Eggs
Eggcellent
All Season Food
Eggs have seen their ups and downs through the years. Eat, don’t eat − good for health, bad for health − too high in cholesterol, yolks a no-no, white's fine... We say, eggs are eggcellent, please eat them. It’s an offering from nature, like no other
Text & Photographs: Farzana Contractor
Enough cannot be said about the goodness of eggs. Not just about its nutritive value but also its versatility, its applicability, its usefulness. They work for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Starters or main course! The hundreds of recipes that exist the world over, make it an ingredient of far more importance than what is attributed to it. Think about it, we do take the humble chicken egg for granted, don’t we?
As an ingredient, it is one of the most inexpensive foods available to us. Costs just Rs. 6 apiece, for God’s sake! Of course there are other more sophisticated and expensive eggs around, too, starting with caviar, but that’s merely to garnish, or impress! Then there are quail eggs, for celebratory occasions or when you can actually source some, or even goose, duck, turkey and the exotic ostrich eggs, which are the largest bird eggs, weighing 400 gms, loaded with among other goodness, the omega-3 fatty acids.
But let’s come back to regular chicken eggs, without which life would be bleak, at least for those who do eat eggs and especially for those whose daily lives depend upon them. If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, so can an egg!
One large boiled egg offers you 78 calories, 6 gms protein, found mainly in egg white, 5 gms fat (with only 1.6 gms being saturated fat), which is mostly in the yolk. The most important component of the egg is the choline, 147 mg, which helps support memory and mood, keeping the brain healthy. There are vitamins in there − A, D, E, K and minerals, iron, zinc, phosphorus.
Now for those who very fashionably eat just the egg white, we say, please don’t! You put an imbalance to nature. Eating the yolk actually enhances protein absorption from the white. Most healthy people can enjoy a full egg with no repercussions. Which means those who don’t have cholesterol issues, need not worry. Though we hasten to add, even this whole ‘high cholesterol’ issue is now being re-looked at. It is being pointed out that in the days of our grandfathers and grandmothers, it was perfectly alright if your cholesterol level tipped 300 or more, as against the current 220, when doctors immediately prescribe tablets which in turn put you in danger of multiple side effects!
‘Eggfect’ is the better effect, just practice moderation. An egg or two at a time. Not like the famous Tata doyen, Rusi Modi who ate one dozen at a time, but lived to be 96, nonetheless.
So here we are, in the thick of the monsoon, an ideal time when UpperCrust brings to you 11 egg recipes. For those dark, Sunday rainy mornings, which we call, happy gloominess, when nothing can be better than getting into the kitchen and cracking open some eggs and getting going. Eggs are something we always stock in our fridge, right? There is a reason why every fridge has those special egg trays! All you then need, for a basic, sunny side up or scrambled eggs is some olive oil or better still, home-made ghee, salt, pepper, milk. Then if you go further and feel like an Indian masala omelette, you will need onions, green chillies and coriander. Tomatoes, if it’s the Parsi akoori you fancy, add to that raisins if it’s the Navsari akoori. Point we are making is, from basics to more complex egg dishes, you just have to keep adding ingredients; olives, salmon, capers, caviar, bacon, spinach, cheese, potatoes, garlic, baked beans, fresh dill, parsley, other herbs, avocados, mayo, mustard… Bread, sourdough preferably would be the second most important ingredient you need to make sure you have at home, on that rainy day.
For your eggy pleasure we got a team of three of the most talented and wonderful chefs from The Oberoi, Mumbai to use their culinary genius in rustling up some rather imaginative egg recipes. So go ahead, dive deep into the yolk of life!