Scrambled Eggs

Christine Cushing’s shares a secret that she learned.

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IMHO, scrambled eggs/omelets are best on medium/low heat, and this means residue on anything that is not non-stick. And while you can do fried in stainless if the pan is hot enough, they’re also not as good as a slow cooked egg on medium/low in non-stick.

For scrambled (and I like mine firm), I will whisk them well, melt butter in medium/low non-stick pan until it starts to foam, and then add egg, a pinch of kosher salt (as I use unsalted butter) and freshly cracked black pepper.

As soon as it starts to set, I’ll drag across the pan with a silicone spoon or spatch, and repeat the process every 20 seconds or so until the desired texture is achieved.

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I agree yet that was not the question wanting to be answered.
I put my eggs in a cold nonstick pan.
I think you are right the flavour does suffer cooking eggs on a higher heat.

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A waste of scallions. Her pan was hot. This is why her end result are fluffy eggs (my preference) and not creamy ones. For creamy eggs you need low heat, whereas you want a higher heat for eggs that are fluffy (they puff and swell and form larger curds vs the small curds of creamy eggs).
She basically took a more wasteful approach to longyau, aka heating the pan to the point where you can achieve Leidenfrost effect then adding oil which forms a patina. You can see it explained here with a wok, also made from carbon steel:

Cooks used to take carbon steel pans and have them going on the burners at the beginning of service so they could do this and have nonstick surfaces for potstickers.

More on how temperature affects your end result when scrambling eggs here:

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But the question was much like “what’s the best way to change the oil
in my engine while it is running?” The only answer is “you don’t”.

And the video you linked to was nonsense. As @Shellybean mentioned, it isn’t about onions, but heat (and who wants to scramble their eggs in oil), plus they came out looking like crap.

I’ve read a lot of your posts and am convinced you know what you’re doing, and are familiar with all of this, so I am a little bewildered by your suggestion.

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To be fair, I scramble eggs in oil (or lard) quite often when I’m making dishes like scrambled eggs with shrimp, stir-fried egg with tomato, or dishes like egg foo young, Thai omelets, tortilla/frittata and I think the eggs she made look ok because I like my eggs fluffy with large curds and don’t really care for creamy scrambled eggs. Depending on where you’re from, different fats are used to make scrambled eggs.

The above quote is from this thread on April 4th, and I don’t recommend cooking on a high heat.
@bmorecupcake posted directly under my comment (so assuming it was read and still searching for a different method).

I will present information that people seemed to like on CH. which was not originally posted by me.

Everyone is different and not everyone likes creamy eggs and would prefer fluffy.

It also promotes discussion and on many occasions with all the back and forth debating I learned a lot.

Even changed my mind and decided to do it another way and not the original way that I had intended.

I have the view that it is my job to present information whether I agree with it or not and allow the poster to make the final decision.
Because I’ve presented both sides of the coin, my preferred method and what the poster is looking for.

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Oil for French toast works well. Butter on top after.

When I was young, we called the yellow and white eggs “popcorn eggs”. I think my mother broke the eggs into the pan and scrambled them there.

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My kids have followed Ramsey’s advice as you describe and like them that way, with one change that he did in one of his videos. Once the yolks are getting folded in and the pan’s back on the heat he added in sour cream, maybe a couple of tablespoons for 3 eggs then continued with the folding.

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Nice. Sometimes that’s when I throw in a few pinches of grated cheddar or jack in the same way. This recipe is great for kids before school because it literally takes 2 minutes total! And less time to eat it.

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I was inspired to make an egg sandwich for my Mother’s day lunch, without worrying about how everyone else liked their eggs!

Without too much worrying. I did wait until everyone else had gone out.

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Bet it tasted like scrambled eggs !

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Oh yeah on the cheeeeze! The kids and I really like to add shredded cheddar and jack both. My son’s still in HS and is often not too hungry in the mornings, but I worry about him going all the way to lunch without something substantial. So I’ve been scrambling 3 EL eggs, and then adding in the ched/jack, drizzling with a bit of Sriracha, and stuffing it into a pita (I cut off the top quarter of the pita, open it up best I can, then toast it prior to stuffing). Even though he’s not too hungry, this tastes good enough that he finishes it, whereas when I was just doing scrambled or over easy with toast, he wasn’t.

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Were your preferred style of scrambled eggs not made before nonstick was invented? I don’t know the history, I just figured someone must have been making them before nonstick pans.

@bmorecupcake Yes, most days. For small, soft curds I use a 1.5qt saucepan not a fry pan (and stir them gently to a custard). For fluffy-set, I use an 8" SS try ply pan.

For the fry pan – heat pan to Leidenfrost ( as @Shellybean already said) and turn the heat down. Then add fat (ghee, or butter if I’m out) and coat the pan, add the eggs, and so on. No sticking.

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Actually not. While I wouldn’t use the method (or waste the scallions) an onion is used as a nonstick trick in other cultures as well (south India, dosa pans).

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I am sure they were, but doubtful they were done without residue on the cooking surface without excess oil and less than ideal heat.

Someone asks, I reply with the best method I know… which includes a non-stick pan (which are among the cheapest pans available). There are of course other methods, but I tend to recommended what works best.

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I’m curious about this. Does this scallion method help with surfacing a carbon steel pan, and does it have any durability to it or is it just a one-time thing?

I’ve just got my first CS pan based on some commenter recommendations here, and it seems pretty well seasoned (assuming I actually got the factory coating off of it and I’m not instead having seasoned over the factory coating[1] - something I’m still not certain of).

I can do eggs over-easy with just a bit of stick at the floor/wall interface, but am still kind of scared to try scrambled in it just yet - I don’t think the surface is quite ready for that - and wondering if the scallion method would further help. Or maybe I just need to keep cooking with it and that alone over time will improve the surface.

[1] This is a relatively inexpensive Mafter Bourgeat fry pan I got from Amazon. The comments were replete with people saying how hard it was to remove the factory coating. I did the recommended scrubbing with hot sudsy water, and then scrubbed again with warm isopropanol which several commenters recommended. But I never saw any difference in the surface of the pan. Either I got it all off or I never got any of it off; if the latter case is accurate then I’ve simply seasoned over the top of the factory coating.

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And that is a very good point of view to have.

I remember this to be true on CH (not as much here on HO) posters would try to convince why their way was best without answering the OPP question.
I always answered the OP’s question as well as adding my preferred choice/method.

@ScottinPollock, when you were asking for canned crab recommendations, I answered your question (somewhat reluctantly having the feeling that you would not like canned crab. Not an issue for me because canned crab for crab cakes is all that I’ve ever been exposed to).
I let you decide on your own without excluding information (I first suggested the lump, then a brand that I had not tried).
You asked me a question to understand why I was recommending what I did.
That is the quality that I admire in you the most because you try to sympathize and give a person the opportunity to explain.
Thank you for that and please don’t ever lose that character quality.

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