eggah bi Eish wa Kousa (Bread and Courgette Eggah)
6 eggs;
1/2 lb courgettes [zucchini]
1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped;
3 slices bread, crustless, soaked in a
little milk;
3 tablespoons chopped parsley; butter; salt & black pepper
Wash courgettes
and cut into 1/4-in thick slices. Sprinkle with salt and allow to drain in colander
for about 1/2 hr. Pat dry.
Fry chopped onion
in butter till soft and just golden. Add courgette slices, and sauté till soft
and lightly coloured all over. Drain.
Beat the eggs. Add
soaked bread, squeezed dry, crumbling it in your hand. Then add onion and
courgettes with parsley and season with salt and pepper. Mix well.
Pour onto sizzling
butter in a frying pan and cook gently over very low heat with the lid on until
the eggs are set, about 20 mins. Brown the top lightly under a hot grill.
Serve as a main
dish with salads and yoghourt. (Serves 6.)
(Claudia Roden. A Book of Middle Eastern Food.
Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1970. (First published 1968))
The mixture of egg and zucchini is one of my
favourites. I have made it by substituting a tablespoon of cornflour, mixed to
a paste with a little water, for the bread. Often I add a handful of mixed
frozen vegetables when finishing the cooking of the zucchini. You don’t need to
brown the top but it does just add that extra something, and improves the look
of it, too.
I
could just give you the twelve eggah recipes from my database that don’t
contain bacon or cheese, but I want to show you more variation with egg-based
dishes, so here are just two more “eggahs”, from different cuisines. The first is
my translation of a French recipe for an eggplant dish from Provence.
Recipe 3. Flan d’aubergines
2 kg aubergines (eggplants); 4 eggs;
3 cloves garlic; 1 small bunch of thyme (dried or fresh);
4 tablespoons olive oil; butter, salt, pepper
To serve: 1/2 litre home-made tomato
sauce
Peel the eggplants
and cut in rounds. In a colander, sprinkle them with salt and leave them for an
hour. Dry well with paper towels. (If the eggplants are nice and ripe you can
skip this step.)
Heat the oil in a
good-sized frying pan or electric frypan on medium heat. Add the eggplants,
lower the heat and let them soften, stirring frequently.
Add pepper, the
finely chopped garlic and the thyme leaves. Cook for around 40 min. (The
eggplants should be very soft.)
Remove them carefully
and drain excess oil on paper towels. Puree them in a blender or food-processor.
Beat the eggs and
mix the eggplant puree into them.
Heat the oven to 230°C.
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and cook in a bain-marie for about
40 minutes.
Serve with a warm
home-made tomato sauce on the side. (Serves 6.)
(Elle. Les fiches-cuisine de Elle, Paris, 1973)
You may find the oven temperature is too
high, though the bain-marie should mitigate it.
The
classic tomato sauce below would go well with the flan:
Salsa di Pomidoro (1) - Tomato Sauce
(1)
Chop 2 lb. [1 kg] of
ripe tomatoes. Put them into a saucepan with 1 small onion, 1 carrot, 1 piece of
celery, and a little parsley, all finely chopped. Add salt, ground black pepper
and a pinch of sugar. Simmer until the tomatoes have turned almost to a purée.
Put the sauce through a sieve [or use a blender].
If a
concentrated sauce is needed, put the purée back in a saucepan and cook it again
until the watery part of it has dried up [sufficiently]. Before serving it with
meat, fish or any kind of pasta, add,
when they are obtainable, a couple of fresh basil leaves.
(Elizabeth David. Italian Food. 2nd ed. (revised), London,
Macdonald for the Cookery Book Club, 1966)
The next one is a Swedish recipe:
Recipe 4. Mushroom Casserole - Champinjonlåda
2 cups chopped
mushrooms; 3 eggs, slightly beaten;
1 onion,
chopped; 1 cup diced cooked ham;
1 tablespoon
breadcrumbs; 2 tablespoons tomato juice;
1 cup milk; 1 cup stock;
salt and pepper
Sauté mushrooms
and onion in butter, add ham and allow to simmer 5 minutes. Sprinkle with crumbs,
add juice and stock gradually and season. Pour mixture into greased casserole.
Mix eggs, milk and
salt and pour over mixture.
Bake in moderate
oven (350 degrees F.) until firm, about 30 minutes.
(Serves 4)
(Peter’s Cuisine) http://peterscuisine.pww4u2.com/swedish.html
I think I’d probably add more breadcrumbs just
to thicken it up a little. Do me a favour and please don’t substitute bacon for
the ham—it’s too strong and salty.
