Over-egging the carbonel

[carbonel]

Pat WINOLJ and I have started (as of Thursday) walking around Lake Nokomis again. In normal times, we exercised together three times a week, and I have missed it mightily. Before the lockdown, there was a several-week hiatus because of my sprained ankle and sore knee. My ankle is still not 100% and we stopped to rest it once, but it really does feel good to get some sunshine and a bit of exercise.

After that, I went to Target on the way home. I was actually there to pick up prescriptions. They've managed to combine three of them to come due at the same time, but that leaves two others that need separate pickups. And while my doctor has prescribed 90 pills at a time, the insurance company will only pay for 30 at a time. So my shopping expeditions are timed to coincide with prescription refills.

Anyway, this particular Target is a "SuperTarget," which means it has a grocery as well as a pharmacy and all the other stuff. The selection is somewhat limited, but the prices are generally excellent, and it has become my primary grocery. I didn't have any specific needs, but I took a wander through. I came home with sushi (mediocre, eaten as lunch) and a few other things. Including eggs.

In the middle of an aisle, in a refrigerated object that normally holds chicken, there were containers of 18 large eggs for $1 (marked down from $1.99). This is about half of what eggs would normally cost. I know there have been a number of issues in diverting commercial restaurant and such eggs into where the direct consumer can get at them. So I bought 18 eggs as my civic duty. Which, for someone like me who lives alone, is a fuckton of eggs, especially since I already had an untouched dozen eggs from a previous trip. That's 30 eggs I need to deal with.

Unfortunately, I don't like angel food cake, or that would make a considerable dent -- in the whites, at least. Maybe I could make a pound cake. I never have, but I think I have all the ingredients. Doesn't the classic version call for a pound of eggs?

But I'm mostly thinking of eggs for meals and coming up blanker than I should. I'm willing to eat a bunch of egg-heavy stuff for the next week or so to bring the strategic egg reserve down to something reasonable. So -- if you have any cooking suggestions for using up eggs (cooking for one, but I'm okay with a reasonable amount of leftovers), I'd appreciate it. I'm pretty well-set up for the baking end of things, but when it comes to cooking, I do better with recipes than freestyle.

Comments

[naomikritzer]

Quiche.

[graydon]

Meringue? Uses up just the whites, admittedly. (Egg bread will often take just the yolks.)

Hard-boiling turns eggs into snacks, salad components, and garnish.

Anything that boils -- rice, noodles, potatoes... -- can have an egg cracked into it for some approximation of poaching. Rice it's late in the process (when the water has just dropped to the level of the rice) and more like steaming; noodles can be a beaten egg the instant after draining (spaghetti something, it's a thing; carbonara, google says); potatoes can be actually poached (into the water ~10 mins before done) or soft-cooked if you crack them over/into drained potatoes still in the retains-heat sort of dish used for boiling and recover for five to ten minutes.

Pancakes? couple of eggs in most pancake recipes, and you can refrigerate the leftover pancakes.

Beaten with a little oil, an egg is a great way to hold the fried leftovers together.

If you're feeling festive, can cope with improv bain-maries, and have some LARGE bowls -- I bought 10 litre bowls for this -- Chocolate Nemesis, at ten whole eggs per.

(I suspect Aimée of defaulting to a double recipe.)

[jenett]

Quiche is my usual answer to eggs. I have a bunch of eggs right now, and some ham I should do something with, ditto some onions, and I am probably going to do a batch of quiche with that plus some cheese. I usually do six eggs, enough milk or cream to change the colour of the eggs to something visibly lighter, and whatever herbs suit. It freezes okay, but if you do it in a baking pan, freeze the pieces separately first until frozen, before bagging, or they stick together. You can also do them in a muffin tin (grease first, thoroughly.)

Also, a fried egg or two on top of some sort of sauteed or roasted vegetable is a go to for me when I have plenty of eggs. (Spinach or other greens, I have some turnips I am probably going to turn into hash and put eggs on, etc.)

I'm also a fan of devilled eggs as a solution.

[anne]

I don't often use recipes, but here is a list of dishes as a starting place. Fried eggs on rice; eggs as part of your fried-rice medley of fun; a frittata, or if you lack an oven-safe skillet as I do, a frinotta (make an omelet that's twice as big as usual, flip it when the first side is done, finish cooking, reheats fairly well).

