I’ve received quite a few emails asking about egg safety since I began this grand digression a week ago. Though I don’t want to get too deep into the subject — there are baked Alaskas to make — I do have a few thoughts. I can remember being amazed and disappointed when, back in the […]
READ ONIn light of the Gay Girl in Damascus blogging scandal and the Lez Get Real blogging scandal, I think it’s high time I came clean about my real identity. I’m ashamed to admit that in reality my name is Jane Meat and I work the grill station at a Ponderosa Steakhouse in Newark, New Jersey. I know it’s all a gigantic shock. I just wanted to be loved…is that so wrong?
READ ONI spent so much time blathering on about eggs I never got to bake the Alaska, and now I have to leave town! Back Monday to try it again! – Joe
READ ONWhat exactly happens as an egg ages? Well you remember I mentioned that eggs have those tiny pores in their shells (the ones through which aromas and undesirable microbes can enter). Well, those holes are two-way streets. Stuff can get in, but stuff can also get out. Specifically carbon dioxide, which is initially stored in an egg as carbonic acid. That acid is what’s responsible for keeping the white of the egg firm, since a low (acidic) pH causes the proteins in the white to clump together. As the carbonic acid converts to gaseous CO2 and leaves the egg, the pH goes up, and that has all sorts of consequences for the egg’s texture.
All you egg aficionados out there have undoubtedly noticed that eggs contain two kinds of white (or “albumen”). There’s the “thick” albumen, which you find right around the yolk. The “thin” albumen forms the outside layer and is fairly runny no matter how fresh the egg is. Yet in a fresh egg the proportion of thick to thin albumen is about 60-40. As the egg ages that proportion changes, and can go as high as 40-60 in a very old egg.
READ ONAll this talk of egg freshness makes me thing again of my grandmother and the stories she’d tell about “winter” eggs when she was a child. That was about 1918. Back then fresh eggs were almost unheard of in the deep winter months. We don’t much think about it now, but chickens go through a natural period of molting each year. They lose old feathers and get news ones. It happens in winter, during which time hens lay few if any eggs. Nowadays commercial egg operations control molting by manipulating light and feed to bring it on quicker and get it finished faster. Whereas molting once took months, so-called “force molted” hens get it over and done with in just a couple of weeks. Which allows us to enjoy fresh eggs all year round.
READ ONBy all rights I should be talking about the history of baked Alaska, but all this egg talk is just too darn fun. That’s an outstanding question, reader Nick. And believe it or not there is some data out there on this. Turns out that in blind taste tests, consumers can’t tell the difference between white eggs and brown eggs, which many chefs and TV personalities swear are superior. Here in Kentucky we get a lot of green-shelled eggs (which thrill my Dr. Suess-loving daughters). The study didn’t specifically mention them, but my guess is that a blind taster wouldn’t be able to tell any difference there, either.
And would you believe that blind tasters also can’t tell the difference between fresh and old (refrigerated) eggs? Especially when they’re scrambled or fried, the vast majority of people can’t taste the difference between month-old refrigerated eggs and eggs that are fresh from the chicken.
READ ONYes in fact they do, reader Sarah. Really big egg operations don’t, but smaller ones still employ them. My buddy John who runs a small chicken ranch/egg farm was the one who first told me about nest eggs. He said he could never afford to buy the ceramic ones, but as luck would have it […]
READ ONBaked Alaska is so old-school, even the old-school recipe books I have attempt to put a modern twist on it: mini baked Alaska, four-level baked Alaska, triple fudge baked Alaska. Wow. You know you’re dealing with a throwback when even the ol’ fuddy duddies think it’s a fuddy duddy dessert. But I say: embrace pastry atavism! Love the classic! Just a big mound of ice cream covered in meringue (and baked).
There are many, many ways to prepare baked Alaska. A dome mold is standard, but loaf pans are common. Layer cake pans and springform pans are also sometimes used. I myself favor the free-form approach using no pan and just two layers of ice cream or sorbet. You can use any combination of flavors you wish, either store bought or homemade. Roland Mesnier (the only contemporary pastry chef I found that’s even willing to entertain putting a baked Alaska recipe in a cookbook) recommends a combination of vanilla ice cream (made with honey instead of sugar as a sweetener) and raspberry sorbet. Sounds good to me!
READ ONChicken feed, scratch, nest eggs. Why is there so much chicken-related money slang? I haven’t a clue. But then I guess there are quite a few garden-related money words: beans, lettuce, cabbage. I tend to favor bread and dough myself. But then I digress…no surprises there.
Most of us foodie types are at least peripherally aware of the rise in chicken-keeping as a hobby. I’ve noticed several small coops in my neighborhood here in the Louisville Highlands, and I often come across escapees running around in nearby parks. Indeed the missus and I nearly bought a house from a fellow who kept chickens and let them roam freely around his fenced-in yard, a big double lot. He normally kept six, but that particularly week had only five thanks to a hawk that had recently moved into the neighborhood (a small pile of feathers in the middle of the yard marked hen number six’s last known location).
READ ONMy grandmother used to marvel at how little I grasped about the basic workings of a chicken. But then she was born in 1908 and grew up in a farm town in east-central Illinois. I spent my formative years in a Chicago suburb dropping quarters into video games. It gave me a totally different perspective on live poultry.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I encountered my first chicken farmer, and of course I had no end of questions for him. The information I picked up was fascinating. For instance, I had no idea that hens need not know the ways of a rooster to start producing eggs. So-called “blood spots” are not, as is popularly thought, tiny chicken embryos. They happen when a blood vessel breaks somewhere near the yolk as the egg is forming.
READ ON