The Mystery of the Exploding Eggs

Young Master Julien Slate-Aussoleil
holds the explode-o egg so Mom
can take an out-of-focus photo.

A couple of whiles ago, I was working on a book called Scratch (written by Maria Rodale, of the Rodales), in which I learned that to get really consistently peelable eggs, you steam them. Genius! And I've been doing that ever since.

But every so often I would get what I call a "crater egg." It appeared that for some reason the air inside the egg couldn't get out (eggshells are porous, n'est-ce pas?) and pushed the egg white up against the shell at the opposite end, leaving an egg-white crater behind. Net result = the most unpeelable egg you'll ever meet, times a million.

Then, even weirder, some eggs would simply explode in the steamer, with loud (relatively speaking) egg bangs. Of course these were beyond peeling: They needed to be scooped out of the shell.

Why, why? My perfect system! What was wrong with it?

Research on the Google Interwebs Machine.

Fake Egg Bloom. Read on

As an egg emerges from the hen, it gets coated with a thin layer of something called the cuticle or "egg bloom," which seals the pores of the egg, protecting it from anything getting to it while it waits to be hatched. However, unless you raise your own chickens, any egg you've ever purchased has had this bloom washed off.

Some egg producers replace the natural cuticle with a coating of mineral oil or wax* to increase the shelf life. In addition to keeping the bad things out, the coating prevents the egg from "respiring"—a process that over time introduces more air into the egg and eventually makes it go bad. (This is why you can test the age of an egg by seeing if it floats in water.) When you cook an egg in boiling water, the minute you immerse the egg, the hot water melts the wax off (though this is just my guess). But with steam, apparently, not so much.

However, the American Egg Board claims that only 10% of producers actually coat their eggs, so I guess it's just the luck of the draw.

*Anyone who has ever stocked a sailboat's pantry in preparation for a long cruise also knows this trick. With limited fridge space on a small boat, eggs are one thing you can keep at room temp, as long as you dip the eggs in paraffin.

Cauliflower crumbs. Am I right?

The 3 most annoying food particles are:

1. Cauliflower crumbs
2. Eggshell shards
3. Honey

They seem to have the following prime directives: Spread. Spread to weird places. Hide. Multiply. Spread again.

The imperfection of the "bunch"

(I'm in the middle of reading The Chronicles of Barsetshire by Anthony Trollope, and I feel that he would have titled this post thus.)

I edit a lot of recipes...and it's a little like detective work (I knew my Nancy Drew training would eventually come into play) trying to suss out what a recipe creator means when they* call for "a large handful" or "a generous glug" or [wait for it] "a bunch."

Let's consult the dictionary for a definition of bunch:

"a group of things of the same kind that are held or tied together or that grow together"

There is nothing in the definition that implies a quantity (even for things that "grow together," like grapes or bananas). In fact, the size of a bunch is controlled by custom. And since customs change pretty much constantly, calling for a bunch of something in a recipe is extraordinarily imperfect.

Here, peeps of the jury, is a "bunch of basil" from a farmers' market:

And here's a "bunch" from the supermarket:

I rest my case.

*On a separate note, I've finally given in to the use of "they" to indicate an individual of unknown gender......but I am not happy about it.

Quinoa rant

Why does everyone keep saying quinoa is packed with protein? It's making me crazy.

Here's how some vegetable-based foods stack up protein-wise, and then maybe we can figure out what qualifies as packed with protein. I decided to base the following info* on 100 calories' worth of the food (cooked), since serving sizes can be sort of meaningless (though I've included them to show what you get for 100 calories). The items are ranked from the most to the least protein per 100 calories:

Tofu, firm (2.5 ounces, 1/3 cup) = 12g protein, 2g carbs (1.6g fiber)
Lentils (scant 1/2 cup) = 8g protein, 18g carbs (8g fiber)
Black beans (scant 1/2 cup) = 6.9g protein, 18g carbs (7g fiber)
Chickpeas (scant 1/2 cup) = 5.8g protein, 18g carbs (5g fiber)
Quinoa (scant 1/2 cup) = 3.7g protein, 18g carbs (2.3g fiber)
Brown rice (scant 1/2 cup) = 2.2g protein, 21g carbs (1.3g fiber)
Barley (1/2 cup) = 1.9g protein, 23g carbs (3g fiber)

Now, these numbers of course do not reflect how "complete" the protein is—as in which of the essential amino acids they contain. That's a whole other can of wax, or ball of worms. But I just want cookbook authors and other food writers to stop saying that quinoa is reeeelly high in protein. It's definitely higher than other grains for which it is often substituted, but packed it ain't.

For my money, it's LENTILS FOR THE WIN! (I would have said tofu, but honestly there are a lot of people who avoid tofu for one health reason or the other.)

