Elegant eggs

Eggs are getting serious culinary treatment at some of the finest restaurants

Contra Costa Times

There’s more to eggs than scrambled breakfast. Poached, fried or soft-boiled, premium eggs are getting serious culinary treatment at some of the finest restaurants these days. They’re cracked atop wood-fired pizzas, tossed into pasta, and some are even taking a solo turn as an amuse bouche on tasting menus.

At Woodside, Calif.’s Village Pub, for example, executive chef Dmitry Elperin’s signature glistening poached egg isn’t accompanied by bacon or home fries. Rather, it’s perched atop house-made spaghettini and served with saut ed artichokes, shaved bottarga and a vegetable nage — a flavorful French stock — for dinner.

“Eggs are the most simple form of elegance,” says Elperin. “We relate them to caviar. And to our childhoods. They’re rich, neutral and simply a great vehicle for transporting flavor.”

Eggs have firm roots in classic French cooking, say Elperin and his colleagues, and Americans are catching on — and adding their own spin.

Elperin so respects the egg that he uses a sous vide immersion circulator to maintain a water bath at exactly 144.5 degrees Fahrenheit, the optimal temperature for poaching an egg slowly, in its own shell, for 45 minutes.

“It ensures that the egg is the perfect consistency and dates back to the French techniques of cooking eggs in the most delicate way possible,” says Elperin, who sources his prized organic eggs from Glaum Egg Ranch in Aptos, Calif.

At Oakland, Calif.’s Marzano and its sister restaurant, Hudson, eggs are cooked to perfection atop artisanal pizzas in wood-fired ovens. Two-year-old Marzano offers nine delicate, blistered, Neapolitan pizzas, including a garlicky meatball marinara, all with the option of an added egg for $2. And on Hudson’s opening night Jan. 18, executive chef Robert Holt was cracking eggs onto pizzas topped with wild nettles and fresh goat cheese, or spicy pork sausage with braised Tuscan kale.

“Egg on a pizza is just like breakfast, but you’re eating it for dinner,” says Holt. “People just love that savory flavor and texture.”

Eggs may be a simple pleasure, but they’re not necessarily easy to cook, Holt says. All chefs have their secrets to avoid wetness or icky curdles. Holt pulls the pizza from the wood-fired oven halfway through the cooking process, waiting until the hot dough is already beginning to blister before cracking a raw egg into the center and returning it to the intense heat.

Jonathan Hall at Parcel 104 in Santa Clara, Calif., relies on a specific tool to crack the tops of his Capay Valley Farms eggs when he steams them in their own shells.

And he knows a quality egg when he tastes it.

“Vendors are realizing that chefs are calling for fresh eggs that don’t come from mass-production farms,” says Hall, who pays almost a dollar apiece for the Capay eggs — three times the price of your average egg.

Another tip for home chefs: Philippe Chevalier, the French-born and trained chef of Lafayette, Calif.’s Chevalier Restaurant, says a few drops of vinegar are a must when poaching an egg in water, chicken stock or red wine. It helps the whites “fix” and gather around the yolk. Also, once the water is boiling, Chevalier advises reducing the heat to medium-high before cracking the egg in the bath.

Cook it for two to three minutes before removing it gently with a slotted spoon. Finally, put the egg in ice water immediately to keep it from cooking more.

“You want your yolk very soft,” says Chevalier, who plans to serve a poached quail egg in a mushroom consomm as part of his Valentine’s Day menu. Another favorite of his: Oeuf Cocotte Parisian, a quick-baked egg dressed with cr ®me fra Æche and any number of mix-ins, from prosciutto to lentils or foie gras.

“Prepared this way, eggs are a classic in France,” he says. “They’re huge.”

For some chefs, including David Kinch of Manresa in Los Gatos, Calif., eggs are a fine dining classic stateside, too. Until recently, the famed Los Gatos chef had showcased a quail egg amuse bouche on his menu. The restaurant became closely associated with the dish, he says, but after eight years, Kinch is switching gears.

“The funny thing is, we decided to take it off the menu because we saw so many egg dishes popping up around the Bay Area,” Kinch says. “We got culinary hate mail when we tried to take it off the menu another time. Egg dishes are hot. They’re in. Everyone’s doing them. And we pride ourselves on blazing the trail, not following it. So, we’re taking a break from eggs.”

Not completely. Black truffles are in season, and Kinch can’t resist the savory, aromatic effect they have on the eggs from Love Apple Farm, a biodynamic ranch in Santa Cruz. So, he offers an omelet. Talk about simple elegance: He cracks the eggs, stirs them with a fork, adds the truffle shavings and lets the mixture sit at room temperature before preparation. The way Kinch describes it, the result is almost sinful:

“When the doors of that kitchen open, boy, does everyone’s head turn.”