Nuff disasters. How do you like your eggs? Let’s have some silliness.
Mine…if scrambled, I want them whisked once around a hot pan and served. I hate hotel eggs.
If fried, over very easy, or an institution from my childhood, ‘basted.’ This is where eggs aren’t flipped, but the cook uses the spatula to kick hot grease up onto the yolk, which coats it white and cooks the upper surface, while the hot pan cooks the lower. Serve on toast or toasted English muffin—which for the English is sort of a twosided crumpet that comes split to open like a book. Cholesterol on the half shell. Served with thick-sliced peppered bacon. Or hickory smoked bacon. And maybe another muffin with marmelade and real butter. One can hear one’s arteries hardening.
Let’s hear it for cholesterol bombs!
Loco Moco, a Hawaii institution: 2 scoops white rice, or for the hardcore, fried rice. One hamburger patty on top, cover with fried egg, and brown gravy over all. Preferably the yolk should still be runny enough to ooze into the rice when cut open. Invented (so legend has it) to feed hungry Hilo football players after a game, but it looks equally as much to me like a hangover remedy.
Solo: scrambled, set but soft. With hashbrowns: sunny but set, and then I cut ’em all up and mix in the hashbrowns. Looks a right mess, but tasty. 🙂
Poached in a bed of diced tomato, onion, bacon, sometimes mushroom, maybe garlic. Served on toast and sprinkled with a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Definite comfort breakfast with the romantic name of “Tomato and onion mush”. 😀
Fried is okay, and scrambled – I’ll add chopped onions, or shredded cheese, or sabzi o kuku, which is a mix of dried herbs that’s intended for eggs (the one I have is parsley, fenugreek, cilantro, and basil).
Is sabzi o kuku a prepped spice blend? Sounds intriguing.
I like an omelet best for eggs, what’s usually called (I think) ranch or western omelet: start the eggs for an omelet as usual, add chopped chives/green onions/shallots, tomato, onion if you like it, bell pepper, (heck, add other raw veggies, we’re good), some cheese, and chopped ham or bacon, fold over your omelet, and you’re good.
I am also fine with cooked fish as a breakfast food, but I’d want something else with it. — I’ve had whitefish with a crusted tortilla as a sort of breading, served over rice with spices and a bit of veggies, and that was quite nice. (It was served as a dinner or supper dish, but would work fine for lunch or breakfast.)
Something CJ and tulrose (and maybe another couple of folks) might know of: My grandmother was from northern Texas and from Duncan, Oklahoma. She said they often had salmon patties or croquettes for breakfast, growing up. Apparently, canned salmon was used a lot more in her generation and my parents’ generation. So I grew up having salmon or tuna patties / croquettes for supper or lunch occasionally, but not for breakfast. I don’t know what else there was (besides biscuits) when my grandmother and her siblings had them for breakfast. Possibly eggs. (For non-Americans: We say biscuits for a specific type of small bread, not a roll, served with meals. In my grandparents’ and parents’ generations, these biscuits could be quite large. They’re not what Americans call cookies.)
Now I’m also reminded of potato pancakes, another food I associate with childhood and with family stories of how they grew up or raised kids in the Depression and WWII.
yes, but if you can get the herbs fresh, you could do it yourself. It’s usually about a cup, or two, of each kind of green – you can use spinach, dill, leeks, chives, or green onions, also – for six or eight eggs. (Kuku is like frittata.)
Biscuits are a short bread made of flour, baking powder, salt, lard/butter/solid vegetable oil and milk. The recipe varies from my recipe for scones in that the milk is not soured with vinegar, and there is no sugar. Still hot from the oven with butter melting inside; Oh yummy!
Uhhh…short bread as opposed to yeast bread, that is.
My husband’s the true southerner, I just have lived here forever. His family was from Alabama and he’s never mentioned tuna fish patties for breakfast. Lots of grits and fried or scrambled eggs and pancakes but not fish.
At our house we often had smoked fish instead of porridge or eggs. But then, Mum was English and she cooked like Nana did.
Eggs? No, thank you….I’ll pass….if they’re cooked as part of the recipe, such as chocolate cake, or chocolate chip cookies, where they act as a binder, then yes. Eggs by themselves, or as the main part of the recipe, no.
So, I’d probably never make it as a paidhi, since I don’t eat eggs…..