And of course if you're into eating animals and animal products (it sounds so wrong when you say it like that), you're made in the shade. One hundred calories of most lean meat—so we're not talking about sausages here, 'kay?—will give you in the neighborhood of 25g protein and no carbs to speak of.

For the record: I'm very fond of quinoa. I eat it every single day for breakfast. So there.

* data is [are, for you linguistic pedants] from the USDA's nutrition database, so if you have a quarrel, take it up with the gov.

Snips & Snaps

Things that have interested me recently, but that I'm entirely too lazy to write about (at any length), are:

1. Foraging for wild bamboo shoots. Complicated, but interesting. Even Jean-Georges Vongerichten thinks so. I was just playing around with the bamboo shoot in the photo (don't you ever accuse me of being a food stylist!): The white filling is goat cheese and the little topper-jobs are chive blossoms (from my garden) that I pickled.


2. Steaming eggs to hard-boil them . . . it makes them incredibly easy to peel. You can also really nicely control the "doneness" of the yolk. Thanks to Maria Rodale whose book, Scratch (Rodale, October 2016) turned me on to this. (Though to be fair, she learned it from a chef in Pennsylvania named Allan Schanbacher. You'll have to ask him where he learned it. And then let me know what he says.)

3. Making an easy-peasy ratatouille by roasting whole (untrimmed) eggplant, zucchini, and plum tomatoes (and sometimes some sliced onions) and then slicing everything up after. Just add olive oil, herbs, S&P, and maybe a dash of balsamic. Done.

4. Black limes. They are an ingredient in Persian (OK, Iranian) cooking and are called—among other transliterated words—loomi. I've never seen a whole lime, but I bought a bottle of powdered limes. The powder has a nice sort of citrusy tang and a very faint underflavor of something else....almost like fenugreek, or some other sort of haunting spice. I mix black lime powder with sea salt for sprinkling on things. I thought that I had stumbled on a fantastic salt substitute until I found out that "black limes" are first cooked in a salt solution (sheesh) before being dried in the sun until they turn black. The bottle I bought is labeled Black Lemon Powder, even though the ingredient list says black limes (oh, those wacky Middle Easterners).

5. Dried mango powder. Called amchoor/amchur (more transliteration here). Liking this too, for the same reason as the black limes. Faintly tart and sort of like putting salt on food, but not.

6. And then, in a complete 180°, I've been obsessed with making flavored salt. (It was weird last Xmas, 2015. I gave people flavored salt and they gave me flavored salt. Everybody gave everybody flavored salt. What up?) Anyway, I just experimented with mixing kosher salt with various liquids: some simple (lemon juice) and some more complex (red wine and balsamic with herbs steeped in it). I spread the resulting paste out on a baking sheet to dry and then I crumbled it back into sprinkle-able salt. It's fun. You can get cool colors. Don't bother with the lemon juice, it just tastes like salt on steroids.

The mystery teapot

In the late 18th, early 19th century, a certain style of teapot came into fashion in England. It was modeled after a pot brought back from India by a Lady Cadogan and was made popular because George IV admired one. Thenceforth everyone absolutely had to have one.

I want one too, not because I am a follower of George IV, but because the teapot is just plain cool. This teapot has no lid. There is no apparent way to fill it.

The way it works is this: If you invert the teapot you see that running up into the pot from the bottom is a tube. You fill the pot through the tube, turn the pot rightside up and the water.....aaaah, too hard to explain. Look at this glass version of the pot and you can see how it works.

You can look for antique Cadogan pots (like the top photo) manufactured by the Rockingham works in England or you can buy the modern glass version shown here (called the Mystery Pyramid Teapot) for $30 from a site that also sells Klein bottles.

Just in case you don't know what a Klein bottle is, it's a bottle that, like a Moebius strip, has a continuous surface. Enough said. You can check out the Klein bottle site to learn more.

Ramen spork

If you have a kid either in college or recently graduated (which probably also means unemployed), then it's very probable that ramen figures heavily into his/her food budget. So check out this very fine ramen-eating implement.

This stainless steel spork was designed by Masami Takahashi for a chain of ramen restaurants in Japan. It costs $14 from Uncommon Goods.

Stabilizing a cutting board

There's nothing more annoying (or potentially dangerous) than a cutting board that slides all over the counter when you're wielding a sharp knife. Some cutting boards come with nonskid feet, but what if you have a perfectly fine collection of other random cutting boards--as I do--with no nonskid bottoms?

Well, if you do a Google search on the topic, you'll get tips on using a wet towel underneath the board. Or if you've ever been to a professional food shoot, you'll have seen food stylists use stacks of wet paper towels under their boards.

Both of these ideas work just fine, but not as well as my personal favorite: nonslip shelf and drawer liner. You can find rolls of this webby material in any hardware store. It costs from $3-6 for a roll 12 inches wide by 5 feet long. You can cut out pieces that match any one of your cutting boards, and it works like a charm.

If you can't find it locally, you can do a search on Contact brand drawer liners.