Cooking Eggs For Beginners

Part 5 of the First-Time Cooking Starter Pack

Eggs. One of the most common ingredients used across all cuisines. It’s one of the easiest to make and also one of the hardest depending on what you’re making. Eggs are a scientific phenomena when you think about it. How many other ingredients do you know of that become a solid when you apply heat to it? Normally, it’s the other way around where a solid turns into a liquid or a liquid turns into a gas. Not eggs though. Eggs go from a liquid to a solid when heated and they never really become a gas.

Not only are eggs a scientific anamoly, they’re also one of the most nutritious things you can eat. Packed with proteins, good cholesterol (HDL), choline, selenium, omega-3’s, iron, phosphorus, calcium, thiamine, riboflavin, folate, lutein, zeaxanthin, potassium,and vitamins A, D, E, K, and B12. The egg yolk is a critical source of nutrition for developing fetuses. If nature developed this super food to help nourish new life, it must be also good for sustaining existing life.

Parts of the Egg (that we eat)

As people, we consume a large variety of eggs. Some of the most common ones are chicken eggs, duck eggs, and quail eggs. For now, we’ll focus on chicken eggs since they’re the most popular by a long shot.

Chicken eggs contain two primary parts to them, the egg yolk and the egg whites. Both the egg yolk and the egg whites contain protein, but the yolk contains more of the minerals and vitamins than the whites. The whites contain more water content than the yolk and none of the fat-soluable vitamins. Overall, if you needed nutrition quickly, you’d want to eat the egg yolk over the egg whites. Each of these components serve different purposes in cooking, but are often combined together to form some of our most popular recipes that require eggs.

How Eggs Are Used in Cooking

Eggs are one of, if not the most, versatile ingredients you can use in cooking. They can be prepared by themselves, used as a medium to bind other ingredients together, added to promote thickening of a sauce, a way to add color to bread, as an emulsifying agent, a method to temper a custard, and much more. Eggs are essential to your diet and being able to manage them is an essential skill for your cooking journey.

To give you a better sense of how versatile eggs are, here’s a list of just about everything you can do with them:

Cooking

• Scrambled, Fried, Poached, or Boiled: Eggs can be cooked in various ways for breakfast or snacks.
• Omelets and Frittatas: Eggs are the base for these dishes, often filled with vegetables, meats, or cheeses.
• Quiches and Savory Tarts: Eggs form the custard base for these baked dishes.
• Egg Wash: Used to brush on pastries before baking to give a golden sheen and help with browning.
• Thickening: Used in sauces like hollandaise or béarnaise where they thicken and enrich the sauce.
• Coating: For breading; eggs act as a glue to hold breadcrumbs or flour onto food before frying or baking.

Baking

• Leavening: Eggs help cakes and baked goods rise by trapping air during mixing.
• Binding: They hold ingredients together in dishes like meatballs or meatloaf.
• Moistening: Adds moisture to baked goods like cakes and muffins.
• Emulsifying: Helps mix ingredients that normally wouldn’t combine well, like in mayonnaise.
• Color: Yolks contribute to the color of baked goods, particularly in pastries and cakes.
• Structure: Provides firmness and texture to custards, flans, and cheesecakes.

Custards and Desserts

• Puddings: Eggs are essential for setting and giving body to puddings.
• Ice Cream: Egg yolks can be used to make a richer base for homemade ice cream.
• Creams and Mousses: Stabilize and thicken these desserts.
• Meringues: Beaten egg whites create light, airy desserts like pavlovas or soufflés.

Sauces and Dressings

• Mayonnaise: Eggs emulsify oil and vinegar or lemon juice.
• Caesar Dressing: Often includes a raw or coddled egg for creaminess.
• Hollandaise: A classic sauce where eggs are crucial for texture and stability.

How to Get Good at Cooking with Eggs?