Love eggs, especially an egg salad sandwich on whole wheat. Can’t eat them, though, since I’m allergic. I kept getting a painful, itchy rash on my hands that lasted for days. Turns out it was egg white. I was not a happy camper when the allergist told me that. No more rash, but I really miss the eggs.
When I was a child, I was sensitive to eggs, until I was about 7 or 8. After that…sky’s the limit. I was also sensitive to chocolate, and evidently there’s a window for learning to appreciate that—or it’s just the way I taste it. I’m just not fond of chocolate beyond a smidge or so. I like a cup of cocoa, now and again; like it in coffee now and again; like a fudge brownie now and again, but it’s a taste that rapidly goes ‘flat’ on me, so that I’m not tasting it the way it began, does that make sense? Same thing with sugar, which in excess can start to taste like limestone rock. (Geology class: yes, we tasted ’em. Part of the routine.)
BlueCatShip, the dreaded salmon croquettes. I have a childish dislike of surprise textures inside a recipe, you know, where you find one isolated chip of celery in a tuna salad and wonder how that got there. Well, canned salmon is canned without regard to the bones, much. And I managed to eat a whole lot of perch, crappie and catfish growing up, because, well, we were managing our money really tightly, and fishing to put meat on the table. So I knew fish innards really well. I helped catch them. I helped clean them, aged about 7, when I could be trusted to know a fish from the palm of my hand. I helped fillet them, as I got better at it. And I was very careful about bones, especially when eating fish. (To this day, I detest freshwater fish as a dish.) And being served salmon croquettes, lovingly prepared with cracker crumbs and egg and delicately fried (Mom loved them)—it started out well, but I bit down on a whole salmon vertebra, and after that, carefully dissected each and every croquette to extract every last suspicion of bones. My mother tried to argue me out of it, saying that the bones were all crumbly because it was cooked during the canning process, but I couldn’t be conned. So finally poor Mom just gave up fixing them very often, besides that canned salmon was sort of a luxury item, and we bargain-shopped.
I love fish, but as a kid I hated the surprise of finding any fish bone. My mom and dad and grandmother were all pretty good about getting any bone out of the canned salmon before fixing the croquettes, as they didn’t like that either.
It’s odd, though, it’s something I haven’t fixed in forever. I may have to get crackers and canned salmon, etc., just to go for… call it “heritage-kabiu?” Or “memory-kabiu?” Heh, I have a feeling that will suit your language sense. 🙂
I’ve fixed tuna balls (basically devilled tuna with a cornbread mix, so it’s between a hush puppy and devilled tuna or tuna salad. Did that oftn for a while, haven’t in a longwhile. I think next time I go to the store, ingredients are in order.
First, the bacon — dry cured, with brown sugar and pepper, then hickory smoked–first cold smoked for 6 hours, then finished with some hot smoke for two more hours. (Yes, I cure and smoke my own bacon. If you have a smoker, and they can be had for quite reasonable $$ if you don’t want to build your own, you’re silly to buy bacon when it’s easy to make and so much better!)
Now, the potatoes – good heritage potatoes, cut into 1-1.5cm (1/2 inch) cubes, and pan-fried in duck fat until crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside. If you don’t have duck fat, butter will do, but really, go to Amazon and order some Roughie rendered duck fat. You won’t find anything better for potatoes.
Finally the eggs — fresh (they’re often this morning’s eggs, but rarely older than two days, depending on whether my hens are getting ahead of me or not.) Then a dollop of creme fresh, scramble them up until all the creme fresh has been evenly mixed in and quickly into the hot pan just as the foam from the butter subsides. A very quick soft scramble, some salt and fresh ground pepper, and onto the plate.
Serve with fresh squeezed orange juice, and good coffee or tea.
I love eggs, but can not stand a runny yolk (except, VERY occasionally, in soft-boiled eggs, where I think the lavish amount of butter helps disguise the yolk). It’s something about the texture of it. Nor can I stand bloody meat. I like my foods cooked. I put that down to growing up eating chicken and pork (where undercooked is a health concern) and cheap cuts of beef that had to cook for hours to be tender.
Eggs: over hard, especially in a fried egg sandwich with Miracle Whip (another taste acquired in childhood). I’ve had people scoff at that, and give me fresh homemade mayonnaise, and all I could think of was “it doesn’t taste like Miracle Whip”. Scrambled, when I want something fast or am not feeling good.