Crepes use eggs!

I can find my mother's 1-2-3-4 cake recipe which involves 4 eggs if you'd like. It's pretty much a pound cake.

Facepalmy edit: French toast! Which I got sick of during the Winter of a Blizzard Every Weekend...so now I make it savory about half the time. Garlic, ras el hanout, chili powder, whatever.

[jazzfish]

Make and freeze a bunch of waffles (my recipe calls for three eggs to make a dozen waffles).

Quiche is good. So are fritattas.

I would be very interested to hear reports from a traditional pound cake, which is indeed a pound each of butter, sugar, egg, and flour.

[anne]

And eggs keep long past the date on the carton! If they feel light for their size, put them in a deep cup of cold water. If they sink, they're good. If they balance on their end...I ate them when in grad school and never had a side effect, but I don't know if I'd do it now.

[dreamshark]

Pickled eggs!

[dancing_crow]

ooh - eggs! My favorite pound cake recipe (the first one in All Cakes Considered) uses 5 eggs. This one is close https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/84042/grandmas-sour-cream-pound-cake/ I like it better with brown sugar than white sugar, but a pinch of mace or cardamom is a very nice addition.

Also I make bread pudding to use up eggs, or Far Breton (https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/far-breton)

A Frittata uses eggs, and reheats well if you overcommit. It also uses up leftovers - extra rice, pasta, veggies, etc get stirred into the beaten eggs and the whole thing left along in a frying pan with a top on. Alton Brown talkes about them here: https://www.foodnetwork.com/topics/frittata-recipes

Well!

[lsanderson]

The farmhouse remedy for long-of-tooth eggs is to always crack them into a separate bowl and add them after they pass the visual and smell test. Eggs do not sit on the fence long -- they are either good or bad, and a bad egg is a rotten egg, and you will not ever confuse it with a good egg.

Things that come to mind for using eggs are blender sauces that may require more exercise than we can easily get to in these plague days. Custards, mousses, Pastéis de Nata? If you don't like angel food, you probably don't like sponge cakes either, but how about a cheese soufflé?

oof, des œufs

[minnehaha]

Graydon and Lsanderson have the right of it, and as the only person you know to have personally cracked 300,000 eggs, I agree. You will never accidentally eat a bad egg. Crack them into a separate bowl one at a time and you will always have the chance to assess if you should add it or eat it.

Graydon also hits on something I have noted for years. If you want someone to eat a dozen eggs, make deviled eggs of them. Everyone's suggestions of french toast or quiche or other items to freeze are good if you have gotten yourself some freezer space. Otherwise, add eggs to things you're already doing like stir-frying leftovers. You can probably add 2 eggs to any baking recipe that calls for one without it detracting from the finished product. Add an egg to your pie crust when making quiche, if you go that route. Etc.

Without making any especial effort, we two have eaten 4 dozen eggs in the last month. If you can manage a similar trajectory, 2 or even 4 months is not a scary amount of time for eggs. It really, really isn't.

Also, if you leave eggs in your fridge for a truly long time like a year, you might find that the innards have dried up some or completely. You wouldn't eat that, of course, but it is not the same "gone bad" as Templeton put people through.

K. [it would be hard to imagine me throwing an egg away without opening it to see if it's good]

[mrissa]

Eggs in purgatory. That is, poach them in puttanesca sauce. It is great. (See also shakshuka and other cultures' similar takes on this: the sauce varies in what's in it but they all seem to be amazing in my experience. I like to eat whatever variation with a piece of buttered Swedish rye toast, but that isn't essential to it being good.)

Frico eggs. Put a tablespoonish of grated cheese down in the hot pan and when it's just started to melt, crack an egg on top of it. Fry the egg with the crispy cheese integral to the fried egg.

[bibliofile]

I hope you report back on your findings! I am hungry now.

[spz]

sweet: Kaiserschmarren (https://www.austria.info/en/things-to-do/food-and-drink/recipes/kaiserschmarren) .. you get a full meal for one instead of just desserts for four by using half of the ingredients they list

versatile: Flaedle, these are thin non-sweetened pancakes that you cut into stripes that freeze well, and go into hot broth by a handful to make Flaedle soup

savoury: Omelette