Any scruffy young bachelor who can’t make scrambled eggs deserves a few good slaps about the head with a rubber spatula. They don’t have to be GOOD scrambled eggs, but everyone should be able to throw beaten eggs into a pan with a little hot fat and stir them until they’re cooked through. Scrambled eggs are my fallback meal, and served up with a vegetable, it’s actually one of my favorite dinners.
But sometimes plain scrambled eggs get a little boring. They need a little spice. Maybe an awesome Spanish spice that makes them taste like bacon? Yeah, that’ll do…
Pimenton de le Vera is awesome. It’s a Spanish smoked paprika that makes whatever you put it in taste like bacon.
What was that? EVERYTHING YOU PUT IT IN tastes like BACON!!!! Why didn’t anyone tell me about this sooner?
Ok, I’ll try to remain calm, but come on: How awesome is that? I’m still playing around with the stuff, but my two experiments so far (eggs and beans) have been huge successes. Pimenton comes in different levels of spice: dulce, agrodulce, and picante in increasing order of heat. I’ve been using dulce, but plan to experiment more with the others in the future.
For these eggs, heat a fair dose of olive oil (butter is good too, and you can even use both together) in a nonstick skillet. Let it get exteremely hot and even start smoking. Then add about half a tablespoon of pimenton. Let it simmer in the oil for 20 seconds or so and then add three beaten eggs. Stir them around vigorously until their cooked through. Remember that eggs will CONTINUE COOKING after you take them out of the pan. This means you should not cook them until rock hard in the pan. Ideally you should take them off the heat a little bit before they’re as cooked as you like them.
And in general, let me urge everyone to try cooking their eggs a little less than they do. Eggs taste better when they’re not fried to smithereens. I know the food police are down on undercooked eggs, but when you buy your eggs from small, reputable purveyors like I do, you don’t have to worry about slightly runny scrambled eggs.
Stay tuned tomorrow for what I did to those green beans, but first let me give credit where credit is due. I got the basis of this recipe from gastrokid, an excellent food blog. So thanks, gastrokid. I cut way back on the fat, and I scramble mine more than fry them the way he does, but his video is definitely worth a watch.
….
I’m sorry. Everything you use it in tastes like bacon…?
Boston’s not THAT big. I should be able to find some in the next thirty seconds… which is when I HAVE TO HAVE IT.
Actually, I would argue that scrambled eggs are not best made by throwing them in a pan. They’re best made by slow-cooking in a double boiler. Very, very slowly, constantly stirring, so the curd is totally broken up, and served gooey. Always a big hit with young and old.
Absolutely on the double boil. Throw in loads of goat cheese and some chives/herbs, and it’s hands down the way to go if you’ve got some time.
[...] Necessary – Eggs: On the most basic level, eggs can be a perfectly good meal in their own right, as scrambles, fried, or made into an omelet. You can add them to salad, hard-boiled or fried; to a sandwich, [...]