Egg off
These are the eggs with onions and cheese at Bagel World restaurant, on Wilson west of Bathurst in Toronto (click to make frighteningly large).
And these are the eggs with onions and cheese I made a couple of days later at my parents' house.
Aside from the scale, they look pretty much the same, right? Well. I doubt the BW eggs were cooked in butter. Mine weren't made with processed cheese (the stuff I called cheesy-weezy as a little kid) but with actual cheddar. Mine weren't stirred with a plastic fork, apparently the BW secret. I remembered that detail only too late. I stirred with a plastic pancake turner and I don't think the dish suffered a bit. I didn't serve mine with two slices of decorative tomato. When you eat at BW you have the pleasure of eating in a blue Formica booth amidst unique charms like a handwritten chalkboard menu (abbreviations like K. CHEESE, K for Kraft) and a giant mural of a bagel with cream cheese on the wall.
The biggest reason BW eggs are better: my onions never get quite as brown and delicious as the pros get theirs. Part of me wants to duplicate this feat of slow cooking but the other part prefers to let them have their mystique. And I definitely don't want to know if they use some kind of nefarious shortcut, brown sugar or worse.
Eggs with Onions and Cheese alla Bagel World
8 eggs
3 or 4 medium onions
6 oz (approx) cheddar cheese, in half-inch cubes
butter, at least a tbs, more=better
salt and pepper
Chop up the onions, heat the butter in a medium pan, and cook the onions over medium-low heat until nicely caramelized, at least half an hour, stirring frequently.
Beat the eggs well with a few pinches of salt and when the onions are ready for them, stir the eggs in and scramble over medium heat until they're almost ready. Stir in the cheese, some more butter wouldn't hurt either, and check for seasoning. If eating in winter, please don't put any shitty excuses for a fresh vegetable on your plate.
And these are the eggs with onions and cheese I made a couple of days later at my parents' house.
Aside from the scale, they look pretty much the same, right? Well. I doubt the BW eggs were cooked in butter. Mine weren't made with processed cheese (the stuff I called cheesy-weezy as a little kid) but with actual cheddar. Mine weren't stirred with a plastic fork, apparently the BW secret. I remembered that detail only too late. I stirred with a plastic pancake turner and I don't think the dish suffered a bit. I didn't serve mine with two slices of decorative tomato. When you eat at BW you have the pleasure of eating in a blue Formica booth amidst unique charms like a handwritten chalkboard menu (abbreviations like K. CHEESE, K for Kraft) and a giant mural of a bagel with cream cheese on the wall.
The biggest reason BW eggs are better: my onions never get quite as brown and delicious as the pros get theirs. Part of me wants to duplicate this feat of slow cooking but the other part prefers to let them have their mystique. And I definitely don't want to know if they use some kind of nefarious shortcut, brown sugar or worse.
Eggs with Onions and Cheese alla Bagel World
8 eggs
3 or 4 medium onions
6 oz (approx) cheddar cheese, in half-inch cubes
butter, at least a tbs, more=better
salt and pepper
Chop up the onions, heat the butter in a medium pan, and cook the onions over medium-low heat until nicely caramelized, at least half an hour, stirring frequently.
Beat the eggs well with a few pinches of salt and when the onions are ready for them, stir the eggs in and scramble over medium heat until they're almost ready. Stir in the cheese, some more butter wouldn't hurt either, and check for seasoning. If eating in winter, please don't put any shitty excuses for a fresh vegetable on your plate.
posted by mzn at 4:43 PM
4 Comments:
Barbara: if you say I can do it, I can do it. Thanks for believing and for all the advice.
Four onions for eight eggs? Wow. That's a lot of onions. Thanks to this post I cooked one small bunch of greens with four carmelized onions. It's a little bit of all right.
I was finally overcome by the urge to try this, this afternoon, and I've lived to tell the story (2-egg version for one). I must confess to having added two slices of buttered toast to the menu, the happy marriage of eggs and toast being one of several things which convince me that the universe is a hospitable place.
A tip from a restaurant cook: heat the pan up BEFORE you swirl in the oil and the chopped onions. They will start to brown immediately if you get the pan hot enough. Heat the pan while you prepare the onions. A large, heavy pan helps: more surface area for browning, and more surface area to promote evaporation. If you don't want the onions to get too sweet, cook them hot and fast (stirring often). Long cooking promotes sweetness. This kind of dish will profit from duck or goose fat instead of oil or butter.
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