EGGS

EGGS

This week will be a little bit shorter. On Tuesday we had a normal class but Wed was the midterm… more on that later! First lets talk EGGS!

I think I probably ended up eating 5 or 6 eggs and coking 2 dozen! We had to practice a lot!

Here’s what our night looked like:

Measurement quiz
Crepes
Eggs over easy
Oven roasted bacon
Hollandaise/ Eggs Benedict
French Omelet
French Toast

MEASUREMENT QUIZ

I wont bore you with the details of the test but here are the need to know measurements:

4 qts = 1 gal
2 pts = 1 qt
2 cups = 1 pt
8 oz = 1 cup
2 TBL= 1 oz
3 tsp= 1 TBL

From these you can figure out just about anything!

Fun Facts from the day: Add a little water to eggs to make them fluffy, add milk to make them silkier, but adding cream is the BEST!

There are 30 eggs to a flat. 6 flats to a case for a total of 180 eggs in a case! Each egg weighs about 2 oz. ¾ of an egg is yolk and ¼ is white.

HOW TO CRACK AN EGG WITH ONE HAND: hold the egg with your palm and middle finger. Tear open with thumb and forefinger. Crack the egg very close to the pan so that it goes in gently.

Mix your clarified butter with half canola oil and half clarified butter – no one will know the difference and it will conserve your butter, which is more expensive then oil!

During the summer eggs have less calcium so the shells tend to brake easier causing the egg to break. BE CAREFULL!

CRÈPES

2 eggs
2 yolks
4 oz water
7 oz milk
2 oz sugar, granulated
¼ tsp salt
½ cup + 1 TBL AP flour
4 tbl unsalted butter, melted

1. Mix together the flour, sugar and salt

2. In separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, water and milk

3. Whisk the wet mixture into dry, adding slowly as you go

4. Whisk in the melted butter

5. Cover and set aside min 1 hr. in fridge before cooking

6. Heat small sauté pan with paper towel, apply a light layer of clarified butter

7. Pour 1 – 1 ½ oz of batter, coat the bottom of the pan. A very thin layer. Shouldn’t bubble or sizzle

8. Cook unit it is set and lightly browned on one side 30- 45 sec

9. Flip and cook about 10 sec longer on the other side

10. Remove, stack, separate with parchment paper

11. If not using immediately you can refrigerate for a few days or freeze for a few weeks.

The difference between crepes and pancakes is the leaving agent (i.e. baking soda/ powder)

You want your crepes to not have any color other then the natural yellowish white color. The idea is to not have any brown.

When making crepes you can use either a crepe pan or a simple sauté pan. Since most you most likely wont have a crepe pan, it is best to master it in a sauté pan!

The batter for crepes needs to be made at least an hour before, but can also be made the night before. Make sure to refrigerate it!

Pour a very thin layer of batter on the pan… you can swirl the pan as you are pouring to get a thin even layer.

Once its set try flipping it, either with a straight back motion or with your spatula. CARFUL it’s delicate!

Adjust heat as needed.

Yes this has a little brown on it, but its still pretty good! And tasted delicious!

Once your crepe is finished you can do so many things with them. If you want sweet just simply add cinnamon and sugar. To make them savory: add smoked salmon and goat cheese… then fold it into a folded triangle shape.

To turn Crepes into a BLINTZ add a little sweetened cream cheese or cream cheese and goat cheese. Garnish with strawberries and whipped cream… YUM!

This is what a BLINTZ might look like.

EGGS OVER EASY

There is no recipe for eggs over easy because well all you need is an egg!

Put clarified butter in your pan, crack open the egg – very close to the pan. They higher you crack the egg the more chance you have a breaking it.

Once the thick part of the egg white starts to form to the thinner layer you’re ready to flip! Do this by lifting the pan off the heat and pulling back with the pan. You’re arm should go straight back… and the egg should flip! I know I know I didn’t think it could happen either but its does! Try It - once you master one egg try two …I think I went through a dozen eggs until I got it right!

OVEN ROASTED BACON

Bacon can done really well in the oven instead of frying it on the pan – why add any extra fat to it?!?!

The bacon in the top of the picture is just plan old bacon; the bacon in the bottom of the picture is covered in brown sugar and pepper.

Uncooked bacon on baking sheet!

Can anyone guess whats wrong with this baking sheet?? NO? The bacon should not be stacked on top of each other - 2 reasons. 1. This may cause the bacon to cook unevenly, 2. If this were for an event - by not having an even number of slices on each tray you may lose track on how many slices were cooked!

Eggs Benedict

1 English muffin
2 slices Canadian bacon slices ¼ inch thick
TT salt
2 tbs vinegar
4 fl oz hollandaise
2 truffle slices or black olive hearts
2 eggs

1. Toast English muffin

2. Sauté or griddle the bacon slices until hot

3. Bring 1 qt of water to simmer and add salt and vinegar

4. Add eggs and poach until done

5. Place muffins on a plate and top with bacon slices, place egg on top of bacon, cover with hollandaise.

6. Garnish with truffle slices or black olive hearts.

All right poaching eggs was kind of cool! Bring your saucepan to a medium heat – you want it simmering NOT boiling. The vinegar is what keeps the egg together! VERY IMPORTANT.

Special not there are really only 3 things you use vinegar for in a kitchen. 1. Poaching eggs. 2. Cleaning 3. Coleslaw – you don’t use distilled vinegar very often but when you do it is very important!!

When poaching eggs you want to use COLD eggs, also if you have the option farm fresh make a BIG difference.

You can poach eggs, then shock them in an ice bath and keep them for later by re heating them! It is helpful to have a timer while you are poaching eggs, because 30 seconds could make it or break it!

When it is down the egg should sort of plump up with you are spooning it out.

In a restaurant a Hollandaise sauce should ideally be made every 90 min. It is very fast to make should almost be made to order. If you order Eggs Benedict at a restaurant only do so early… because you want the freshest batch (because restaurants tend not to make it as often as they should.)

I always thought that I didn’t like hollandaise, but when I tried it all together with the egg and muffin it was surprising good!

FRENCH OMELET

French VS American

Unlike the American omelets the French omelets does not have anything inside (i.e. veggies, cheese) The French omelets is simply folded and rolled differently then the American.

You should use about 2 ½ eggs. That is whisk three eggs but do not use all of the mixture…save the rest for the next batch!

Should always make your eggs to order and always change out your pan between batches.

Whisk your eggs thoroughly. Use a low flame, and don’t let them brown. Don’t move them too much – let it settle in. Angle the pan downwards when flipping, and just do little flips at a time until it looks like the picture below!

Our chef also demoed FRENCH TOAST

For French toast you just scramble eggs, add a little bit of sugar or vanilla extract and pour it over the bread. Put that in a pan over medium flame… and let it toast! YUMM delicious!

Yet again we also worked on MAYO… it’s getting better and better every time! Here’s a picture from last night!

MIDTERM

The second night of class, we had our midterm. The midterm was broken into two parts. 1. Knife Skills test, which was the same as the last one. 2. The practical - we had to make Béchamel Sauce, Hollandaise, Mayo, and Beef Consomme. We were given an hour for each section. It was very difficult to get everything done in this amount of time - but I managed - So I at least did not score a zero on anything!

Next week we learn how to make FRENCH FRIES, GNOCCI, RICE PILAF, and much much more!!