Egg School: Intro

Of all foods, I've probably come the closest to mastering the egg. I don't know why, as there is nothing formal or technical about my knowledge of the egg itself. I think it comes down to having a supremely egg-loving family and a mother who can whip up delightful egg varieties with the best of them. She either taught me and/or inspired me to perfect almost every egg style that I have endeavored into. And that's the key word with eggs -- they must be cooked to perfection to really embody a particular style. Any fool can throw an egg in a pan or a pot or a dish and cook the hell out of it until it's inedible. And yet others get the right idea for how to make a proper egg and don't know how to handle or time it properly and end up with undercooked or otherwise messed up eggs. But to cook an egg perfectly in a particular style requires thought, effort and skill. And it might not work the first time. But I'm going to try to help.

I think I've egged just about every style imaginable. I have made pretty decent meringue, custard, various baked goods, pudding, marshmallow and dressings/sauces containing eggs in my day. But when I speak of eggs I am normally thinking of the classic egg breakfasts: scrambled, sunny-side-up, over-easy, fried, hard and soft poached, baked/shirred, soft boiled, hard boiled, omelet, quiche and frittata. Each one can be made very good and they can be made very very bad. And they can be perfected. Perfected all while not using too much added fat, which is an added bonus that I pride myself in. But in addition to perfecting with out butter or bacon fat, perfecting includes the perfect moistness of scrambled eggs, the perfect look of a poached egg, the perfect soft yolk consistency for over easy, soft poached and soft boiled, and the perfect yolk color for all eggs, including no green on hard boiled yolks. The broken yolk varieties (scrambled, omelet, frittata and quiche) need ultimate care for consistency, flavor and to prevent drying. No yolk-breaking, mis-timing, flopped flips with overeasies (well maybe a few at first), fuzzy guesstimations with the in-shell varieties (boiled), or just the general "messing up" of the hardest and perhaps best variety, poached. You'll soon have perfect eggs in every way if you don't already because I've made a ton of plates of eggs and am sharing all my secrets. Your friends and family will love you. Really love you even more than they do now. And you can dazzle them with the simply divine egg preparations, about as classic as classic can be. And do you know what makes something a classic? Something that can be made perfect. And I'll try my darnedest to live up to the hype and get us to that level.

YOUR CHALLENGE

AT the top of the blog is an autofoodography.com poll that lists all of the egg varieties that I am going to feature over the coming weeks. The order of the features will be determined by you, the reader. In one week, the poll will close and I will set the order from most votes (first) to least votes (last). From then on, I will have a little egg feature every few days until they've all run out, and we're all experts together. So Vote! That’s your challenge!

MY CHALLENGE

1.) Make everyone an egg expert with the simplest steps possible, and answer all of your questions.

2.) Create and share demo videos of the steps I am sharing for each feature.

3.) In the mean time, perfect the infamous and mother of all egg preps, the basic soufflé. It is one of the most intimidating dishes out there, even to a trained chef. But for your benefit, I will try my very hardest. I can't really claim to be egg master, egg wizard, egg expert or egg perfectionist until I can also perfect the soufflé. So we'll see. Right now I have one more test before graduating to that level, and you all will be judge, witness and jury.

So again, go vote! And then enjoy your perfect eggs.