Egg

New from Michael Ruhlman: a cookbook about the mighty egg, “A Culinary Exploration of the World’s Most Versatile Ingredient”.

For culinary visionary Michael Ruhlman, the question is not whether the chicken or the egg came first, it’s how anything could be accomplished in the kitchen without the magic of the common egg. He starts with perfect poached and scrambled eggs and builds up to brioche and Italian meringue. Along the way readers learn to make their own mayonnaise, pasta, custards, quiches, cakes, and other preparations that rely fundamentally on the hidden powers of the egg.

Ruhlman shares a bit about the book with NPR:

But often, Ruhlman argues, we don’t treat our eggs very well. Take scrambled eggs. “It’s one of the most overcooked dishes in America,” he says. “We kill our eggs with heat.”

Instead, we need, in most instances, to give the egg gentle heat. “When you cook them very slowly over very gentle heat, the curds form. And as you sit, the rest of the egg sort of warms but doesn’t fully cook and becomes a sauce for the curds. So it should be a creamy and delicious and delicate preparation.”

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