These are based on a recipe by J. Kenji-López Alt of Serious Eats and its Food Lab fame, and associated books. He developed it for a New York Times article he wrote. It is clever in that is uses a few tricks to keep the heat low, and not let the liquid cook out and make the eggs dry and crumbly. It makes them quite resilient to being a bit careless with your timing.
Extra-Creamy Scrambled Eggs (J. Kenji López-Alt)
Servings: 2 people
Equipment
- Non-stick Frying Pan
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs beaten
- 4 tbsp butter cold, cut in ¼" cubes
- 2 tsp potato, tapioca, or corn starch dissolved in 2 tbsp of cold milk (or water)
- 1 pinch koshering salt
- 1 pinch white pepper
Instructions
- Whisk the eggs with salt and let stand for at least 15 minutes. If the rest of the preparations take less time, put the rest of the ingredients in the refrigerator to keep them cold.
- Whisk together the starch and milk until dissolved.Add half the butter cubes to the starch mixture.Once the eggs have stood 15 minutes, add the starch slurry to the eggs, add the pepper and whisk them together until no white streaks remain. You can whisk it further until frothy if you like it lighter.
- Heat the pan over a low to medium-low heat.Sprinkle some water in it and wait until the water is almost boiled off. Pour the rest of the water out and put the pan back on the fire.
- Add the remaining butter and swirl through the pan to coat the pan and sides with butter and the butter is mostly melted and foamy, but not browned (about 10 seconds).
- Add the egg mixture (I scrape out the bowl with a silicone spatula) and cook the eggs, stirring, scraping, folding the eggs with a silicone spatula. The more vigorously you stir, the smaller the curds will be if you cook until they form curds.Cook until they are a bit less cooked than you want to serve them.
- Transfer to a serving plate and serve.
Notes
Based on a recipe from an article in the New York Times “This Is How You Get The Best Scrambled Eggs.“
Kenji says: “Adding a small amount of a starched slurry to scrambled eggs – a technique learned from Mandy Lee of the food blog Lady & Pups – prevents them from setting up too firmly, resulting in eggs that stay tender and moist, whether you like them soft-, medium-, or hard-scrambled. Potato or tapioca starch is active at slightly lower temperatures than cornstarch and will produce a slightly more tender scramble, but cornstarch works just fine if it’s what you’ve got on hand. Make sure your skillet is at just the right temperature by heating a tablespoon of water in the skillet and waiting for it to evaporate. For creamier eggs, you can replace water with milk or half-and half.
