How do you make good scrambled eggs?!


Question: How do you make good scrambled eggs!?
Mine always turn out really bad!. Any suggestions!? Please no smart assed remarks!Www@FoodAQ@Com


Answers:
Perfect Scrambled Eggs

No cheese!. No overt flavorings!. Just eggs and what it takes to make them taste and look like great eggs!.

This recipe serves 2 hungry people!.

6 large eggs
6 teaspoons (1 teaspoon for each egg) low-fat milk
3 dashes of salt (1 dash for every two eggs)
1 Tablespoon butter for frying

Heat a large non-stick frying pan to a setting just above medium!. A 12-inch pan works well for 6 eggs!. Do not add butter yet!. We just want get the pan ready!.

In large metal or glass mixing bowl, whisk the eggs with the milk and salt!. Beat vigorously for 2 minutes!.

Alternatively, you can place the eggs, milk and salt in a blender and blend for 20 to 25 seconds!. Allow the mixture to set for a couple minutes to let the foam settle!.

Melt the butter in the frying pan!. As the very last of the butter is liquefying, add the egg mixture!.

Do not stir immediately!. Wait until the first hint of setting begins!. Start the Martha Stewart scrambling technique ("Using a spatula or a flat wooden spoon, push eggs toward center while tilting skillet to distribute runny parts!.")

Continue this motion as the eggs continue to set!. Break apart large pieces as they form with your spoon or spatula!. You will come to a point where the push-to-center technique is no longer cooking runny parts of the egg!. Flip over all the eggs!. Allow the eggs to cook 15 to 25 seconds longer!. Transfer eggs to serving plates!. Add salt and pepper to taste!.

A note about milk and water: Soy milk works effectively in the recipe!. Whole milk lends an overly milky taste to the eggs!. No-fat milk and water can both be used in place of the low-fat milk but the creamy texture of the finished product is reduced!.


What NOT To Add

Cottage Cheese -- Several recipes I encountered recommended whisking a Tablespoon of small curd cottage cheese in with each egg!. Visually, the result was creamy and mildly fluffy scrambled eggs!. In terms of taste, the cottage cheese did not contribute or detract from the eggs -- but it did make the dish seem somehow impure!. You knew there was something in there besides the egg!. The aspect of cottage cheese that secured its fate as a stay-out-of-our-scramble ingredient was that no matter how vigorously you whisked the dish had texture irregularities!. Every other bite had the unwelcome surprise of a noticeable cottage cheese curd!.

Real Cream - I tried two recipes that used real cream ("the fat skimmed off the top of raw milk" as defined by the Wikipedia Dairy Products Guide)!. One said to add 1 Tablespoon of real cream per egg!. The other instructed the use of 1 and ? Tablespoons of cream per egg!. Both recipes created beautiful eggs with a creamy yellow color!. Sadly, the resulting flavor was not so beautiful!. In both cases the first bite tasted terrific, but the more I ate the more I had to admit that these eggs were just too creamy!. The recipe with 1 and ? Tablespoons of cream left a slight, unpleasant milky after-taste!.

Sour Cream - Scrambled eggs with sour cream can not be considered scrambled eggs in a purist sense!. The sour cream adds a distinct flavor!. Therefore, scrambled eggs with sour cream will be saved for mention in a future article on specialty or flavored scrambled eggs!.

Baking Powder -- Scrambled eggs with a pinch of baking powder per egg had a great appearance!. They were fluffy, yet firm!. I was surprised to find there was no trace of baking powder taste!. Unfortunately, the texture of the scramble in the mouth was uneven with specks of firmer pieces in a single bite!.

Sea Salt - When salt is heated it breaks down to the same components regardless whether its table salt or sea salt!. As Robert Wolke says in his book What Einstein Told His Cook, "!.!.!.when a recipe specifies simply 'sea salt' it is a meaningless specification!. It might as well be specifying 'meat'!." If you see a recipe that says to add sea salt to eggs before whisking…!. you can be sure it was written by someone who needs to learn more about the ionic bonds that hold sodium and chlorine together!.

