Eggspiration

Or, you could say, expiration/inspiration.  You choux(se).  Ha,  I crack myself up sometimes! Okay, enough of the Bad Egg jokes, Veruca. If you don’t get it, don’t worry, it really wasn’t that funny anyway.

What do you do when you have an eggcess of eggs in your refrigerator that have reached the eggspration date?  Don’t  throw them out yet!

1. The date on the carton is the suggested ‘Sell By’, or ‘Best if Used By’ date (USDA Food Product Dating).
2. You can make sure the egg is still edible by simply putting it into a large glass or bowl of water.  If the egg sinks to the bottom, it’s good.  If the egg floats, it’s too old ingest safely.  Every egg has a small air pocket at the larger end which becomes more significant as the egg ages.  The size of the air pocket is also considered in the grading process (Anatomy of an Egg).  The fresher the eggs, the better they are for poaching and frying because the yolk holds its shape better and the white spreads less.  Eggs that are a little older are better for scrambling and boiling because the shell is easier to remove.

I could go on about the incredible egg… there are chapters dedicated to the egg in Le Répertoire de La Cuisine by Louis Saulnie, Georges Auguste Escoffier's Le Guide culinaire, and On Cooking: A Textbook of Culinary Fundamentals by Labensky, Martel, and Hause if you would like to read more.

Inspiration: choux paste/pate a choux – think éclairs, profiteroles, gougeres (a.k.a. cheesy poofs).  Choux pastry is one of my favorite things to make.  I’ve written blogs before about how I love to make ‘something out of nothing’ or taking a few simple ingredients and transforming them into something elegant and beautiful.  Today, I choose sweet over savory.  I choose Chocolate Eclairs!  The extra egg whites from the pastry cream recipe were used to make Toasty Coconut Macaroons.

It wouldn’t be a good blog for me if I didn’t mention bacon.  I took a basic gougere recipe, substituted the gruyere cheese for cheddar, and added bacon and scallions.  These are the perfect appetizer for the holiday party you know you want to book at The Chopping Block.  Here is the recipe from our Celebrating Julia Child class for gougeres.

Inspiration:  omelet – Yes, I watched Episode 1 of Season 10 Top Chef last night (shout out to Chrissy Camba from Chicago!)  I know I have mad omelet/egg cookery skills, so I decided to make myself a bacon and cheese omelet this morning for breakfast.  Too bad I didn’t snap a photo before I gobbled it  up.  Egg cookery is very challenging to master because they are so delicate and cook so quickly.  It takes nuance and a very deft hand to master this craft.

Eggcess of eggs in one day?  Nah…