Egg Curries
Indian egg curries are made by hard-boiling
the eggs. They are then used in the same way as the meat, pulse, or vegetable
component would be in a curry recipe. In India egg curries are served in the
same way as a meat dish would be, as part of a meal which also includes at
least one vegetable dish, and either chapattis or rice. Here are two of the
main varieties: the first is a basic Indian egg curry and the second is a version
of the “moli”, a dish originating in southern India, in which the sauce is made
with coconut milk.
Recipe 5. Egg Curry (Anda ka kari)
8 hard-boiled
eggs, halved; 4 tomatoes, chopped;
1 onion, finely
chopped; 2 cloves garlic;
1 inch (2.5 cm)
piece ginger;
1/2 teaspoon
paprika or chilli powder;
1 teaspoon
coriander seeds; 1 teaspoon turmeric powder;
1/2 teaspoon cumin
seeds; 2 tablespoons coriander leaves;
1 teaspoon garam
masala [to finish; see below]
4 tablespoons ghee; 1 teaspoon salt
Lightly fry the
onion in ghee. Meanwhile grind the garlic, ginger and spices. Add this masala
paste to the onion and fry for two minutes. Stir in the salt, tomatoes and
coriander leaves and simmer till the sauce begins to thicken.
Add the eggs,
sprinkle with garam masala and heat through for five minutes. A tablespoon of
lemon juice may be added before serving.
Serve hot with
rice or a vegetable dish.
(Jack Santa Maria.
Indian Vegetarian Cookery. London,
Rider, 1973)
Garam Masala
(1) A simple garam
masala may be made by grinding 1/2 cup green cardamom seeds, 1 cup cumin seeds,
1/3 cup cloves. Mix together and store in an airtight jar.
(2) Grind together
3 parts cardamom seeds, 3 parts cinnamon, 1 part clove, 1 part cumin seed.
(3) Grind together
4 parts black peppercorns, 4 parts coriander seed, 3 parts cumin seed or fennel
seed, 1 part cloves, 1 part cardamom seed, 1 part cinnamon.
(Jack Santa Maria.
Indian Vegetarian Cookery. London, Rider,
1973)
The recipe below is one of the simplest for
the egg and coconut milk curry usually called a “moli” in Indian cookbooks. You
will find versions of it wherever Indian dishes have influenced the cuisine.
Recipe 6. Eggs in a Yellow Chili
Sauce (Teleri Pindang)
6 hard-boiled eggs; 1 tomato, peeled and chopped;
1 onion, peeled
and chopped; 1 clove garlic, chopped;
2 cups coconut
milk; 1 teaspoon turmeric;
1 teaspoon chilli
powder [or more, to taste]; oil; salt
Shell eggs and cut
into halves.
Heat a little oil,
sauté onion and garlic and when lightly browned add the tomato and simmer till this softens. Gradually
add the coconut milk, stirring all the time.
Then add remaining
ingredients, except eggs. Bring to boil, stir and rub through sieve.
Return sauce to
pan, add eggs and cook over low heat for 3 mins.
(Robin Howe. The International Wine and Food Society's
Guide to Far Eastern Cookery. London, International Wine and Food Society,
1969)
Spanish-Style
Two egg-based dishes from Spain: one scrambled-eggs
fashion, the other a Spanish omelette.
Recipe 7. Piperade
This Basque egg
dish can be served on toast as a simple lunch or dressed up for a more formal
meal with slices of grilled or fried ham.
6 eggs; 2 red or green peppers [capsicums];
4 large tomatoes; 2 medium potatoes, boiled & diced;
2 small onions,
thinly sliced; 2 cloves garlic, finely
chopped;
2 tablespoons butter; salt and pepper to taste;
chopped parsley to
garnish
Cut prepared
peppers into strips and blanch for 5 minutes. Drain well. Melt the butter in a
large, heavy frying pan and cook the onions and garlic until soft and
golden-brown. Add pepper strips and cook gently for 10 minutes.
Peel tomatoes and
chop roughly. Add to pan and cook for 5 minutes. Add the cooked, diced
potatoes.
Beat the eggs and
seasoning. Stir into the vegetable mixture. Cook as you would scrambled eggs
until the mixture is just set and creamy. Sprinkle with parsley for serving. (Serves
4-6.)
(Mary Browne,
Helen Leach & Nancy Tichborne. The
Cook's Garden: For Cooks Who Garden and Gardeners Who Cook. Wellington,
[N.Z.], A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1980)
I would avoid the toast: this habit is a
relic from the beginning of the 20th century, when toast accompanied all sorts
of little messes as a first course (or, in the days of the British Raj, also as
a savoury at the end of the meal: “first toast” and “second toast”.) A crusty
white bread would probably go with it in Spain. And a glass of red!
