soft-boiled eggs

The perfectly cooked egg exists, it's true! Unfortunately, the perfect home recipe does not (well unless you have an immersion circulator handy). You would think cooking an egg would be pretty easy. Put the egg in boiling water and cook. Not so quick!! There are enough variables to make even your most OCD friend lose his mind. How many eggs are you cooking, what temperature are your eggs, what's the radius of you pot, what quantity of water is in it, how hot does your stove burn, how cold is your tap water, what altitude are you at, how quickly do you cool your egg, and most importantly - what defines a perfectly cooked egg?!?

I cook a lot of eggs and I've gone through plenty of phases. Just within the last few months I've gone from wanting hard-boiled eggs, to poached eggs, then onto sunny side up, and now I have a constant craving for soft-boiled eggs. I won't get into all the specifics, but the challenge in cooking the perfect egg is that the whites and yolk set at different temperatures. In fact there are different proteins in the whites and they will each set at very different temperatures: anywhere between 140°F and 180°F degrees. Meanwhile the yolk begins to thicken at around 150°F and sets around 160°F. Tricky little bugger that egg huh?

Today I'm going to focus on soft-boiled eggs. The goal here is thicken but not set the yolks while you cook the whites until they're just set. In my opinion the best way to achieve this is to place your eggs in directly in boiling water. This will cook the exterior of the egg faster than the yolks, and yields the desired results. By contrast when I cook hard-boiled eggs, I start the eggs in cold water and bring the whole egg up to temperature (just like you would a boiled potato to achieve an evenly cooked interior). So for a soft-boiled egg, six minutes in boiling water seems to work perfectly for me. There is one thing to remember though. If you add too many cold eggs to your boiling water, your water temp will drop too much. So just use more water, cook fewer eggs at a time, or adjust your cooking time!

Today I paired two soft-boiled eggs with tomatoes, basil, salt, olive oil, and bread. A poor man's Caprese Salad... The texture of a six-minute egg approximates the mozzarella very well. The yolk mixed with the olive oil and basil makes a great sauce to mop up with bread. It's really a pretty clever combo if I may say so myself :)

chilled tomatillo and cucumber soup

Sounds like it's been unseasonably warm in a good portion of the country this week. Here's a cool soup that's perfect for hot summer days. It's also a great use of tomatillos (I always seem to default to making salsa verde with them otherwise...) A little heat from some sriracha or your favorite hot sauce goes a long ways. And don't be afraid to try other herbs instead of basil as garnish. Dill, cilantro, and/or mint would work well here too.

Chilled Tomatillo and Cucumber Soup (serves 4-6)
1tbls oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 large cucumbers, seeded and roughly chopped
5 tomatillos (1lb), husks removed and chopped rougly
3-4 cups chicken or vegetable stock + 3-4 cups water
1/4 cup of cilantro, finely chopped
Juice from 1 lime

Salt and Pepper to taste
Garnish: Yogurt, Hot Sauce, Basil

Directions
Cook onions and garlic for 5 minutes over medium heat in a large pot
Add tomatillos and cucumbers and continue cooking 5 minutes
Add liquids (enough to cover by an inch or two) and bring to a boil
Remove from heat, add lime and cilantro, and let cool
Blend in blender or with immersion blender until smooth. Thin out with more water if necessary.
Adjust seasoning (you'll probably need a fair amount of salt, especially when its completely chilled)
Serve cold with garnishes

bean salad

Contrary to what you might think, I actually cook simple meals more often than not. Tonight's dinner - a warm black bean salad with half an avocado. The key here is that this is an extremely flexible dish. Missing an ingredient? No lime? Use vinegar. Don't like peppers, use cucumbers. Think beans make you fart too much? Skip them altogether and make a veggie salad instead!

Tom's Black Bean Salad (Serves 4)

2 cans black beans, strained; or 250g dried black beans soaked overnight and cooked in boiling water for about two hours, or until soft
1/4 cup olive oil
2 shallots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 ears corn, kernels cut off
1 green bell pepper, small dice
1 serrano pepper, minced
3-4 tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup parsley and/or cilantro chopped
1 lime, juiced
1/2 tbls dijon mustard
Salt&pepper

Directions
Heat olive oil over medium heat and gently cook shallots, garlic, and serrano for 5 minutes
Add corn and bell pepper and continue cooking for 5 more minutes, then let cook 10 minutes
Mix all ingredients together, making sure to get all the oil out of the pan (salad dressing!)
Adjust seasoning and enjoy.

manjala

Amity's friend Ross was in town this weekend and Friday evening we decided to cook a meal at home rather than go out. So I put together an Indian mini-feast with food for at least ten people. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) there were only three of us. On the menu: Paneer Tikka Massala, Chicken Vindaloo, Aloo Matar, fresh Naan, and Raita. The recipes primarily came from YouTube. Specifically, I've been watching videos from "Manjula's Kitchen," who specializes in Indian vegetarian food. While her video presentation skills are perhaps lacking a bit, her food looks and tastes authentic and her recipes are thorough. She has nearly 28,000 subscribers on YouTube along with a website where you can find all of the recipes she has been compiling over the last four years. In the end, this is an amazing resource for anyone interested in Indian and/or vegetarian cooking and the primary way I've been learning. More generally. I find that I use YouTube very frequently when I'm trying to learn a new technique or recipe these days. I'm sure there are plenty of great YouTube channels, so if anyone has good links, feel free to share in the comments sections!