EGGS - MY WAY
And other lessons learned while traveling.
EGGS – MY WAY
There are two things that I never say “No” to while traveling—eggs and stopping at a bathroom whenever one is available. The latter reminds me of two things I should have said “No” to … tap water and street food. But that’s another story.
Until the recent resurgence of the vegan movement, everyone ate eggs. Eggs have always been a breakfast staple at my house. And you can’t bake a cake without eggs. One of my all-time favorite dinners is breakfast for dinner. Whether fried, boiled, poached, or served in an omelet, you know what you’re gonna get.
That is, until the eggs are cooked wrong. Take my husband, for example. He claims that the best eggs are scrambled—first in a bowl, and then poured into a hot cast iron skillet on top of the olive oil left in the pan from cooking hashbrowns. He calls them “Campfire Eggs,” which is ironic since he hates camping. When eggs are cooked his way, they end up a little grayish and dry, which is obviously not how eggs are supposed to turn out.
I surmised that his tendency to overcook eggs was a reaction to his early experience of drinking raw eggs. Remember when that was a thing? Slurping down raw eggs like Rocky Balboa in the Rocky movie. My brothers did it, too. I wonder if they overcook their eggs as well.
The thing is, everyone knows you need to cook eggs at a low temperature, in a proper egg pan. A ceramic pan covered lightly with cooking spray is my preferred method. The correct way to make scrambled eggs is to first beat them in a bowl with a little water and then pour them into the pan. The goal is to stir them as little as possible while they are cooking to keep them light and fluffy. Everyone knows that is the proper way to cook scrambled eggs … right?
As it turns out, the answer is another “No,” which I discovered recently when traveling with a group of friends. We took turns making breakfast each morning, and everyone prepared the eggs a little differently. Since I’ve already let you in on the correct method for making scrambled eggs, let me tell you what happened. One of my friends scrambled the eggs in the pan—let me repeat—in the pan! I know. Crazy. Another friend began correctly by breaking them into a bowl, but then he added a little milk! A wackadoodle move on his part. The milk actually dries out the eggs. Maybe he, just like my husband and brothers, is still in recovery after drinking too many raw eggs in his youth.
Full disclosure … cooking eggs in a kitchenette while traveling rarely produces the best eggs, not even when you have the perfect method at your fingertips. The pan is not quite right, the stove is not quite right, and the kitchen almost never has a can of cooking spray. On the last morning, the cook of the day mixed in a pile of shredded cheese. I liked that version the best.
I’ve since returned home, and today I happily made eggs—my way.
We had a French exchange student who put SO much milk in the eggs. (Hosting him was our empty nest adventure.)
I guess I am wackadoodle- we always add milk into the scrambled eggs. Lately I have been mixing in blended cottage cheese to add in more protein. It is good!