Recipe 8. Tortilla (Spanish Omelette)
The “tortilla” is flat, solid and filling,
can be eaten hot or cold. The classic tortilla is a combination of eggs and
potatoes cut into very tiny dice and fried in butter till crisp and golden.
Choose a frying
pan that is not too large, since the finished tortilla should fill it and be
about an inch thick. Beat the eggs as for an ordinary omelette and when the
potatoes are ready [fried and golden], pour in eggs, season and stir well. Now
is the moment to add cooked peas and minced parsley if liked. Do not stir as it
cooks, but shake occasionally.
Holding the pan
with the left hand, cover it with a plate, turn pan up side down on to it and
slip the tortilla back into the pan with the cooked side uppermost. Cook a few
minutes more till the second side is browned but the inside is soft.
(Mary Hillgarth. The International Wine and Food Society's
Guide to Spanish Cookery. London, International Wine and Food Society,
1970)
The Spanish omelette (tortilla) is, as Claudia Roden notes in A Book of Middle Eastern Cookery, related to the Middle Eastern
eggah. The big difference is that the tortilla
should still be soft inside while the eggah is firm throughout.
The French Touch
This dish of eggs baked in a creamy onion
sauce could be served as a starter or as a lunch dish. A “soubise” sauce is a classic French sauce based on onions.
Recipe 9. Oeufs Soubise
4 eggs;
8 oz [225 g] finely chopped onion or shallots;
1 oz [25-30 g] flour; 2 tablespoons cream;
1/4 pint [150 ml] stock; 1/4 pint [150 ml] milk;
1 bay leaf;
2 oz [50 g] butter; salt, pepper
Cook onion in
butter in covered pan over gentle heat for about 10 mins, till soft. Sieve or
mash [or use blender; and return to pan]. Blend flour in pan. When smooth, stir
in the stock and milk. Add bay leaf and simmer, stirring continuously, for 5-6
mins till lightly reduced, then remove bay leaf, add cream, and season.
Butter or oil 4
individual ramekins (4-5 oz size) and put a good tablespoon of the soubise
sauce in each. Break in an egg and add another tablespoon of sauce, leaving the
yolk uncovered. Put in a bain-marie and bake in a preheated oven, 375 deg. [F]
[190 C] about 20 mins, till white is just set.
(The Observer. Good Food, [1970s])
Timeo Danaos?
Avgolemono is a Greek soup which traditionally
combines egg and lemon. It had a brief vogue with English-speaking cooks in the
mid-1970s, but as most of the instructions weren’t very clear, those of us who
dared to try it probably didn’t do very well with it. Jane Grigson offers an
unusual variation using a fennel bulb, which I’ve used as the basis of this
recipe. She uses a start-from-scratch fish stock: in classic French cuisine
fennel is supposed to go with fish, but I don’t like the combination, so I’ve
replaced it with a litre of chicken stock. It may be served hot or cold.
Recipe 10. Fennel Avgolemono Soup
1 large fennel bulb; 3 large egg yolks;
juice of 2 lemons (or more); 6 thin lemon slices;
1 litre chicken stock (salt-reduced); 12 fennel seeds;
12 peppercorns; 6 coriander seeds, lightly crushed;
Optional: 1 teaspoon Pernod or anisette;
Garnish: chopped fennel leaves
Slice the fennel
finely and simmer in the stock with the spices for at least 30 minutes, until
very tender. Strain through a sieve, pressing out as much juice as possible.
Discard the solids. Return liquid to the pan.
Turn up the heat
and bring the soup to just below boiling point, then take it off the heat.
Whisk the yolks
and lemon juice together, then slowly add a ladleful of the soup to them “from
a reasonable height, so that by the time it encounters the egg yolks it is well
below boiling point. Keep whisking. When the mixture is amalgamated, add it
slowly to the soup which should be off the heat so that it, too, is well below
boiling point. Taste and add more lemon juice if you like, and [optionally], bring
out the fennel taste with the Pernod or anisette. Divide between six warmed
soup bowls and float a lemon slice on top of each one, with a few fennel
leaves.”
“These somewhat
pernickety finishing processes are to prevent the egg curdling.”
To serve cold: Pour
the soup into a bowl and sit it in a larger bowl of iced water, then leave in
the fridge to chill. (Serves 6.)
(Based on: Jane
Grigson. Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book.
Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1980)
Classic with a Chance of Cheese
Cheese is such a favourite with eggs in
Western-style cookery that I had a hard time finding recipes that weren’t
soused in it. These two have just a touch of cheese, and shouldn’t instantly harden
your arteries and send your cholesterol level through the roof.
