Category: eggs

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Eggs and Cress

adding cress to scrambled eggs
Eggs and cress, these two just seem to be made for each other. Certainly the British feel so with their love of watercress on egg salad sandwiches for tea time. These curly cress are different that watercress. Watercress have a wide round leave and a more woody stem so what you find these days are baby watercress. Curly cress have a slender pointed leaf. They are a very pretty microgreen, whether served in food or sprinkled on top.
I think you can start the day beautifully  with lovely, soft eggs, scrambled and lightly tossed with beautiful, peppery curly cress microgreens. Who needs something with hollandaise sauce just to make a fancy breakfast dish? Of course a great bread, with or without gluten. For this breakfast I used a delicate kolach bread, but any bread with a slightly sweet, soft texture will make a tender toast. I buy our kolach from Robert and our eggs from Brenda. Both at thecurly cress microgreens Deville Market at North Cooking Lake.
I love La Vache qui Rit from Fromageries Bel.  It’s just about my favorite cream cheese. I’m also passionate about the combination of generous folds of delicate cold smoked salmon with scrambled eggs. My favorite is J. Willy Krauch & Sons smokehouse salmon, if you can find them. It’s a treat I enjoy any time I am down east. Going to the smokehouse is a guilty pleasure and well worth the drive, if you are taking a Maritime holiday. But I digress. If you aren’t a fish fan, a soft and mild prosciutto is also equal to the task.
Farm fresh country eggs are just about essential for a good scramble, as far as I’m concerned. Fresh eggs from a local coop almost always means the chickens were fed a better diet, frequently allowed to scratch for a living and are a happier chicken. All to give us eggs with a beautiful, upright yolk, a firm shell and just an all round better tasting, never mind more nutritious breakfast.
Of course we respect those eggs by cooking them over gentle heat, in butter, not oil, after having whipped them to fluffy perfection. Adding water to the eggs, not milk when whipping makes for a fluffy scrambled egg. The water will steam during the cooking process. The perfect scramble is pushed around the pan while cooking to keep it tender and soft, and still a bit runny. It shouldn’t take more than 2 minutes, making this a breakfast that doesn’t have to wait for the weekend. Note the addition of a tsp of water to the eggs. A lot of people add milk to scrambled eggs, but milk makes a tougher egg.
Ingredients per person:
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tsp of water
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 2 slices smoked salmon
  • 2 pinches of Curly Cress
  • 1 triangle of La Vache qui Rit
  • 1 slice kolach bread
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

  1. Whisk together eggs with the bit of water until light and fluffy.
  2. Heat a saute or fry pan over barely medium heat. Melt the butter in the pan.
  3. Make your toast, spreading with the cream cheese. Fold your salmon and place on the toast so you can see the edges of salmon draping over the toast. Eating is all about appearance, so it’s worth the extra couple seconds to make the first meal of your day pretty.
  4. Pour the eggs into the heated pan. Immediately and gently push around in the pan with a firm silicone spatula, don’t stir. The idea is to have nice, full, fluffy eggs. That requires a gentle touch. As soon as the eggs are showing signs of starting to set, sprinkle with the cress.
  5. Eggs should be just done, still having a slight creaminess to them. That will take barely 2 minutes.
  6. Mound the eggs onto the prepped toast and sprinkle with salt and pepper, as desired.
  7. Mmm, now that’s breakfast.
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Scrambled Eggs with Everything

It’s minus brutal outside, but we have a fridge full of breakfast makings.  Most of the time breakfast usually depends on what’s in the fridge, but today I was a bit more prepared. I was thinking western omelet or frittata, something interesting, but I decided I want to see all the ingredients. So I created a plate that was separate layers. That is especially nice when you have ingredients like Blue Oyster mushrooms from Gruger Family Fungi. Making this is a little more effort, because you have to prep and cook each of ingredients separately, before cooking the eggs. If this is more than you want to do first thing in the morning, do what I did and make it more of a brunch dish. This would also make a great lunch plate or breakfast for supper, as we’ve been known to do.

The ingredients are a quantity for breakfast for two, but I’m sure you can do the math to increase it. The joy with cooking like this is that if you don’t have all the ingredients, or you have preferences it’s easy to change it up. The one thing I always use my freshly dried basil leaves. Crumbled basil leaves have far more flavour, especially when you rub the leaf bits in your fingers, just before adding to the eggs. I can never get enough of that aroma.

Dice or slice each of the ingredients, as noted, so your presentation is uniform. If you are going to the effort to make a dish with multiple layers like this, presentation is everything. We eat with our eyes first, so why not make your meals feel like you are dining out and take a couple extra minutes to plate everything.

Ingredients:

  • 2 eggs per person
  • 6-8 oyster mushrooms
  • 2 pinches dried basil
  • 1/3 cup each, red, orange and yellow pepper
  • 4 slices lean bacon
  • 1/4 cup water
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/4 cup finely grated cheese

Method:

  1. Chop the peppers into 1/4″ squares.
  2. Slice the oyster mushrooms into 1/2″ wide, long strips.
  3. Slice the bacon into 1/4″ strips.
  4. Saute the bacon until almost crisp. Drain on paper towel and set aside to keep warm. Leave the fat in the pan.
  5. Saute the pepper mixture until tender and set aside to keep warm.
  6. Saute the mushrooms in the bacon fat, adding the 1/4 cup of water to keep the mushrooms tender. Set aside to keep warm.
  7. Rub the basil leaf to refresh the aroma. Combine with the eggs, and a bit of water and beat.
  8. Reduce the heat and cook the eggs until just done.
  9. Plate the eggs, then sprinkle on the bacon. Spoon the pepper mixture around and on the eggs.
  10. Top with grated cheese, and if desired a sprinkle of salt and pepper.