How Not to Ruin Scrambled Eggs: For Sara

Here's a quick post that's more a "for dummies" instructional guide than a real recipe, but since almost everyone I know makes eggs and a lot of them make huge messes in the process, I thought I might do some charity work on this fine Saturday morning.

Whether you know it or not, eggs are a vital part of your alimentary experience. They allow your baked goods to bake properly. When mixed with milk they do magical things (which is why you must never substitute out milk in a recipe that has eggs. It's chemistry, don't fight it). They contain protein, vital amino acids and zinc, which aid in muscle development and immune function. Plus, new research has emerged suggesting that they won't cause you to have immediate heart attacks, though new research emerges all the time purporting to prove all sorts of dubious claims, so perhaps you shouldn't go crazy with this newfound freedom.

Historically, eggs were one of the most important elements of daily life. Since most of the peasantry in Europe couldn't afford meat, or to buy new chickens, they substituted in "white meats" like cheese and eggs, which were free if you were lucky enough to own a cow or chickens. Chickens were especially important since they basically wander around consuming things and befouling their environment, much like common street gangs, but more edible. Though ownership has decreased significantly in recent years, especially with the increase in apartment living (the mess would be appalling), eggs themselves are generally still a highly affordable protein that even brain damaged monkeys could figure out how to cook adequately.

But, of course, there are tricks to that.

These tips are for those cooking with stainless steel or cast iron - if you use nonstick pans you could do whatever you wanted and the egg would come out basically okay.

Ingredients:
olive oil
2 eggs
1-2 tbsp milk
salt

other potential seasonings: pepper, thyme/zaatar, paprika, vegetables, cheese, truffle salt - the latter two should go in after the cooking process.

Steps:

1. Crack eggs into a bowl (practice doing it one handed - you'll get all the ladies/dudes) and mix in the milk and herbs (if you're using them). Beat the hell out of them with a fork or a whisk.

2. THE IMPORTANT STEP. DO NOT SKIM THIS. Heat a small pan on low-medium heat until it's actually hot (this makes the egg solidify quickly, makes cleanup a snap and shortens cooking time). Add a bit of oil to the pan and coat the bottom and the edges of the sides. If it's too hot, you'll get a singed crust on your egg and/or weird bubbles, which might taste just fine but isn't as nice to eat. If it's not hot enough, you get a mess.

3. Wait until oil heats up forming a barrier between the pan and the egg, then dump the well beaten mixture in. If you cover it, it'll fluff up faster.

4. Cook about 30 seconds until the egg starts to rise and the amount of liquid egg has decreased, flip, turn off the heat, wait 5 seconds and you're done. If you want cheese, add it now, cover to melt then serve.

If you follow my directions, you'll find I've changed your life forever. If you get different results, it's your fault. Try again.

Baked Provençal Whitefish: the Laziest of Dinners

Living in Arizona, where there is no sea, and then in Beirut, where there is a sea but no fish, it took a long time for me to develop a taste for seafood. If purchased thawed from the store, you could be assured that it had been a chunk of ice not 48 hours before, leaving you mere seconds to throw it in a pan or a marinade before it began to smell and taste of unlaundered underpants. I considered crustaceans like shrimp and crab even worse since freezing them turns them rubbery and malodorous, plus they are basically large aquatic bugs that nibble on garbage and dead things all day.

So I didn't eat much of it, and if I did, I rarely enjoyed it as much as I would have something hooved or winged.

However, since my wife somehow managed to develop a near maniacal obsession with seafood in the wilds of Minnesota, I've had to sacrifice my body a number of times in the service of her dark addiction. In Cyprus we once ordered the fish meze - 18 dishes of fish to share - in spite of the facts that 1) she was pregnant and could only have 3 servings a WEEK and 2) most of the dishes involved tiny fish that one ate whole, which she hated. I had to stagger 1/4 mile back to the hotel, distended, weeping and trying to clear mullet bones from my throat.

Somehow, amid all the suffering, I actually started to develop a taste for fish, in no small part because it's so damn easy to cook when you don't really feel like cooking. I first started dabbling in white fish in college when I discovered the discount frozen fish bin at Safeway, where I could acquire fluffy lumps of frozen Vietnamese catfish for something like $2.00 a package. These "Basa" fillets were a surprisingly neutral meat that cooked well on the stovetop, in soups and the oven, and while I had never really enjoyed eating them,  I was nevertheless delighted to find them here in Lebanon at prices far below that of chicken, which retails for something like $6 a pound for breastmeat.

Since I keep a handy supply of breadcrumbs in my freezer, it's no chore to thaw a few fillets while I'm gone, then dress and bake them - requiring a grand total of 10 minutes of very mild effort. Since you probably don't have homemade breadcrumbs on hand, I'll include a basic recipe for them as well - I called them "Provençal" this time since I included a few nifty herbs of that persuasion that matched nicely with the fish.

A note: "whitefish" is a catchall for white fleshed fish of various origins. I'd recommend Basa, Roughy or something that's not excessively flaky and dry. Cod is awful, Haddock worse, and Tilapia is fishy and texturally repulsive. Please don't use storebought crumbs, it's easy enough to make your own.

The Recipe
olive oil
2 fillets of whitefish
juice of 1/4 lemon
1/4 cup mayonnaise
bread crumbs (recipe follows)
2 tbsp flour for crumbs
2 tbsp crushed roasted almonds
salt

Step 1: Crumbs.
Ingredients:
1/2 baguette (or 6 or so pieces of bread)
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 1/2 tsp basil
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp thyme
1/8 tsp rosemary (ground)
1/8 tsp lavender (ground in a mortar and pestle)
1/8 tsp anise seed (ground)
salt
pepper

Take a few pieces of bread, tear them up and toss them in a food processor. Baguettes are ideal, but really any bread that doesn't contain bits of wood, birdseed and other unnecessary fibrous detritus will do. When they are crumb sized, stop.

