Posts Tagged ‘Cooking with Eggs’

Eggscitement

Thursday, April 12th, 2018

Eggs from the Chickens at Hawlemont School

We are only just now beginning to enjoy spring weather here in western Massachusetts. For the first ten days of this month, snow fell daily—not in great quantities, but enough to remind country dwellers that spring arrives when it wants to and has very little respect for paper calendars.

Despite the nippy weather and the lingering snow showers, it’s hard not to notice that the days are getting longer and the sun is getting higher in the sky. I’m still eating a lot of soup—I love soup year round—but I’m also starting to cook lighter fare.

Nothing is lighter or more seasonally appropriate than eggs. As I said when I returned to Mass Appeal this week and focused on those oval sources of protein, I’m humbled by eggs. They really are a miracle food. If you do want to add more protein in your diet, you can also check this protein collection.

On a philosophical level, eggs represent both the miracle of life and the complicated history of evolution. (The question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, has been debated for thousands of years.)

On a culinary level, eggs are nothing short of amazing. That something so small can fluff up into something so big always delights me, surprises me, and tickles my fancy.

Eggs are also easy to work with. The two recipes I made on TV both took very little time and very little skill to put together. They were showy nevertheless.

First, Lauren Zenzie joined me to make an old family favorite, an almost cheese soufflé, which my sometime neighbor Roy Lewis has dubbed “”Pseufflé.” I have shared that recipe elsewhere on this blog, but I encourage you to watch the video anyway.

Please note that you should NOT push the soufflé down with a spatula the way Lauren did when I was getting the finished product out of the oven! (I should have warned her not to do this, but I didn’t think to, and the soufflé we made together didn’t rise at all.)

Danny New then helped me throw together a bright, tasty orange angel pudding. Everyone seemed to enjoy eating both dishes.

It was great being back with my friends. Snow or no snow, they made me feel that spring had arrived!

By the way, the eggs I used this week came from the wonderful agriculture program at my local elementary school, Hawlemont School in Charlemont, Massachusetts.

Orange Angel Pudding

Ingredients:

6 eggs, divided
1 cup sugar, divided
3/4 cup orange juice
1 to 2 teaspoons fresh orange zest
2 pinches salt
1 envelope gelatin
1/2 large (or 1 small) angel food cake, broken into bite-sized pieces
1 cup cream, whipped and flavored with vanilla (or Grand Marnier or Cointreau!)

Instructions:

Whisk together the egg yolks, 3/4 cup of the sugar, the orange juice, the zest and 1 pinch of salt. Cook over a double boiler until the mixture thickens and coats a spoon. (This took me about 10 minutes.) Remove the mixture from the heat. Dissolve the gelatin in about 1/3 cup of cold water, and stir it into the egg-yolk mixture.

Beat together the egg whites, the remaining sugar, and the remaining salt until stiff. Fold the whites gently into the custard mixture. Line a springform pan with waxed paper or parchment, and alternate the custard and the cake in it beginning and ending with custard.

Chill the mixture for 24 hours. Unmold the pudding, and cover it with whipped cream. If you want to make your life easier, forget the springform, and do the layering in a trifle bowl; you may serve the pudding right out of that. Serves 8 to 10.

And now the videos:

Tinky Makes Almost Cheese Souffle


Tinky Makes Orange Angel Pudding