Food memories on Father's Day

Today is Father's Day and I am thinking about my Dad Jacques who passed in 1984.

Most of my food memories come from the food my mother made but my Dad was the weekend cook because he liked certain things that my mother didn't make.  My dad was the one who did all the grocery shopping for the family and he is the one that taught me how to find my way around a grocery store and where to find a good deal.

My Dad loved bacon, eggs, cheese, cabbage rolls, those boil in bag packages of corned beef and all things charcuterie.

My dad taught me how to make some great scrambled eggs and most of the time he would start it and I would do the stirring and finish it.

This is one of my Dad's signature Scrambled Egg Dishes.   Scrambled eggs with cheddar and creamed cottage cheese. It's pretty easy to make.

  

JACQUES Cheesy Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. creamed cottage cheese

1/4 cup of chopped or shredded cheddar cheese

3 whole eggs

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a medium hot frying pan add the creamed cottage cheese and cook until some of the water has evaporated and then add the cheddar cheese.  Cook until it's creamy thick sauce consistency.   My dad sometimes used to use a regular frying pan and burn the cheddar cheese to make it crispy but it's hard to do that with a non stick pan so will skip that version and go for the creamy version.

You don't need to add butter or oil if you use a non stick pan because there is a lot of fat already in the cheeses but if your pans stick add a bit of butter.  

After the cheese is a creamy consistency beat the eggs and add to the cheese mixture.   Keep stirring to mix the cheese into the eggs and cook until the eggs are cooked.  You will end up with creamy eggs not solid scrambled eggs.   Add salt and pepper to taste at the end of the cooking process.  Adding salt to the eggs at the beginning will make them tighten up.   

If you want to jazz it up you can add some chives, parsley or paprika.   In the photo above I added some paprika on top.   My dad only added salt and pepper.  He liked simple foods.

Also pictured in the photo above is fried salami.  It's a great substitute for bacon if you get bored of the same old bacon and eggs.   

Eat it with a nice piece of crusty french bread.   I added some chopped tomatoes for garnish but you can also toss some into the eggs before they finish cooking.   That would be my spin and not my dad's so you can do whatever you like and make it your own.

Scrambled eggs the right way

Gordon Ramsey just taught me that I have been making scrambled eggs wrong all these years. Do you make your scrambled eggs in a Saucepan? and why not? don't you know that's the right way to do it. Yes it does work.

I was watching Gordon Ramsey's Christmas Special and he made a christmas breakfast of scrambled eggs on a croissant. Gordon Ramsey making scrambled eggs, that's too easy, right? Well it turns out that there is a right way to make scrambled eggs so that they come out velvety and fluffy. You need to break out your saucepan instead of your frying pan. I tried it his way and this is what my eggs looked like..see photo above, and they tasted really good too.

How did he do it?

In a saucepan...yes not a frying pan.... on medium heat put in a couple of nobs of butter and then add your eggs but don't scramble them first and don't add salt and pepper yet. Just add the eggs whole. With a wooden spoon just keep stirring constantly until they are like a smooth liquid. Keep cooking until the eggs start to come together but are still a bit runny. Then you can add salt and pepper and Gordon Ramsey added fresh Chives. I didn't have fresh chives so I added dried chives, it works but it would probably taste better with fresh add another little nob of butter before the eggs are fully cooked and stir it in.

By that time I would say turn off the heat and the residual heat will continue to cook the eggs so that they aren't runny anymore.

And Voila! You have lovely fluffy, velvety smooth eggs. Now pass this on so that people in restaurants that cook all day brunch can get it right.

I went to a restaurant in my area recently where my friend ordered scrambled eggs... you would think that would be fairly safe. Not so much. First plate was a solid mass of brown eggs. My friend couldn't eat it and sent it back. Second batch came out less brown but still huge chunks of solid egg, not so much scrambled. She didn't eat it. I wish I had taken a photo of her eggs to show you the right way and wrong way to make scrambled eggs. But i bet 80% of you are doing it wrong now. So try it Gordon Ramsey's way and see if that works for you.

I will never use a frying pan again to cook scrambled eggs.