Eggs part 1

 

Eggs are amazing. Even merely as a foodstuff, they are just incredible.

 

They are portable, healthy, convenient, cheap, tasty, and easy to cook or incredibly showy, depending on what you do with them. And they are one of the original ‘fast foods’— when we domesticated chickens 5000 years ago a side effect was a calorie dense, protein rich, portable food.

 

They are full of the amino acids that help build muscle (leucine). They have choline which is helps your brain think, focus and motivate (wow— I think I need more eggs for breakfast!). Choline also helps your liver do its job.

 

And if you remember the scare about eggs and heart disease in the 1980’s (possibly like me you had a mother who threw them all away at that point, along with bacon and ham and whatever other food was being vilified at the time), it’s interesting to note that they are now saying that apparently there is no measurable increased risk of heart disease with moderate egg consumption (7 whole eggs a week) unless you are a diabetic. In a study of nearly 120,000 people, that’s what they came up with.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10217054?dopt=Citation

 

And actually, if you are at risk for macular degeneration and eye cataracts, you’re best to eat eggs, because eggs protect the eye.

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16340654?dopt=Citation

 

However, they do say that is you have heart disease already, or have already had a stroke, then you may be good avoiding more than three eggs yolks a week. That leaves you all the whites you could want, though.

 

So, as with pretty much everything you’ll see from me, eggs are great in moderation. Eat them without fear, but not all of them at once. And watch what you eat them with— They™ are thinking that since eggs are often served with high fat, high sodium foods, it could be merely that eggs like associating with trouble makes, not that they are in themselves troublemakers.

 

Right now, I will start with what makes them one of the most magical foods we can eat. The chemistry in the simple egg, that makes it into the magician it can be.

 

Let’s start with the yolk. The gooey, rich golden part that dribbles onto the potatoes or that you dip your toast into for breakfast foods. But it’s not just the xanthophyll— the yellow in the yolk that can add its color to make food pretty

 

It’s also capable of convincing acid and fat (two of my favorite things) to stick together, to get their combined flavor into your mouth in an unctuous smoothness. Every one knows that oil and water don’t mix, but we also know that things like mayonnaise and hollandaise are delicious, and most of us know that eggs are part of that. And it’s the chemistry of the egg yolk that does it. Eggs have some amino acids that repel water, and some that attract water. But it’s not just that. The lethicin, which is a phospholipid (part fat, part salt) is sort of like a tadpole, who likes sticking it’s head in water and its tail in fat. So you have your mayo and hollandaise so irresistible.

 

So when you mix that egg yolk into your butter and lemon juice combination, you get the double force of the amino acids and the lethicin working to make some parts of the yolk stick to the lemon juice while other parts will stick to the butter, and you can dip your tater tots into a little bit of heaven.
I’m paranoid about my eggs, and like them cooked, so I make my hollandaise sauce in a double boiler, although many people will say you can do it fine in a blender. If I had a friend with chickens, I’d do that, but I don’t right now.

 

½ cup of butter, cut up into dice. Reserve ½!

2 egg yolks

1T lemon juice

1 tsp minced garlic, shallot, green onion, whatever you have

black pepper

melt the ¼ cup butter in the double boiler. Add the rest of the ingredients, and mix well. When it is all melted and mixed, add the last of the butter and remove from heat while stirring. Serve immediately.