Egg White Puffed Pancake

If cholesterol is no issue, it is hard to beat Baked German Pancake (right, photo at left, left, photo below) made with real eggs and butter for a weekend breakfast. Over the years I have tried a variation of this pancake using various brands of "egg product", some working better than others in achieving a puffy pancake. Recently the only "egg products" I was able to find were  boxed egg whites.  I searched for advice but could find no on-line recipes for puffy egg-white pancakes so decided to experiment.

Mixing the ingredients together I became skeptical.  Instead of a golden yellow, I had a white batter (see bottom two photos).  What would the finished pancake look like?  Not to worry, the pancake was very puffy and golden brown!  (left, photo above, right photo at left) Of course not as rich tasting as the Baked German but quite delicious with warm maple syrup.  Next time, thinking of Alex's Almond Pancakes, I added some almond extract, a definate plus.

The third iteration (photo at left) was to use fresh egg whites rather than the boxed pastuerized egg whites.  I immediately noticed that the fresh whites have much more body than the boxed whites.* This was evident in the texture of the pancake too.  Not as much body and popover-like texture as the pacake made with whole eggs, but signifagantly more body and texture than the crepe-like pancake made from boxed whites.


Serves 2, maybe 3?

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

In a medium bowl combine:

1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c fat-free milk
3/4 c egg whites (preferably from fresh eggs)
1 t almond extract
1 T vegetable oil spread such as Earth Balance

Put cast iron skillet (~9'' diameter) or glass pan  (~6' x 10"/~60" sq) in hot oven. When pan is hot add vegetable oil then return pan to oven until spread is melted but not burned!  Meanwhile beat ingredients well with a whisk until batter is smooth and bubbly. Remove pan from oven and tilt until bottom surface and sides are evenly coated with melted oil. Pour batter into pan and cook until pancake is puffed and brown, about 25 minutes.

Remove from pan, slice into servings and serve with warm maple syrup.          

* Bottom photo shows mixture made with fresh egg whites, 2nd from bottom photo shows mixture maded with boxed egg whites.

Reviewed 5/11/17

Pastuerized Eggs/Egg Whites/"Egg Product"

Going back to "old family recipes" is not without suprises. Several things I enjoyed growing up contained raw eggs.  Last week, in anticipation of making dinner for my Mom, I tried one of her favorite recipes, Snow Pudding. Warning, if an old family recipe does not have an accompanying photo, it may not be fully vetted.  I got as far as whipping the eggs when I realized something was wrong, was I  really going to feed my Mom raw eggs?  Granted while the chance of ingesting samonella from the raw eggs of conventional battery-caged chickens is quite high, the chance of ingesting samonella from the raw eggs of organic free range chickens is very low/negligible.  I really wasn't worried about the eggs I had just gotten from our neighbor. Even so, I decided to be ultra cautious especially since salmonella is particularly dangerous to the very young, very old and people with weakened immune systems.

Next question was do pastuerized egg whites whip well?  Harold McGee writes in On Food and Cooking, "Three safer alternatives to fresh eggs are eggs pasteurized in the shell, liquid eggs and dried egg whites, all of which are available in supermarkets.....For most uses, these products do an adequate job of replacing fresh eggs, though there is usually some loss in foaming or emulsifying power and in stability to further heating; and heating and drying do alter the mild egg flavor."*  Comments on the internet suggest these products usually do whip well but take longer to do so and sometimes require the addition of cream of tatar.  A stand mixer whipped the liquid egg whites I had purchased to stiff peaks in 3-4 minutes and the egg whites held firm as I beat in the additional ingredients required for Snow Pudding. I did add 1/4 t cream of tartar for 2/3 c of egg whites (the equivalent of 4 eggs), but I'm not sure this was entirely necessary given the brand of eggs and type of mixer I used.

"EGG PRODUCT"

In order to reduce the cholesterol content in many of my recipes, I use what I call "egg product" instead of eggs.  Previously, I had listed as an ingredient the brand I was using at the time.  My preeferred brand has changed over time as new products became available and in some cases others become no longer available. My current favorite is Abbotsford Farms "Cage Free Egg Product" This is made from real egg whites plus "natural flavor, color (includes beta carotene, spices, salt, onion powder, xanthan gum and guar gum". The onion and spices are subtle enough so that this product works well in cakes and other baked products  While some egg products have not worked well in Baked German Pancakes, this product works well in producing a very puffy pancake. The other alternatives are to use boxed egg whites (see above) or the whites of actual eggs.  I have done this when I have not had or been unable to find satisfactory "egg product"  See Egg White Puffed Pancake.

Using this product for custard results in a less delicate texture so I favor actual eggs in this recipe

* Page 83, 2004 edition.

Reviewed 5/10/2017

An Egg For Breakfast

An article, Is an Egg for Breakfast Worth This?, by Nicholas D. Kristof in last week's New York Times got me thinking about eggs again. Eggs have come full circle in my life.  When I was a child living in New Hampshire my grandfather raised chickens and sold the eggs and eventually the chickens when they no longer produced eggs.  I remember going down into the mud floor, brick walled basement of his old New England home and helping to clean, weigh and pack the eggs.

