Why eggs are our favourite friends
Boil it, fry it, or bake itthe egg is an ingredient that is hard to ruin
When my 11-year-old daughter baked her first muffin, two years ago, I think we spent close to an hour trying to get her to break three eggs, required by the recipe, into a bowl. The thought of the “slimy, wet, stinky" egg white on her hands was abhorrent.
This weekend, she not only cracked the eggs in the bowl with a deft hand but also whisked them, and then poured them on a skillet to make an omelette without too much help.
In the last two years both of us have discovered that eggs are the most forgiving ingredient for budding chefs. For an egg to be edible you can boil it, bake it, throw it in a pan and scramble it and if you treat it with care you can even get a perfect sunny side up.
Among the things that Kiddo now does with eggs is to make an egg wash that she applies to either finger-sized fish or chicken strips before rolling them in bread-crumbs and frying. She adds milk, oregano and some chilli flakes to the whipped egg.
Another dish that she has learnt to copy is an Egg Bake in Bread. It’s a simple dish really and we ate it at for breakfast at our neighbourhood breakfast café. Take a deep muffin mould, line it with a piece of bread, and break an egg taking care not to mix the egg white with the yolk. Put this in mould lined with the bread. Sprinkle some oregano, salt and chilli flakes. Kiddo tops it with grated Parmesan flakes too and then lets it bake for 20 minutes at 150 degree centigrade or until the egg white solidifies.
While I recently introduced her to egg on okra (Bheeda Pe Eeda, a Parsi dish) that story will have to wait for another time. Meanwhile, one of her favourite breakfast spreads is an omelette sandwich. It was a roadside dish that I had tried and told her about and now she has made it her own. She has added some healthy touches (bell peppers, atta bread from the local bakery) and of course, a child’s love for anything and everything to do with cheese.
Kiddo Omelette sandwich
Ingredients
2 slices thick bakery bread
2 egg
1 tbsp each minutely chopped onions, red or yellow bell pepper, mushrooms, coriander leaves
½ tsp finely chopped chillies
1 tsp vegetable oil
Salt, oregano, butter and cheese spread to taste
Method:
Whip the eggs in a bowl. Add oregano, salt, onions, red or yellow bell pepper, mushrooms, coriander leaves and chillies and whisk. Heat the oil in nonstick pan and make an omelette with the egg. Butter the bread slices on both sides and place in an Equity toaster for a couple of minutes and slather on cheese spread on one side of each slice. When the omelette is ready, place it between the bread slices, trim the sides off the omelette and place the slices into the Equity toaster. Take out after a couple of minutes, cut into four pieces and serve.
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