Eggs. What to do with eggs? We eat them by the carton and we surely bake with them. But our portfolio of egg recipes is often rather slim. Now, in 100 Ways with Eggs: Boiled, Baked, Fried, Scrambled & More!, the editors at Ryland Peter & Small give us a bundle of egg-centric recipes.
The chapters here follow the sun:
- Breakfast & Brunch
- Appetizers
- Main Meals
- Desserts & Drinks
Half the book is devoted to breakfast because that is the meal where we most often position eggs as the centerpiece. There are classic recipes here, like the Spanish Omelet, with detailed step-by-step instructions to give you early morning success. It is the “other” recipes that I find make this chapter such a boon. Instead of that standard omelet, how about Baked Eggs with Chorizo, Mushroom, and Lemon Crème Fraiche. Here that chorizo is converted to a sauce in combination with onion, garlic, tomatoes, chile pepper flakes, plum tomatoes, orange peel, and balsamic vinegar. That sauce goes with baked mushrooms, completed with a topping of lemon crème fraiche. This is a Middle Eastern dish that the editors of this book are enthusiastically sharing with us.
If you don’t want the spice of the Middle East, you can do something very British for breakfast: bread pudding. Yes, in America, we make bread pudding for dessert — Suzi makes it weekly for the end of a dinner meal at Cooking by the Book. But breakfast? Sure, because here we have Breakfast Bread and Butter Pudding with Dried Apricots and Cranberries. It’s a sharp way to begin the day — and I bet it would still make a damn fine dessert.
If your day has gone beyond breakfast, then the Appetizer chapter comes with more ideas from around the world:
Roast Potato and Scallion Tartlets
Pate de Campagne with Hard Boiled Egg
Scotch Quail Eggs: hard boiled quail eggs baked in a sausage blanket
The idea of embedding a hardboiled egg is exploited again in the Main Meals chapter. Here you will find a wonderful dish from Argentina, Matambre. We begin with flank steak — this is an Argentinian recipe after all — which is pounded flat, and then covered with a filling of cheese, olives, parsley, roasted bell peppers, and a half dozen hard boiled eggs. Roll it all up, cook for an hour, then slice to see the wonder of it all. It’s a dish sure to generate “oh, my” responses at your table.
Other main dish ideas include
Peas and Ham Topped with Soft or Hard Boiled Eggs
Classic Spaghetti Carbonara
Asparagus Risotto with Poached Egg and Parmesan Cheese
100 Ways with Eggs is sure to send you dashing to your refrigerator. Maybe you’ll do something complicated like that stuffed, rolled steak. Or, you might just spice up your scrambled eggs by making them with roast tomatoes, prosciutto and some mushroom puree.
Eggs are anything but “simple” fare. 100 Ways with Eggs will easily convince you. And please at the same time.