Then there’s what I call “baked egg dish”, which is something I created one day when I wanted to cook ahead for a week. It’s a crustless quiche/frittata sort of thing. Take well-oiled custard cups (or ramekins, or whatever small single-serving size dishes you have). Add in some veggies, maybe some left over meat (generally bacon or ham, in my case), maybe some cheese, some herbage. Basically, if you can throw it in an omelette or quiche, it’s fair game. Mix up some eggs, salt, pepper. Generally I figure 1.5 eggs per serving, so 6 eggs for 4 servings. Carefully pour the egg over the stuff, and cook in a 350 oven for 30 minutes. Warning: these things puff up a lot when they cook, so don’t fill up to the very rim. They reheat very well, although they lose a little of their puff.
And my other favorite: pickled eggs. Make a batch of pickled beets (to which I add cinnamon sticks, clove, and all-spice, along with the usual sugar/vinegar mix). Eat the pickled beets. Hard-boil some eggs, peel them, throw them in the beet juice, and refrigerate until the eggs have sunk some, usually at least 3-4 days in my experience. Fish out an egg, and enjoy the glorious purple color and wonderful taste. I have tried to speed this process up by throwing the eggs in with the beets before I finished those, and it works fine for the eggs, but makes the remaining beets taste “eggy”, which is not as good.
Miracle Whip says it’s “salad dressing”, not mayonaise. Being a commercial product, spoilage is a major issue, as with commercial mayonaise, so it’s “preserved” by acidification with vinegar. Home-made fresh won’t “keep” anyhow, so the vinegar is optional.
Definitely the vinegar gives it its flavor: and I prefer Miracle Whip to mayonnaise, but Jane can’t stand it, so we have mayo, mostly: when combined with mustard, it comes out Miracle Whip anyway–(the vinegar in mustard)…
My idea of a bacon sandwich is a LOT of bacon on really good seed bread with Miracle Whip. Yum. Ca-lo-ries.
Well buttered toasted whole grain bread for the outside of my crispy bacon, please.
Miracle Whip, LOL! I usually get Miracle Whip or Kraft Mayonnaise. I like either one. Yes, it’s a childhood thing. I’m American, I’m Texan, I was a kid in the 70’s a teen and in college in the 80’s. Mustard is usually that bright yellow mustard, though I’m not particular if it’s French’s brand or other. I did find I like other mustard later.
Also from being Suthern / Texan, my idea of potato salad is American, Southern-style potato salad. My grandmother on my mom’s side and my mom and dad used her recipe, which isn’t quite like the usual you get at a BBQ place or other commercial product. — Peel and boil the potatoes and cut into chunks. Add 3 or 4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped. Mayo (Miracle Whip or Kraft Mayo) and Yellow Mustard (French’s or other), with more mustard than mayo. (Gosh, I think I’ve only done this from memory, not a written recipe.) You can add chopped celery and there’s no onion. (My mom muched on green onions as a garnish.) You’ll also add celery seed and then salt and black pepper to taste. The idea here is that you have just enough mayo but it’s not lathered in it, and you have a tang from the mustard but it should not overpower the potatoes. You get a nice fresh celery taste from the seeds and the chopped celery. Proportions? Hmm, I’d have to fix again to write it down. The taste has just enough mayo and leans toward mustard, but that’s fairly light also. Definitely a more homemade taste unlike what’s the standard commercial fare. (As a kid especially, I was very sensitive to hot/spicy tastes like chilis or onions, but later have done better.) But note you can completely omit onion from this just fine. There’s a tang to it but not a kick. Note also there isn’t pimiento or red bell pepper in it, but you could add that if you like.
This differs significantly from German potato salad. I wonder why, with as much German and Dutch heritage as Americans have along with English and Scots and Irish, how it is that Americans got our style of potato salad, and the Germans got their style, since there was a lot of immigration from the pre-Colonial period right on through the 1800’s and into the 1900’s.
And speaking of German potato salad: fry up a rasher of bacon and crumble it into chunks. Boil some potatoes, half a dozen good fist sized ones, with skins on, until a sharp knife sinks in. Allow to cool, then peel and cut into healthy sized chunks. Pile in a dish and sprinkle with celery seed, a blob each of mayo and yellow mustard, the crumbled bacon, and a sprinkling of sugar, pepper and salt; a small amount of chopped onions is optional, as is a chopped hard boiled egg. Last, pour about 1/4 cup of vinegar over top and toss until the vinegar is absorbed. You can add in some of the bacon drippings if you wish, or more vinegar; ideally, the potatoes break down very slightly and together with the vinegar, mayo and mustard, bind the salad together a bit.