Sugar - Eggs, flour and sugar are the primary ingredients of a great many deserts!. Remove the flour and you end up with neither desert nor scrambled eggs - at least not from a purist scramble perspective!. What you do end up with is a kind of specialty egg dish that deserves further exploration in the field of breakfast!. It's not fair to call them scrambled eggs, but their sweetness makes them an interesting complement to pancakes and waffles


What NOT To Do

DON'T beat egg whites until stiff peaks form

With or without added ingredients like sugar and cream of tartar, the result of scrambling looks like a big dollop of melting Crisco crossed with cottage cheese!.

DON'T stir eggs slowly for an extended period

I came across one recipe that actually instructed to stir the eggs in the fry pan (heated at your stove's lowest setting) with a wooden spoon for 30 minutes!.

First of all, the eggs didn't set after 30 minutes at the lowest heat setting!. I tried once more at a slightly higher setting!. After 10 minutes, the eggs began to show subtle signs of setting!. I continued to stir the eggs in the pan for 10 minutes!. The result looked more like butternut squash than any eggs I've ever seen!. The texture was close to chewy and the extended cooking time seemed to have cooked away all the flavor of egg!.


Do It Or Don't - It doesn't Make a Difference

Remove the frying eggs from heat just before the eggs are completely set - In his book, On Food And Cooking: The Science And Lore Of the Kitchen, Harold McGee writes, "(Scrambled Eggs) should be removed from the stovetop while slightly underdone since they retain heat and will continue to cook on their own for sometime"!. No disrespect to Mr!. McGee and his excellent book, but multiple practical experiments with this technique yielded no positive (or negative) results!. If the eggs were served immediately from the pan, the texture and moisture content of the eggs showed no distinct difference!.

Keep eggs at room temperature before scrambling - Kitchen tests showed no significant difference between room-temperature and refrigerated eggs from the same carton!. Refrigeration actually deters the growth of salmonella enteritis!. Even though salmonella is very rare (1 out of every 20,000 eggs may contain the bacteria), it is advised that your eggs always remain stored in the refrigerator!.


The Art of Scrambling - Proper Technique

The Best Way To Beat Your Eggs

One of the most important ingredients in scrambled eggs is hardly ever mentioned!.!.!. air!. It would be nice if we could just dollop a Tablespoon of air into the mixing bowl, but for the time-being, incorporating air into beaten eggs requires good old-fashioned elbow grease (or the electric equivalent)!.

The more you whisk -- the more air bubbles become trapped in the shaken and unraveling protein of the eggs!. As the eggs cook, protein molecules firm-up around the air bubbles resulting in a spongy texture and hopefully full and fluffy scrambled eggs!.

The American Egg Board describes well-beaten eggs as "frothy and evenly colored"!. When your eggs match that description (generally after about 2 minutes) you should stop beating!.

Over-beating will completely unravel the protein molecules and destabilize their ability to form a microscopic casing around the air!.

In terms of whisking motion, a tilted wheel motion works far better than a vertical stirring motion!. A fork works as well as a whisk but requires a slight bit more time and energy!.


The Best Way To Scramble In The Pan

The actions you take once the eggs hit the fry pan will dictate the size of the scrambled egg pieces (curds)!. Some recipes suggest stirring the eggs with a wooden spoon immediately as the eggs hit the heated surface!. Others direct you to let the eggs start to set before stirring/scrambling!. Of the two, the second method results in larger fluffier pieces!.

When the first hint of setting appears you should begin to push the eggs around with a spatula!. There are opposing schools of thought on how to handle the eggs at this point!.

FoodNetwork!.com tells us to "push the curds to one side and let the uncooked eggs spread over the surface of the pan!."

Martha Stewart suggests: "Using a spatula or a flat wooden spoon, push eggs toward center while tilting skillet to distribute runny parts!."

