“Experts” Who Say “Don't Add
Liquid” Are Misinformed
A couple of things led to my writing
this little screed. The first motivator was personal experience
and
the second was a recent proliferation of unsound “expert” advice.
Breakfast is probably my favorite meal,
both to eat and to cook. It's definitely the one I've had the most
experience cooking – more than fifty years worth. It's my singular
nod to non-Italian cuisine. Italians do coffee and pastry and call it
colazione. Not me. Give me
some combination of bacon and eggs and potatoes and toast and
biscuits and pancakes and all the trimmings. I'll eat breakfast for
breakfast, I'll eat it for lunch, and I often have breakfast for
dinner. Bacon was the first thing I learned to cook. Eggs were
second. I can fry 'em, poach 'em, boil 'em or make 'em into an omelet
or frittata. But my absolute favorite way to prepare eggs is to
scramble them up all nice and light and fluffy. And I am amazed and
appalled at the way scrambled eggs can be ruined by inept cooking
methods.
I eat at Waffle
House a good bit, especially out on the road. They're conveniently
located at just about every interstate exit in the South. They're
inexpensive, they're open 24/7/365, and the food is generally
consistent from location to location. Unfortunately, that consistency
extends to their scrambled eggs. Don't get me wrong; they're not
altogether bad, but they're not altogether good either.
They're.......for lack of a better word.......typical. They're cooked
the same way in a lot of diner-style eateries. By and large, they are
flat, dry, and dense. On the rare occasion that I encounter light,
fluffy scrambled eggs at a Waffle House or similar establishment, I
make a big deal out of complimenting the cook. He or she is obviously
not following the “approved” restaurant technique that results
in......unremarkable eggs.
Hey, I know. Short
order cooks are all about speed. And sometimes speed means
sacrificing little nuances......like decently cooked scrambled eggs.
You break a couple of eggs into a hot pan, scramble 'em up with a
spoon or a fork, cook 'em on high heat until they're dried out and
brown. Doesn't usually take more than a few seconds and then you slap
'em on a plate and put up 'em for service. And a lot of home cooks do
the same thing. That's what I mean by inept cooking.
Ept
cooking (yes, it's a word; check the OED) requires a little more
finesse. And the addition of a liquid, preferably a fat-containing
liquid, to the party. Hence my second motivator. Recently, I've
encountered a couple of online articles, written by alleged
“experts,” that insist adding liquid to scrambled eggs is not
only unnecessary but detrimental. Here's an example of that flawed
advice from the Huffington Post: “We don't care how many years
you've been adding milk, cream or water to your eggs, it stops today.
Despite whatever type of logic you've attributed to this addition,
the truth is that eggs and added liquid will separate during cooking
which creates wet, overcooked eggs.” There's an Italian word for
that theory – stronzate. And
I'm not just talking through my fifty-plus years of experience. I've
got science on my side.
Rather than try to parse the scientific
reasoning on my own, I turn to the culinary nerds at America's
Test Kitchen for the explanation: “When eggs are scrambled, the
mechanism that transforms the liquidy beaten eggs into a fluffy mound
on the plate is protein coagulation—the process by which, when
exposed to heat, proteins unfold and then tangle up with one another
and set, forming a latticed gel. The more tender the scrambled eggs,
the more loosely the proteins have coagulated. Adding water to
scrambled eggs dilutes the proteins a little, thereby raising the
temperature at which they coagulate and making it harder to overcook
the scramble. Water also increases the amount of steam, which puffs
up the eggs, producing fluffy scrambled eggs. As for milk, it
contains water but also fat, which coats the protein molecules so
that they can’t bind with one another as tightly. The key to
scrambled eggs that are both fluffy and tender is a balance of water
and fat.....The bottom line: Scrambled eggs benefit from added
liquid, preferably a liquid with fat.”
Don't like those experts? How about
this one, Dr. Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking: The
Science and Lore of the Kitchen. “Cream,
butter, milk, water, or oil (used in China) will dilute the egg
proteins and produce a tenderer mass when the eggs are carefully
cooked.” The italics are mine, because Dr. McGee goes on to point
out that “overheating, however, will cause some of the added liquid
to separate.” Ah-HA! Go back to that opposing statement a couple of
paragraphs ago; yes, “added liquid will separate during cooking,”
but only if you're not
cooking the eggs right in the first place! If you're using a blazing
hot pan, the liquid will, indeed, separate. So don't do that!
And as
as aside to Dr. McGee, China is not the only place they use oil in
scrambled eggs. Waffle House does, too, as Bon Appétit
Restaurant Editor Andrew
Knowlton discovered on a recent magazine assignment as a Waffle House
cook. Andrew calls liquid vegetable shortening “literally the
grease that keeps the gears at Waffle House spinning.” And a former
cook there reveals that Waffle House employs two or three tablespoons
of the stuff in a hot aluminum pan when cooking scrambled eggs. And
that's likely why the discrepancy I've experienced; some cooks not as
obsessed with speed don't get the pan as screamingly hot as others
and the eggs turn out better as a result.
Dr. McGee says
“scrambled eggs made in the usual quick, offhand way are usually
hard and forgettable.” Can I get an “amen” from the choir!! He
goes on, “the key to moist scrambled eggs is low heat and patience;
they will take several minutes to cook.” Oh, preach it, Brother
McGee!!
Now,
I'm not going to write another piece on how to make scrambled eggs
because I've already written one and you can find it here:
http://ronjamesitaliankitchen.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-make-best-scrambled-eggs.html.
There's lot's of cool stuff in there about temperatures and protein
matrices and coagulation and Maillard reactions and such, but besides
all that it's a darn good example of the right way
to cook scrambled eggs. One thing I will reiterate here, though, is
Egg Cookery Rule 101: Eggs that look done in the pan will be overdone
on the plate. If you remove the pan from the heat while the eggs are
still a little soft, carry-over will render them perfectly cooked
when you plate them. If you wait until they look “done” in the
pan, carry-over will carry them right over the edge and they'll be
hard and dry.
Here's
the takeaway: Ignore the “experts” who babble about not putting
liquid in your scrambled eggs. Either they were absent for the
scientific discussion in culinary school or they only read half the
lesson. And go out of your way to praise the rare Waffle House,
Denny's, et al cook who actually gets it right. Maybe if enough
people compliment the good cooks, the bad ones will either be
inspired or fired. Better yet, just learn good technique on your own
and you can make perfect scrambled eggs yourself.
Thanks for this tips...I didn't know about heating the pan ahead of time...looks like it makes all the difference!so if you want more info about this topic then visit how to make scrambled eggs.
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