My great friend and roommate senior year of college, Sarah, was always cooking and baking miraculously delicious things in our smaller-than-small dorm room kitchen. Granted, her kitchen now in NYC is probably smaller, but she was/is impressive, nonetheless. My favorite of Sarah's creations were braids of challah with dried cranberries and chocolate chips. I swear, when these came out of our oven, people would be knocking down our door to get some.
So, when Sarah told me I had to try Gordon Ramsay's scrambled eggs, I listened. Sarah said she'd made them for her family in New York and Ohio and they were a huge hit every time. First, I watched the
youtube video, then Dan and I tried them ourselves.
We didn't have any mushrooms on hand, and we were really just trying to test the scrambled eggs. But I figured we might as well serve them with the pan-fried tomatoes as Gordon Ramsay does. I was really glad when we were eating the final product that we had done this. The eggs are so rich and creamy; the tomatoes provide a nice juxtaposition of both flavor and texture.
Dan is scrambling away at the eggs. In this method, you are not to scramble or season the eggs before they touch the heat, as this will break them down and make them watery. Gordon Ramsay says you have to consider them to be a live thing, like risotto, and therefore constantly stir them. He also suggests that you take them on and off of the heat so as to not overcook them. Chef Ramsay adds creme fraiche, salt, pepper and chives at the end. We didn't have creme fraiche, but we did have some sour cream on hand, so we used that. Luckily, we have chives growing in our non-existent garden, so we used those too. And salt and pepper, of course. I think the sour cream was a bit more water-y than the creme fraiche would have been, but it still made for a very creamy consistency.
And there you have the final product. It was soooo delicious. To be totally honest with you, I was a bit weary about these eggs before we made them. I mean, I usually have more cheese than egg in my scrambled eggs just so I can choke them down. These eggs have no cheese. None! It's rare that I'll even eat a meal without cheese, let alone eggs. But, if you look closely at these pictures, you'll see that our plates are a little dirty...because this was round two! Yes, I liked these eggs so much, I forced us to make them all over again. I didn't want them to end. I didn't want to stop eating them.
Now, imagine my surprise, when my favorite food blog,
Smitten Kitchen, made a post about scrambled eggs later that day. The best scrambled eggs, she says. I had actually read a previous post of hers that foreshadowed the arrival of her best scrambled eggs recipe and I had been waiting impatiently for it. Deb's recipe has you scramble the eggs ahead of time and add milk or cream. While this goes against what Gordon Ramsay says, I think I'll still give her way a try. Not only because her recipes haven't let me down yet, but also because she says she wasn't the biggest scrambled egg fan until she discovered her recipe. She hasn't been able to stop eating them since. I know the feeling.
