Egg-tastic

Remember that cooking class I told you I was taking - the one that focuses on mastering the basics of "serious" cooking? Well, last week's session was All About Eggs. "Eggs?" you say, "but eggs are...just eggs." Well yes, I admit, eggs are pretty darn basic, but that was the whole point - that eggs, in all their humble glory, are one of the main building blocks of many celebrated French dishes. Think satiny creme brulee, light-as-air merengue, decadant hollandaise. And on the other ends of the fancy-shmancy spectrum, eggs all by themselves are the beloved star of many a breakfast/brunch spread. So, since eggs are such a ubiquitous ingredient, I thought rather than giving you just one recipe, I'd share a bunch of tips I gleaned from class that are already paying off big time for me. I hope you find them helpful, too - and if you have any tried-and-true egg tips of your own, please share!

Egg Cooking Tips

1. A nonstick pan is for cooking two things. Eggs is one of them. (Fish is the other).


2. Cook sunny side up eggs on medium-low heat for a tender, delicate white.


3. Cook over easy eggs on medium-high heat for a white sturdy enough for flipping.


4. Cook omelettes over high heat. Yes, high.


5. Speaking of omelettes, here's how to make a perfect one: add a little butter to a hot, nonstick saute pan. Pour in lightly beaten eggs (enough to completely cover the bottom of your pan). Immediately scramble your eggs with a fork to help them cook through quickly. When they are halfway set, pat them down with the fork to create an even layer on the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle in shredded cheese and any other filling ingredients. With one hand, hold the pan's handle like a dagger (i.e., at a sharp angle) and with your other hand, use a spatula to slowly roll the omelette out of the pan onto a heated plate. The whole process should take about a minute tops. Ta-da!


6. When a recipe calls for whipping egg whites, like for a souffle, do it slowly. Think of blowing bubbles with a straw into a glass of milk. If you do it fast, you get big bubbles that disappear quickly. If you do it slow, you get tiny bubbles that stick around for awhile. You want those small bubbles for sustained lift.


7. Older eggs are best for hard boiling - something about how they have more space between the shell and the goo, making for easier peeling.


8. When cracking eggs, always do it on a flat surface. Though washed, egg shells are where bacteria can reside, and cracking on the side of a bowl makes it easier for the egg itself to come in contact with the outer shell. (Trust the chef on this one. No one likes salmonella).

Culinary Epiphanies 101

So I'm taking this cooking class - well, cooking course to be more accurate, seeing as it's every Thursday night for the next 6 months. And come every Thursday, I'm tired, crabby, and don't really feel like hauling myself out to Gaithersburg for 3+ hours of social interaction after a long day at work. But I still go, begrudging my decision and my husband's support of me having an "activity."

And you know what? As soon as I get there, I remember why I decided I needed this activity to begin with. It's not your average sit-and-watch-the-chef-cook demo, or even one of those themed classes with three courses and a bunch of wine (though the wine would be nice). Instead, each week is focused on the techniques around approaching a particular type of food (i.e., stocks, soups, vegetables, grains, poultry). No detailed recipes are shared, and we only get mere tastes of each dish the chef demos before we have a go at them ourselves, but that's the whole point - to try in class, then to go really internalize these techniques by practicing on our own back at home. And the stuff we learn is amazing! Hey, it may not be the sexiest cooking class around, but having weekly culinary epiphanies is pretty darn cool.

Take last week for example: I always wondered why mushrooms at good restaurants always have such a firm, delicious, mushroomy flavor and texture, and why the mushrooms I cook never measure up. And now I know!


1. Clean off your mushrooms with a damp towel to remove any dirt.
2. Chop your mushrooms to the desired size.
3. Heat a saute pan over high heat - DO NOT ADD FAT.
4. When the pan is hot, add your mushrooms; sear for about 5 minutes, until they take on color.
5. Add a few tablespoons of water or wine to the pan - this will help soak up all the browned bits that have stuck to the bottom (called deglazing). You can also just add a few pinches of salt to the mushrooms - the salt leeches out the water in the mushrooms and they deglaze the pan all by themselves.
6. Ta-da! Gorgeous, firm, mushroomy mushrooms.

So, tired and crabby though I am, I'll go tonight, donning my little chef jacket and the knife set they made me buy, looking every bit the Top Chef wannabe I am, and looking forward to more little epiphanies to share.