Heat a pan, toss them into it (dry) and toss them around until they start to turn golden, then remove them to a bowl. Try not to burn them or melt anything. Mix in your herbs, salt and pepper, taste, and add whatever herbs you feel they are lacking.

Step 2:
Oil a glass pan and place your thawed, pat-dried fish onto it. If one of the ends is really thin, you can curl it up so it will cook on itself and not get all leathery by overcooking on the pan. Preheat the oven to 375.

Step 3:
Mix the mayo and the lemon juice together and slather on to coat the fish generously. It sounds gross, but it keeps the meat moist and gives it a great flavor. Salt lightly when finished.

Step 4.
Mix breadcrumbs, almonds and flour together and apply liberally to the fillets, which should look dry when you are done.

Step 5:
Insert into the oven for 25-30 minutes, then pull and rest for a minute and serve.

Sauteed vegetables and rice are nice sides for this, just keep 'em light. 

Intestinal Casings of the gods: German Apple Cabbage with Potato and Sausage

Few today would consider cabbage to be an underused ingredient. In fact, few probably think of cabbage at all these days unless they are German, Korean or particularly Kentuckian, who consider coleslaw to be an acceptable accompaniment to everything but dessert. Typically cabbage is used as either a vehicle for other, “better” food (as in cabbage wraps here in Lebanon), a side, or a textural addition to a dish intended to stretch and flavor it a bit. But even this is often done somewhat apologetically, with the cabbage shredded and hidden away like some sort of denatured hunchback child. In the states, supermarkets cram them in the back of the produce aisles next to the esoteric tubers and leeks to keep them out of sight of the more respectable customers and to protect clueless husbands who might mistake the green ones for lettuces.

And I won’t even mention red cabbages. Okay, just one thing. Apparently pregnant women used to make broth of the juice and then micturate into it to see if they were having a boy or a girl since one or the other was supposed to make your pee more acidic. According to whatever witchcraft devised this notion, the pH of the pee would affect the color of the broth, making it slightly more purple… or less, I never remember which. Regardless, it all sounds like a load of micturition to me.

When properly done, cabbage is a thing of beauty. It conveys flavors and richens food like few other vegetables can, and it’s mercifully cheap for those eating on a budget. This almost makes up for the gaseous side effects which probably contributed to cabbage’s exile in the first place, which actually makes a lot of sense since the cultures that feature it most prominently also tend to be the ones that also cook with large volumes of vinegar and onion.

In Lebanon, cooking with cabbage presents its own unique challenges. Namely getting the damn things home. Because the Lebanese usually use them for wraps, they favor the larger varieties, which often reach about 2 feet in diameter and a few kilos in weight. You can often see the sympathy in the eyes of the vendors when you desperately ask them if they have anything smaller. But they do not.

Since we can’t get the German sausage that would go most naturally with these dishes, I’ve decided to use the aromatic Lebanese maqanaq sausages, which my wife hates, but which are oddly apt for the task with their cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and caraway seasonings. Plus, they’re cheap, like sausage is supposed to be.

The preparation requires a few steps that I like to keep separate. If you’re going to throw everything in a crock pot and ruin the individual flavors, you may as well stop reading now and go onto pinterest, you animal. You’ll need a big stockpot for the initial stewing, a frying pan and a baking pan.

Ingredients:

Oil

2 potatoes

2 apples

2 onions

1 pound of sausage

1 cabbage (red would be best, it’s milder and richer)

1/3 cup raw sugar

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup dark beer

1 tsp grainy mustard
1 tsp caraway

2 bay leaves

Salt 

Pepper

Step 1: Preparation

Shred the cabbage and put it in a big bowl. Slice the onions in half and then into thin rings, put them in another bowl. Peel the apples and slice them thinly, put aside. Slice the potatoes as you would steak fries, rinse and put aside in their own bowl.

Step 2: The Stew

Mix the sugar, vinegar, beer, bay leaves, mustard and caraway in a bowl and set aside.

Heat a pan, then add a few tablespoons of oil to it. When it’s hot, toss in the onions and caramelize them halfway, then remove ¼ of them for future use on a page. Add the apples and cook for a few minutes, then dump in the sweet, vinegary mix you’ve made in the first step above. (Rinse the bowl with beer to ensure you get all the sugar in. Plus, more beer!).

Add the cabbage, mix to coat and cover. As it cooks down begin to salt and test it. You’ll want to do this several times since the cooking cabbage will change the flavor over time and you'll end up needing quite a bit to tame the sweetness.  Stew for about an hour while attempting to manage your irrepressible impulse to idly stir it every few minutes.

Step 3-4ish

Heat a pan and then add the sausages, browning them on their sides. Remove and reserve.

Add oil to the pan, salt it, then dump in your potatoes. Fry them up until they darken a bit on the sides but aren’t necessarily cooked through. Remove, drain and reserve for later.

Step 5: Baking.

Preheat the oven to 400. Add the cabbage and remaining liquid to the bottom of the glass pan, top with the reserved caramelized onions  then the potatoes and sausage. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes, then 20 minutes uncovered. The oils will seep down into the cabbage and the flavors will meld nicely. 

Serve in a big pile on a plate, fishing out bay leaves so that the ignorant don't try to eat them. Sour cream or lebneh (strained yogurt) is actually a nice accompaniment.