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 :)

cold cod and gribiche

Sometimes the simplest things are the best right? This meal could easily be reassembled into fish cakes or a soup. However, I decided to serve it simply and keep each ingredient separate and intact. No muddled flavors here - what you see is what you get. The center piece was some steamed cod, chilled and served with a gribiche sauce. Gribiche is essentially mayonnaise with chopped hard boiled eggs, capers, pickles (preferably french cornichons), some lemon juice, and herbs (usually tarragon, parseley, and chervil). It's a perfect accompaniment for fish, crabcakes, or if your so inclined, tete de veau. In fact it's great on a lot of things and a perfect opportunity to make your own mayo.


Tom's Cod & Gribiche Plate (serves 2)
2/3 lb cod or other white fish, steamed
1/3 cup gribiche sauce (or as much as you want!)
1 tomato, quartered and seasoned with salt
1 egg, hard boiled, quartered
1 yukon gold potato, boiled until tender and sliced
8-10 olives, preferably oil cured
12-15 asparagus, steamed

Gribiche Sauce (1/2 cup)
1 large egg yolk
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp lemon juice or vinegar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 hard boiled egg, finely chopped
2 tbls cornichon (or sour pickle), finely chopped
1 tbls capers, finely chopped
2 tbls parseley, finely chopped
1 tbls tarragon, finely chopped
1 tbls lemon juice
salt and peper

Directions
Mix the mustard, egg, and lemon juice
Slowly drizzle in the oil as you whisk up your mayonaise
Add all the remaining ingredients and adjust seasoning

light carbonara

Just joking, it's Carbonara - it's probably never going to be light! I did try to lighten this classic up just a bit this time around though. Carbonara is one of those convenient dishes that I always like to whip up when in a pinch. It's certainly filling and very quick to make. The sauce is a mix of egg yolks, cream and Parmesan. You add it to the pasta right before serving along with bacon and peas. You should be able to get everything ready in the eight minutes it takes to cook pasta. Can't go wrong there!

Unfortunately I didn't have any cream this time around, so I decided to sub in yogurt. This worked out better than expected. The yogurt gave the Carbonara a tart flavor, almost as if I'd added a little lemon juice. Definitely noticeably lighter than the original, but certainly not lacking any flavor. I also didn't have any peas, but I did add in some basil. Of course, you can really mix in just about anything you want to this dish. Asparagus, fresh cherry tomatoes, green beans... anything along those lines would work well I think. Just don't forget the bacon - that would obviously be a terrible shame!

Tom's Light(er) Pasta Carbonara (serves 2)
10oz your favorite pasta
4-6 strips thick bacon, cut into small squares
2 large egg yolks
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup grated parmesan
Salt + Pepper
4 basil leaves, chopped

Directions
Cook your pasta in salty water according to the directions on the box
Cook your bacon to your liking
Mix the egg yolks, yogurt, parm, salt, pepper, and basil in a bowl
Strain the pasta when it is cooked through (save a bit of the pasta water to thin out the sauce if necessary)
Mix everything together, but don't cook the sauce, just let the residual heat do the work

Enjoy!