For scrambled eggs that might be described as light and fluffy, Martha Stewart's push-to-the-center technique narrowly edges out the competitionWww@FoodAQ@Com

Heat a non-stick pan on medium heat!.!.!.add margarine, about 2 tsp!.!.!.wait for the water to steam off the margarine (margarine has lots of water in it), it will start to look oily and bubbly!.!.!.break eggs right into the pan!.!.!.let them cook for a bit, add salt and pepper, then break the yolks with a fork and stir the eggs around in the pan until they look almost done!.!.!.remove from the heat and put on a plate immediately so they don't overcook in the pan!. They will continue to cook on the plate from the heat in the eggs!. We call them hard scrambled eggs because they don't have milk in them!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

I get a bowl put a couple of eggs in it and a splash of milk and I add a little cheese and salt & pepper mix it all up and then put a pat of butter in the pan turn on med high pour the eggs in and let cook for a few minutes then flip over and let cook for a few minutes then I break up the egg and keep cooking for another munite then take off and enjoyWww@FoodAQ@Com

Beat a couple of eggs with a little milk, salt, a pinch of pepper and a dash of hot sauce (optional)!. For extra delicious eggs try some cream or half and half instead of milk!. Melt 1 Tbs of butter in a skillet over medium low heat , it's very important to cook eggs on low, so the proteins won't get tough! Once you got them to your desired texture, transfer them to a plate right away to stop cooking!. Enjoy!Www@FoodAQ@Com

Excerpted from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe cookbook:

(Here's a few pointers for creamy scrambled eggs)

* The best scrambled eggs have large, soft curds

*If possible, break the eggs into a bowl about an hour ahead of time!. Cover the bowl and let the eggs come to room temperature!. This is not essential, but it does improve their final texture!.

*Beat the eggs with a fork or a small whisk, adding pinches of salt and pepper!. Don't overbeat them or they will become stringy and tough!. They just need to be relatively smooth!.

*Scramble a maximum of three large eggs at a time if using an 8-inch pan, and no more than six eggs at a time in a 10-inch pan!.

*Warm a heavy non-stick pan over medium heat for about 3 minutes before you begin, and keep the heat at medium -- no higher -- throughout the cooking process!.

* Lightly spray the the pan with nonstick spray, then melt in a little butter and swirl to coat the pan!.

* Quickly pour in the beaten eggs!. As the eggs begin to set, push the curds from the bottom to one side, allowing uncooked egg to flow into contact with the pan!. Stop and let them puff for a few seconds, then keep piling the curds to the side!. Allowing the eggs to puff before gently pushing the curds to one side produces large, soft curds!.

* When the eggs are almost -- but not completely -- set, remove the pan from the heat and transfer the eggs to a plate!. They will finish cooking there from their own heat!.
!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.

When I do scramble eggs in the skillet, that's the technique that I use; basically just letting the bottom egg mixture set, then gently pushing them to the side!. And keep repeating those steps until all of the eggs have set!.

However, I think the BEST, creamiest scrambled eggs are made in a double-boiler!. It takes a bit more time and effort, although it's not at all difficult, and it's pretty much foolproof!. It's a French technique!.

If you'd like to learn more, here's the search results:

http://tinyurl!.com/6bypqdWww@FoodAQ@Com

For one person use two to three eggs!. Crack in a bowl, add 1/4 cup of milk and whisk!. Adding a bit grated cheese is always good!. Salt and pepper!.
Place a pat of butter in a skillet and let it completely melt the butter!. Then pour in the egg mixture!. Using a spatula, stir continuously until fluffy!. Be careful not to cook the eggs too long!. Shouldn't take more than two minutes!. Enjoy!Www@FoodAQ@Com

Beat up your eggs with a little milk, pepper and Tony's(just a little and it won't be spicy or a lot and it will) The secret is to cook them slow!. Don't turn the burner up too much!. also if you melt butter in the pan first they are EXTRA good!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

your going to think this is nuts but it works put two eggs in a zip lock back !.!.!.boil water drop the bag in for three Min's or until you can see it's done comes out perfect !.!. you also could add cheese and make a omlet it works and it's fun for kids to makeWww@FoodAQ@Com

Add a little bit of milk to eggs in a bowl and mix it up!. When you put them in the pan keep them moving and do not over cook!. Sometimes a little cinnamon and sugar goes well with it!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

Whip up eggs,little milk,knob of butter pour into frying pan!.use spatula to break up the egg when it sticks,when cooked stur in a little cheese and pepper!.Eat and enjoy!Www@FoodAQ@Com

a tip from my grandmother - remove from heat just before there fully cooked, so just a little runny!. Leave to sit for a couple of minutes they'll finish themselves and are perfect!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

Um, cook slow :/Www@FoodAQ@Com





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