Essential Eggs
Essential Eggs
Chickens are an egg's way of making more eggs. -- Samuel Butler
Eggs are extraordinary things. The average chicken egg provides 75 calories and contains 6.3 grams of protein, 0.6 grams of carbohydrates, 5 total grams of fat of which only 1.6 grams are saturated fat, and 120 milligrams of cholesterol. In addition, it contains calcium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, and zinc. It is a near-primordial sack of nutrients that enables what began as a single cell to differentiate over 21 days into an infant chicken.
Eggs have an almost unique place in Western cooking in that they are commonly used as the prime ingredient in both savory and sweet dishes. In fact, often the simple addition of sugar in some form transforms one into the other -- souffles and custards being prime examples of this Janus-like ability. Further, in custard the eggs are dense and solid whereas in soufflés they are light and fluffy. An extraordinarily flexible food.
And although eggs are at their sublime best when just stolen from beneath a hen, they'll keep in a refrigerator for weeks and still be quite edible. In fact, provided the eggs were not infected prior to the shell's formation (a relatively rare event), they'll keep for quite a while without refrigeration -- after all, one of the shell's primary functions is to prevent external infection.
Several years ago my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by renting a villa on the Costa del Sol in Spain for two weeks. They, my sister, and I arrived together in Madrid and drove down to the coast a couple of days later. Late in the afternoon it started raining and by the time we arrived in the town below the villa we were all exhausted and hungry. We stopped at a small supermercado and bought eggs, cheese, sausage, some veggies, and wine before heading up the hill to the house. By six we'd arrived in a pouring rain and got completely soaked unloading the car -- further shortening already frayed tempers.
Nevertheless, while Dad built a fire and my mother and sister found sheets, towels, the radio, and the other paraphernalia necessary to settling in, I took over the kitchen and made a tortilla. We settled in front of the fire with glasses of wine and plates heaped with eggs and salad to listen to the storm outside and begin easing the kinks in our psyches.
This evening, too, it was pouring rain, occasionally storming, and I hadn't been to the store. But I had eggs, chorizo, onions, bell pepper, cheese and frozen spinach on hand. So I made a frittata and listened to the rain.
Chickens are an egg's way of making more eggs. -- Samuel Butler
Eggs are extraordinary things. The average chicken egg provides 75 calories and contains 6.3 grams of protein, 0.6 grams of carbohydrates, 5 total grams of fat of which only 1.6 grams are saturated fat, and 120 milligrams of cholesterol. In addition, it contains calcium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, and zinc. It is a near-primordial sack of nutrients that enables what began as a single cell to differentiate over 21 days into an infant chicken.
Eggs have an almost unique place in Western cooking in that they are commonly used as the prime ingredient in both savory and sweet dishes. In fact, often the simple addition of sugar in some form transforms one into the other -- souffles and custards being prime examples of this Janus-like ability. Further, in custard the eggs are dense and solid whereas in soufflés they are light and fluffy. An extraordinarily flexible food.
And although eggs are at their sublime best when just stolen from beneath a hen, they'll keep in a refrigerator for weeks and still be quite edible. In fact, provided the eggs were not infected prior to the shell's formation (a relatively rare event), they'll keep for quite a while without refrigeration -- after all, one of the shell's primary functions is to prevent external infection.
Several years ago my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by renting a villa on the Costa del Sol in Spain for two weeks. They, my sister, and I arrived together in Madrid and drove down to the coast a couple of days later. Late in the afternoon it started raining and by the time we arrived in the town below the villa we were all exhausted and hungry. We stopped at a small supermercado and bought eggs, cheese, sausage, some veggies, and wine before heading up the hill to the house. By six we'd arrived in a pouring rain and got completely soaked unloading the car -- further shortening already frayed tempers.
Nevertheless, while Dad built a fire and my mother and sister found sheets, towels, the radio, and the other paraphernalia necessary to settling in, I took over the kitchen and made a tortilla. We settled in front of the fire with glasses of wine and plates heaped with eggs and salad to listen to the storm outside and begin easing the kinks in our psyches.
This evening, too, it was pouring rain, occasionally storming, and I hadn't been to the store. But I had eggs, chorizo, onions, bell pepper, cheese and frozen spinach on hand. So I made a frittata and listened to the rain.
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