With so much that you can do with eggs, it’s hard to know which one to choose. But we have to start somewhere so we’re going to focus on scrambled eggs. We’re not just going to focus on the typical scrambled eggs though, we’re going to make a version of Chef Gordon Ramsay’s Sublime Scrambled Eggs.

What makes these scrambled eggs different from the norm is primarily the cooking technique. It’s my firm belief that if you can make this dish successfully, then you’ll be fine cooking just about anything else on the stovetop. Getting the right consistency requires you to pay close attention to the temperature, liquid content, visual texture, and the glossiness level. Being able to see and understand these 4 things when cooking will make you a better overall cook and this dish is a great way to practice your ability to determine these 4 things when cooking.

Let’s Get Cracking with Sublime Scrambled Eggs

To get started, I recommed using at least 4 eggs so that there’s enough of them to work with but not so much that it gets overwhleming. Pick a sauce pan with high edges and smaller diameter for this. A smaller sauce pan will help you regulate the temperature of the eggs better than a wider one. If you choose too wide of a diameter, you may end up overcooking the eggs which would result in a harder texture than you want for this dish.

Starting Cold Instead of Hot

Start off by cracking the eggs into the cold sauce pan. You’re using a cold pan to start because you want to slowly bring the eggs up to temperature as you manage the texture and liquid content. If you placed the eggs into a hot pan, they would immediately begin to cook which could mess up the texture and consistency. Once the eggs are in, beat them until incorporated and then add about 1/2 a tablespoon of butter. Put it onto the stovetop and set it to a medium-high heat to start.

Keeping a Close Watch

As the pan heats up, pay close attention to the outer edges. When you see that the edges are beginning to solidify, take a spatula and begin to stir the eggs. Be sure to scrape both the bottom of the pan and the edges of the pan so that the solidfying parts of the eggs are constantly being replaced by the remaining liquid parts of the eggs.

As you stir the eggs, you’ll notice that the overall texture of the eggs will slowly turn from a flat, watery liquid into a thick, viscous substance. At this time, you’ll want to take the pan off the heat but don’t turn off the stove. Continue stirring the eggs in the sauce pan to create an even distribution of heat throughout the eggs. Even though the pan is off the heat, the eggs are still technically cooking because the pan’s temperature is still high.

Keep it Moving

After about 10 seconds, put the pan back on the heat while continuing to stir for 30 seconds. Repeat this process of 30 seconds on the heat and 10 seconds off the heat for a few minutes or until you notice that the texture of the eggs becomes creamy with a wet, glossy finish. At this point, add in a pinch of salt and a dash of black pepper before putting it back on the heat and stirring for at least one more round. When you’re done, the texture should still be creamy, but the wet glossy appearance from just before should now look semi-glossy instead.

What Should the Final Product Look Like?

Appearance - Every inch of the final result should have the same color to it, a nice yellow or yellow-orange color. It should look moist, but not wet. There should be visible clumps of varying sizes that stick together.

Texture - When you eat a spoonful, you should get a creamy texture with a very light spring when you chew. It should not be watery or runny at all. Nor should it feel like you can easily feel each individual clump with your tongue. Each clump should feel almost effortless to shmush while it’s in your mouth.

Tips for Getting it Right

• If you notice that the eggs are starting to overcook, take it off the heat, add in a teaspoon of crème fraîche (or sour cream if you don’t have crème fraîche on hand), and mix it in thoroughly. Adding this will help lower the temperature of the eggs and also give your dish a creamier texture overall.
• Taking the eggs off the heat mainly depends on how hot the eggs are getting. 30 seconds on and 10 seconds off is an approximate amount of time to help you get a better sense of how long it takes. What’s more important is what you’re seeing in the pan as you’re cooking. Look for clues in the eggs’ wetness for when it needs less heat or more heat.
• Continously stirring is important, but don’t stir too fast. The whole point of stirring the eggs is to make sure that the heat is distributed around the pan. If you stir too quickly, the eggs won’t have the chance to retain the heat it needs to cook.

Congrats! You’ve completed the First-time Cooking Starter Pack!