This was slow food production at its extreme. Each egg was hand cleaned then weighed on a single egg scale (actual scale shown in photo at left) to determine its size and then put in the appropriate box.The basement was cool and damp and a wonderful place to escape on a hot afternoon. Also, I sometimes helped collect the eggs in the large roomy hen houses that were near the barn.  These too were pleasant places to be, a world away from the industrial egg production squalor described by Kristof.

Busy with school and then work, I forgot about eggs for a while except to grab the most convenient box when they were on my shopping list.  Later, after Alex and then Chris came along we got back into eggs going to programs at the Massachusetts Audubon's Drumlin Farm.  We hung out in spacious hen house, with large pens with direct links to outside pens.  Compare these pens to the "cages" referred to by Kristof: 2' x 2'.  Federal standards are currently  67 sq in/bird with proposed legislation to increase this to 144 sq in/bird.    (Note: all references square, not cubic inches.)



We welcomed the baby chicks in the spring, collected eggs, weighed eggs, and bought eggs.  They weren't like "store eggs", they came in all sorts of different colors: tan, off white, blueish, greenish, and they tasted so good. Then this ceased to be a family activity and stopping at Drumlin Farm for eggs was out of the way.  I went back to the grocery store but increasingly opted for free-range organic eggs when available.

Last year one of our neighbors whose chickens were producing more eggs than their family could use, started putting a few crates in a cooler in their driveway on Saturday mornings.  These eggs like the Drumlin Farm eggs come in a variety of colors and often a variety of sizes.

This is what the chickens produced this week. More uniform in size than last fall. I'm continually reminded how special really fresh eggs are and how perfectly they poach or fry.  Kristof writes, "Somehow, fried eggs don’t taste so good if you imagine the fetid barn in which they were laid."  Understood.  However, eggs fresh from well cared-for chickens taste amazing." 




A couple years ago Alexandra gave me Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma for Christmas.  It is an excellent read describing the origin/"natural history" of four meals: industrial farmed, big organic, small farm organic, and hunted and gathered.  Kristof's op-ed is about industrial farmed, Drumlin Farm is small farm organic.  When writing about small farm organic eggs, Pollan describes Polyface Farm and Joel Salatin's portable chicken pens and Eggmobile. "Left to their own devices, a confined flock of chickens will eventually destroy any patch of land, by pecking the grass down to its roots and poisoning the soil with its extremely 'hot' or nitrogenous manure.  This is why the typical free-range chicken yard quickly winds up bereft of plant life and hard as brick."*    Eager to see if since I last visited, Drumlin Farm had embraced this concept, I went there last Sunday.  

I was not disappointed.  Drumlin Farm now has its own Egg Mobile (photo left) complete with attractive signage which describes its purpose: "The Drumlin Farm Egg Mobile moves from field to field to give our free range chickens a steady supply of fresh bugs, seeds and grasses to eat.  A healthy diet allows them to produce superior quality eggs while their manure fertilizes the fields."

Another portable chicken house is located in the the field where the sheep and goats graze.  While the chicken houses at Polyface Farm are moved daily, the ones at Drumlin Farm, to the detriment of the grass, appear to be left in place much longer.

The chicken house has been refurbished  and has new graphic displays as  well as a continually accessible (woodenl) egg weighing station for visitors to experiment with.  One display notes "If you're like most Americans you eat 22 dozen eggs each year.  The majority of eggs come from hens raised in cages.  Only 2-5% come from hens in cage free houses."  One fact on the interactive portion of this display is caged chickens lay an average of 265 eggs per year, cage free, 330. Despite this increased productivity, cage free eggs are considerably more expensive. Kristoph writes: "Industrial operations like Kreider are dazzlingly efficient at producing cheap eggs, so they save consumers money."  The average price of large eggs in the US is under two dollars (~$1.75 - $1.80) while in the area I live local (in-town) cage free eggs run four to six dollars a dozen. Cage free eggs from larger producers tend to be less.** Think about it.  Maybe more oatmeal and maybe fewer but free-range eggs, and your egg for breakfast will be worth it.

*  Page 210

** In 4 local stores I recently checked the lowest price for cage-free eggs ranged from $2.79 to $3.69 a dozen.  Lowest price in some stores is for cage-free but not organic eggs; other stores carry only organic cage-free eggs.  

Reviewed 9/23/2017

Farmer's Market Huevos Rancheros

One of my most favorite things to do when visiting Alex and Dan in Portland (OR) is to visit the Saturday Farmer's Market.  The awesome mushrooms, the roasted peppers, toasted hazelnuts, not to mention all the fresh veggies, fish, meat, cheeses, breads, flowers....  Now I have one more good reason: breakfast.  There was a line, but we decided it was worth a wait to get breakfast at Verde Cocina (a stand in the Farmer's Market but now also a cafe).  Ed and I ordered Huevos Rancheros  (photo below, right) and Alex and Dan ordered Buenos Dias Breakfast (photo below, lower left) .  While we waited, we watched the "lots of market veggies" cook on the huge skillet.