The
first is a quiche in classic style; leeks have long been a favourite in
quiches. This recipe dates, I think, from the mid-1970s. By this time fancy
cheese varieties were available in New Zealand. Quiches were newly fashionable—real
men didn't eat them but had them placed in front of them regardless. Variations
with frozen pastry or with directions for preparing the pastry from scratch
also appeared in the local publications.
Recipe 11. Tarte aux poireaux (Leek Quiche)
1 lb. white part of leeks; 3 eggs;
1/2 cup grated Gruyere; 1 1/2 cups cream;
8-in. partially-cooked pastry shell;
pinch of nutmeg; 1 tablespoon flour;
4 tablespoons butter; salt and pepper
Wash leeks well,
then slice. Boil vegetable in covered saucepan in 1/2 cup salted water and 3
tablespoons butter. When little water is left, lower heat and simmer leeks for
about 30 minutes, until they are tender.
Add flour, mix
well, and cook slowly for several minutes, then remove from heat and set aside
to cool.
Beat cream, eggs,
salt, pepper and nutmeg in a bowl. Stir in the leeks and taste for seasoning,
then pour into pastry shell. Sprinkle on the cheese and dot with remaining butter.
Bake in preheated
medium hot oven (375°F [190°C]) for 30 to 40 minutes. Let cool for 5 to 10
minutes before serving. (Serves 4 to 6.)
(Vogue New Zealand. [1970-1980?])
Finally, here is a classic soufflé (yes,
Veronica, there is a soufflé) that is
brightened by a touch of Parmesan. If you’re making it in Australia, I’d advise
using baby spinach, which has been pre-washed: it’s a recipe for real spinach,
not the silverbeet which is usually miscalled spinach in modern Australia, and
the “English spinach” (real spinach) available here is usually filthy. (See Killing Vegetables:
Silverbeet) You don’t want little bits of grit in your lovely soufflé.
Recipe 12. Spinach Soufflé
One of the best
vegetable soufflés. ... The ideal with a soufflé is to have a crisp outside and
a creamy inside. If by some ill chance you have to keep a cooked soufflé
waiting, leave it in the oven with the door barely open for a further five
minutes.
1/2 kg (1 lb)
spinach, cooked, chopped
2 tablespoons
butter; 2 tablespoons flour;
150 ml (generous
1/4 pt) hot milk; salt, pepper, grated
nutmeg
4-5 egg yolks; 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan
4-3 egg whites,
beaten stiffly; 3 tablespoons breadcrumbs
Reheat the spinach
with one tablespoon butter. Make a thick sauce with the remaining butter, flour
and milk. Stir in the spinach and season well, remembering that the eggs will
soften the flavour. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the egg yolks one
by one, then about half the cheese to taste.
Fold in the egg
whites carefully—the best way to do this is to beat in a tablespoon of egg
white fairly vigorously to slacken the mixture, then the rest of the egg white
can be folded in gently with a metal spoon. A few small blobs of egg white
won't matter, better to leave them than turn the mixture about too much.
Butter a 1 1/2
litre (2 1/2 pint) soufflé dish and sprinkle it with breadcrumbs, tipping out
the surplus. Pour in the soufflé mixture. Scatter the remaining crumbs and
cheese on top.
Have the oven
heated to 200°C/400°F, with a metal baking sheet inside. Place the soufflé dish
on the hot sheet and close the door. [Gently!] Turn the heat down immediately
to 190°C/375°F and leave for 30 minutes.
(Jane Grigson. Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book.
Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1980)
[Serve
immediately. In her English Food Jane
writes that everyone should be ready at the table for a soufflé: “In a properly
trained household, the cry of ‘Soufflé!’ should have the same effect of
assembly as ‘Fire!’”]
This recipe will serve 4 generously. It is
one for the reasonably experienced cook, but if you follow Mrs Grigson’s instructions
about mixing in the egg whites, you should be fine. Just remember to close the oven
door GENTLY and NOT to open it until the specified time is up! Depending on the
size of your soufflé dish you may need to add a collar of greaseproof paper: if
you do, butter it, too. The soufflé will start to collapse a bit when you dig
the spoon into it, but if you serve it immediately everyone should get the
desired helping of fluff. The breadcrumbs aren’t obligatory. The same recipe
can be used with a purée of any other vegetable.
I
hope you find something do-able amongst these egg-based dishes. I have tried to
select recipes which don’t require a lot of expensive extra ingredients but
which are more than just yer basic fried egg. –Though mind you, 400 years after
Velasquez’s old woman, I still do ’em that way, too!
