Eggs--They're Not Just for Breakfast

As I recall (how can I forget? I keep trying...), my sixth-grade home ec class focused on eggs for approximately eight weeks. Week after week, Mrs. Honzik lectured us on the importance of the egg. With eight weeks, you'd think we might encounter a soufflé, or even a simple custard. No, we pretty much spent one hour per week cooking standard diner food. Scrambled eggs. Fried eggs. Boiled eggs. You know. Clearly, had Thierry Rautureau of Rover's subbed one week, things would have been a little different.

During my one day of wonderful at Tom Douglas's Culinary Summer Camp, Thierry Rautureau showed us a few little things one might do with an egg, other than serve it for breakfast. Scrambled eggs? Sure, but let's make them pillow-soft and serve them with dollops of créme fraiche and white sturgeon caviar. Oh, and don't forget presentation--what could be more magical than serving the dish in the original egg shell? Turns out there's even a special kitchen gadget made just for topping eggs. Thierry made it look easy in his demonstration, but proved it's really not that hard by letting volunteers from the class give it a try--only one egg accidentally demolished in the process!

Thierry also demonstrated a luscious oyster dish--Kusshi oysters with leeks and caviar sabayon. Sabayon is one of those ethereal egg-based recipes that keeps popping up in restaurants around town. Often a dessert, the silky version in this dish includes champagne, heavy cream, and caviar--a luxurious foil for the briny oyster. Fantastic!

Just to make sure we were really on our toes with our eggducation, Thierry quizzed us on 15 different types of eggs. Representatives from different fowl, fish, and other animals, were set up around a table for all the campers to peruse and try to figure out what was what. And there was no cheat sheet here--we didn't even know the possible animals! The display itself was pretty amazing, with eggs from itty bitty (flying fish) to disturbingly large (ostrich). I didn't fare too well in my guesses outside of the roe category, but several of the other campers were impressively on the mark.

In my daily life, I may still tend toward the diner egg dishes. But even my variations of those would probably be a few steps beyond whatever Mrs. Honzik ever imagined in her wildest egg dreams. And after Summer Camp, sabayon is on my short list for whipping up--and I'm always happy to do whatever I can with a bit of caviar, even if it's only to get out a mother-of-pearl spoon.

--KitchenMaus