Ah now I”m the exact opposite – can’t stand a runny white but love a runny yolk. It used to drive dad to distraction trying to do poached (well, technically steamed, but you know) eggs without a runny white.
And for mayonnaise I’ve discovered Japanese Kewpie mayo. Soooo good.
Re: fresh eggs and salmon
I agree with Charlie, really fresh eggs from free-run, bug hunting, sprout pulling, home/farm hens are the real thing. Commercial eggs are what’s politely called “poor imitations”, if there’s any comparison at all.
Like CJ, I’ve never been fan of crunching down on salmon vertebrae. But that’s really the chef’s fault. We’re talking canned salmon here, of course. When sliding it out of the can, it’s trivial to find the main body chunks, and lay them open as if filleted to pull out the spine. I always do.
Back in the day, salmon was cheap because, given any resource, commercial interests over exploit it and “use it up” as rapidly as possible. Economists have given it a name: Tragedy of the Commons. “Who knows what the future may bring, we’ll take everything we can get right now.” They did it to the sardine fishery–see any canneries on “Cannery Row”? The major exception I can name is DeBeers.
I have a couple of recipes.
Cook portabella caps, turn them gill side up and break your egg right into the cap. Either add water and a lid to the pan for steamed eggs or add a little butter or cream to the top and shirr them in the oven. If you pour holendaise on top, you have portabella benedict.
Put artichoke bottoms, (I get mine in a can, not the leafy things, but the bottom button), in your ramekin, break in an egg, pour in about 2T of heavy cream and shirr.
Any additional spicing is up to the artist.
Sounds good!
Poached, with toasted whole grain flatbread. Deviled, with mustard, a bit of mayo and a dusting of smoked Spanish paprika. Basted, with hot water rather than oil, with lox, red onion and capers (a First Watch restaurant offering).
I like eggs, and my dietician has no problem with me eating them as proteins help me feel full.
A set of eggs and a pair of toast — two eggs over easy, two slices of bread toasted and cut on the diagonal, hash browns, and two pieces of bacon, please. My dad used to use his knife and fork in a scissoring motion to cut up his eggs. My mom slices off a bite and puts it on the toast, then eats it. I slice up my eggs like my dad but eat them off my piece of toast like my mom. . .
Alternately, eggs over easy between two slices of bread spread with mayonnaise, with or without chili, eaten with a knife and fork.
My dad used to make what he called an “Egyptian Eye” sandwich — a piece of bread with the center cut out with a biscuit cutter, laid in the skillet, the egg broken into the “hole” in the bread, then the cut out part replaced, the whole cooked until the egg is “done.”
As for cholesterol, it has gotten a bad rap based on a few flawed studies that the medical community has swallowed whole. Cholesterol is unavoidable. Your body makes it, after all. See: http://www.naturalhealth365.com/1003_bad_cholesterol.html/, http://life.gaiam.com/article/why-cholesterol-may-not-be-cause-heart-disease, etc.
Scrambled-egg sandwiches. Cook the eggs, then put a layer between a couple of slices of buttered bread (otherwise the bread will get soggy).
You can get complexicated by putting a slice of cheese on the bread, which will prevent the sog. Myself, I embrace it and add ketchup 🙂
Well now. Eggs. How do I like eggs? I like eggs: Fried, scrambled, poached. Over hard, over easy, sunny side up. Boiled. Deviled. Egg salad. Omelet or shakshuka or just scrambled with cheese. Or tomato and onion and cheese. Or mushrooms, tomatoes and onions and cheese. Or no cheese. Scrambled egg sandwiches. Fried egg sandwiches. Poached egg sandwiches.
Alone or on toast or on an English muffin. With or without (chicken or turkey) sausage/bacon. Fruit on the side is nice. Veggie eggs benedict with spinach and mushrooms. Frittata. Quiche. Egg muffins (these are kind of like very small quiches – is that a word?)
I don’t like eggs raw.
I prefer eggs cooked, and hot is better than cold, except boiled eggs or egg salad.
Did I mention that I like eggs?