Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Good Egg Dishes


We were thrilled to hear that Angry Bird is coming out with own egg cookbook. As you know, egg cookbooks are a favorite here at Cookbook Of The Day. Until the Angry Bird hatches, you will have to settle for this gem, Good Egg Dishes by Ambrose Heath. Heath wrote and translated more than one hundred works on food, this being the fourth of his books we have reviewed.

Like many egg cookery books, this is not so much a "cookbook" as a list of how to treat the eggs after they have been cooked. It is more of an egg "decorating" book.

Eggs Sur Le Plat Clamart

The bottom of the dish is garnished with green peas
à la française, and the egg is broken on to these and baked.


How many peas? How high the oven? You are left to the imagination.

The most favorite thing about this book is the clever use of recipe titles. Heath wallows in his French providing the most decadent titles for the most simple of dishes. Think about it-- eggs cooked over peas -- I don't think so. But Eggs Sur Le Plat Clamart, I am so making this dish.

How about scrambled eggs? Heath makes a mere scrambled egg a vision of poetry.


Eggs Scrambled Chatillon

The scrambled eggs are served in a border
with minced fried mushrooms in the middle, surrounded by a heap
of fried parsley, and little fleurons of puff pastry round the outside.

Again, if you have to ask how to scramble and egg or make a puff pastry or fry mushrooms or parsley, this book is not for you.

Chatillon is a French town or family or battle, one would guess depending upon how you perceive your eggs.

A border is a small platter with slightly raised edges. Now days a square plate would work nicely.

Fleurons are literally florets. In typography they are those curly cues around type, the frilly bits, which accurately describe the exact way those little bits of puff pastry should adorn the boarder.

Here is his cooking instruction for Eggs Mollets.

"There is no English word to describe this kind of egg, which might perhaps be called a soft hard-boiled one, for it is cooked enough for the white to to be firm enough for the shell to be removed, while the yolk remains quite soft inside."

Let's go out a limb here and and say that in English we would call eggs mollets "soft-boiled" eggs. Again we must point out that a soft-boiled egg doesen't hold a verbal candle to eggs mollets. And, as a added bonus, Heath points out that for every recipe that calls for poached egg, eggs mollets can be substitute and there would, of course, be a name change:

"In any recipe for Poached Eggs that follow, an Egg Mollet can be substituted where convenient. The name would then run: Oeufs Mollets So-and-So."
Next time you are in restaurant and the waiter says, "How would you like your eggs?" You know what to say!


SEE VIDEO TUTORIAL >>

Related Posts:

  • EggMichael Ruhlman can wax poetic and philosophical about most anything in the food world. So one can simply imagine our joy when we found he was working… Read More
  • Caviare to Candy !-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:… Read More
  • Famous Food Friday -- Len DeightonAs you know, I love the incredible, edible egg. I was flipping through an omelette book the other day and this clipping from London's The Observer f… Read More
  • Bought, Borrowed & StolenWe have been quite fond of Allegra McEvedy since we got a copy of her first book, The Good Cook. McEvedy believes in straightforward cooking with gre… Read More
  • 100 Ways of Cooking Eggs Here is another in our long line of egg cookbooks. Alessandro Filippini, who worked for 25 years at Delmonico, wrote 100 Ways of Cooking Eggs. O… Read More
  • River Cottage Handbook #11 Chicken & Egg Every year my friend, Ann, calls in October and says mark you wish list for Christmas. So I do. This year, Ann said, "I improvised." What did she … Read More
  • Put An Egg On It(Full disclosure, we did get a copy of this book from the lovely book publicist, Haley, but you know we never meet an egg book we don't eventually a… Read More
  • Sweet Paul Eat & MakeOnce upon a time, a nice Norwegian boy, named Paul Lowe, found he had a knack for cooking and making the food look really fine. He parlayed this knack… Read More
  • EggsIt is one of our favorite cookbook subjects: the incredible, edible egg.  Now this little book is a rare and cool treat.   We must digr… Read More
  • Holiday EggsWell, you know my love of all things egg! So it is really hard for me to turn down an egg book. This one is entitled Holiday Eggs. It is written by… Read More
  • Eggs: Book IIAt Lucindaville we were raving about our new chickens. They are still a bit skittish and will not be laying for several months, but they are getting … Read More
  • How To Boil An EggWe were so excited to get a copy of  How To Boil an Egg by  Rose Carrarini from the Rose Bakery.  Then we were saddened to learn that w… Read More
  • The Breakfast BookWho knows what sends us down the path to obsession?   I do know that one of the first cookbooks I bought with my own money was Marion Cunnin… Read More
  • The Omelette BookNarcissa Chamberlain and her husband, Samuel, wrote many classic cookbooks. As you know of our love for "egg" books, it is no wonder the The Omelette… Read More
  • Good Egg DishesWe were thrilled to hear that Angry Bird is coming out with own egg cookbook. As you know, egg cookbooks are a favorite here at Cookbook Of The Day. … Read More