The Huevos Rancheros - inspired by all the local veggies - were awesome .  When we returned home I picked up some of my neighbor's eggs and decided to give this a simplified try.

This is a very flexible recipe and "market veggies" means whatever is in season when you make it. This recipe is nominally for 2-3 but of course the number of eggs and amount of veggies and cheese can vary according to taste and appetite. As reflected in the ingredients used, I made this for a late October breakfast in Massachusetts.

Grate:

1 oz sharp cheddar cheese (1 oz shown in photo)

In a medium size skillet, saute:

1 T olive oil (heat first before adding veggies)
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 medium red onion, peeled, and cut in bite sized pieces
1 carrot, cut in small strips
2 small poblano peppers, seeds removed and cut in bit sized pieces

8 leaves of kale, coarsely chopped


When veggies are warm and wilted add:

1/2 c pinto beans, drained
1/2 c garbanzo beans, drained
1/4 c salsa

Cook, stirring constantly until beans and salsa are heated through.

While veggies are cooking poach

1 egg per person in water to which

And warm (I use microwave)
2 tortillas per person

When all ingredients are ready, assemble by placing one warm tortilla on each plate and dividing half the vegetable mix to top the tortillas, top with 1/2 the grated cheese divided among the plates, then add second tortilla to stack and repeat topping sequence.  Finish with poached egg and

Cilantro, coarsely chopped.

VARIATION:  Fill soft taco shells with market veggie and bean mixture, grated cheese and coarsely chopped cilantro and a mix of:

1 avocado cut in thin bite sized pieces
1 t lemon juice
Salt to taste
Cumin to taste

This is especially good for lunch.



Reviewed 5/12/17

Red Flannel Hash

This is a recipe from childhood when (leftover) roast beef was a much more common occurrence. Though technically “red flannel hash” is usually made with leftover corned beef, my Mom (and I) use roast beef. Though most recipes also call for milk or cream as well as butter or lard and cook the hash stovetop in a frying pan, I remember the baked version given below. Moogie usually serves this with ketchup. Servings of this hash topped with a poached egg are especially good for Sunday breakfast/brunch.


This can certainly be made in a food processor. The most “authentic” version is made using an old-fashioned meat grinder. Although I remember this made with canned beets (in a glass jar), fresh beets are my current choice. Since this is made from leftover meat the amounts of other ingredients will need to be adjusted proportionally based on the amount of meat.

Chop or grind:

1 ½ pounds cold (cooked) roast beef (about 3 cups)

Add:

1 pound cooked potatoes, diced (about 2 cups)

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 pound boiled beets, diced (about 2 cups)

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix well and place in a large shallow baking dish that has been greased with

Butter/olive oil

Bake at 350 degrees F about 30 minutes until it is well heated through and top is a bit crusty.  Top with:

Poached egg/person (optional).

Reviewed 5/7/17

Baked Eggs

Per person

This recipe comes from Moogie. It works well made and served with muffins.

Preheat oven to 350 – 375 degrees F (coordinate with temperature required for muffins, if making simultaneously).

Lightly grease a small ramekin or muffin cup with:

Butter or olive oil

Line ramekin/muffin cup with:

1-2 slices ham; 2 if very thinly sliced, 1 if thicker

Into cup formed by ham, break:

1 egg

Sprinkle with:

Freshly ground pepper

Bake for 14-18 minutes, covering with aluminum foil after ~7 minutes to keep edges of ham from burning, until the eggs are set and the whites solidified. Remove from oven. If baked in muffin tin, remove ham and egg from muffin tin and place on a warm plate. If cooked in ramekin, remove or serve directly from ramekin.

Reviewed 5/12/17

Spanish Rice

This recipe is from Alexandra. She served this as part of the anniversary dinner that she cooked for Ed and me in August ’02 (photo at left with Pollo Relleno). The rice was absolutely delicious and Ed and I had the little bit that was left over in an omelet on Condor the following weekend.

1 c rice
1 t oil
½ green pepper, chopped
¼ Spanish onion, chopped
1¼ c water
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
                                                        1 tomato or 2 plum tomatoes, pureed with skin
                                                        ¼ c salsa
                                                        Cumin, cilantro, salt, pepper to taste

1) Fry rice in oil with garlic, pepper, onion on low heat until rice is white and translucent
2) Add water, salsa, tomato mixture, and bring to a boil
3) Add spices
4) Reduce heat to simmer, cover, and cook for about 20 minutes.

[If using a RICE COOKER, after step 1, place step 1 ingredients in rice cooker, add items in steps 2 and 3, then cover and cook.]


SPANISH RICE OMELET

With carbs in the filling, this is a great breakfast for the boat since it is difficult to make toast on board.

Make omelet using:

Eggs/"egg product"

As egg(s) begin to solidify, spread across the top of the omelet

Thin slices of cheddar cheese (I like Cabot's Hunter cheese)
Thin layer of Spanish Rice
Green chili (optional)

Fold omelet and serve with hot sauce (my favorite is Cholula Hot Sauce)

Reviewed 5/29/2017