You are so right Jon about cooking scrambled eggs on low heat. If the temperature is too high they get really watery. Yuck!

Graydon, thanks for jumping in and sharing another perspective.

You are quite right in pointing out that a lot of people want a “minimal” approach. For example, other participants in this blog have encouraged me to describe recipes that require the least amount of cleaning up, and I’m going to take that request (and yours) seriously.

But there are other considerations. I’m trying to help people develop good habits that will help them in all their cooking.

For example, you’re also right that a “an ol’ fashion rubber spatula” will do the job, but in this case I’ll stand by my advice that even an impoverished beginner cook should buy and use a silicon one. It will turn out to have a lot of uses!

Years ago Julia Child taught me an awful lot about cooking by going into great detail describing each step. Things like “continue stirring until that first waft of steam rises from the pan” seemed, at the time, like way too much information. But her technique worked for me! I am now trying to do the same. For people who have NEVER cooked, I would rather err on the side of providing a lot of detail, then leave them guessing.

With all due respect to Graydon, I actually think the instructions are very good, with my minimal level of knowledge. You cannot give me too much detail; on the contrary, I find detail hard to find in general. One question, though, and this is the sort of thing that has kept me from trying to cook:
What constitutes low-medium heat? My stove goes from 1-10, but I don’t know what the terms correspond to. Is there a way to judge what it probably is? What if it was a gas oven, like my mom’s?

Watson Oven… ha ha I get it.. “what’s an oven”

No respect needed, I was just jabbing at the “need” for all the different utensils. The instructions are great!

I had been hoping that the previous post on how to crack an egg brought forth the trick to the one handed magic… but happy to see that the tried and true two hand method is alive and well.

Can anyone answer this? What makes eggs turn green after cooking them?

My mother always put salt and milk or cream in her eggs, so I have also. However, I recently read or heard that adding salt to the uncooked eggs caused the whites to break down(?). No idea. I still add the salt.

Jon and Graydon, excellent comments. I used to religiously make my scrambled exactly as Kathy described (minus the small cup to break the eggs into—the number of spoiled eggs I’ve run into over the years amounts to exactly one). Then I came down with a disease that keeps me from spending much time on my feet, so by necessity I am now taking shortcuts in the kitchen. One of those shortcuts is making my scrambled eggs exactly as Graydon described, and to tell you the truth, they taste every bit as good. In fact, I like that some of the white and yolk cooks separately in the finished product, and the milk is not entirely necessary. Also, if you want to improve the nutritional value, scramble them in olive oil or nothing at all (possible in a non-stick pan). Of course, the butter is more delectable, but if you really want delicious, stick-to-your-ribs scrambled eggs, cook them in the bacon fat and bits left in the pan after frying the bacon. (One of the advantages of growing up on a farm.)

My signature scrambled egg dish is with dill. Oh yum!

Hi Kathy, Thank you very much for help us with this. I have less than 2 years of married. I am from South America, so for me it's very difficult cook here, because the food and the ingredients are differents. Today, I tried to cook some scrambles eggs for my husband and was terrible!..For that I started searching by internet some help. I found your web, and seriusly you help me a lot. My husband knows how cook, but he is too busy to teach me. I feel bad because his friends' wifes know how cook. You show me step by step how do it. Most of the time I have very stupid questions, but it's because all of this is new for me. Really I hate cook, but I want to learn and then love it!..I work and study, but I want to be a good wife and have a happy husband. I will start with these scramble eggs tomorrow morning. I'm sure he will enjoy it!!!..Thank you again, and don't change your style..continue teaching step by step, you are helping us a lot!

Hi Kathy.  All through growing up and eating my moms scrambled eggs, which are the best :). she said never to put salt on the egss till after they are done cooking, for two reasons.  One, bc the salt toughens the eggs, and two, bc you may not really need it.  Have you heard this before, about toughening the eggs?

thanks, love your site!

kim

Drain the extra moisture off of a cup of store-bought salsa and toss that in during the cooking process.  Good stuff.

Also, and it may seem strange, but try putting a Tbsp of honey (or 2, depending on your sweet tooth) in the pan shortly after putting the eggs in.  Honey scrambled eggs...my 5 yr old daughter loves 'em.

Kyle-Salsa...most definately!  Not too sure about the honey.  That's a new one to me!  :)

That's a tough one Sue.  It is really outside my experience.  Does anyone else have any ideas on how to solve Sue's green egg problem.

Kim, your comment made me go hunting around on the internet and look what I just found at What's Cooking America:

"Scrambled Eggs Turning Green:  Sometimes a large batch of scrambled eggs may turn green. Although not pretty, the color change is harmless. It is due to a chemical change, the formation of ferrous sulfide from iron in the yolks and sulfur in the whites, brought on by heat and occurs when eggs are cooked in an iron skillet, cooked at too high a temperature, or held for too long. Using stainless steel equipment, using a low cooking temperature, cooking in small batches, and serving as soon as possible after cooking will help to prevent this."

Sue, I hope this helps!

I have a love/hate relationship with electric stoves. On the one hand, once you find a setting that works for a particular recipe, it's very repeatable. On the other, I don't think I've ever used two electric stoves that responded the same way. "3" on mine is going to be wildly different than the "3" on yours.

Also, the range changes depending on the burner you use. On the larger burners on my stove, 1=just warm enough for the cat to sleep on, while 10=rearrange the molecular structure of your food. It's taken me years to figure out what works where on the damned thing <grin>

The other thing I don't like about them is their unavailability during a power outage. Obviously, you can't cook, but without power your furnace doesn't work, either, and your stove's no help. In 48 years I've never experienced a gas outage, but power outages are as common as dirt.

ps - the cat doesn't really sleep on the stove; I was just making a point <grin>

Thanks KWG and Jon for helping everyone to realize that all cooktops are different and it takes time getting to  know your own cooktop! 

I'd never heard of a "Nu-Wave Oven", so I looked it up online and found out why. It's one of those shopping channel things that are "Not available in any store!" - as if that's a good thing. What they're actually saying is no self-respecting retailer will stock them, because they'll get them all back. Looking around some more, I find that even the online dealers aren't stocking them. There are no reviews of them. No explanation of how they work beyond what nuwave says, which is painfully little.

Just looking at the thing, I can't see how you could cook eggs in it. If you did figure out a way, you'd end up with a substantial cleanup job afterwards.

All in all, it looks like a great gift for your mother-in-law's birthday <grin>

Kathy, although I'm not actually a beginning cook (more like a intermediate I guess), I stumbled on your blog not too long ago and I like it. It's kind of fun to revisit the basics. My mother also always told me that salt added before the eggs were scrambled would toughen them and I also heard someone on a cooking show say that once, I think it might have been Alton Brown. At any rate, I think eggs salted after the cooking taste just as good as eggs salted before, so it likely doesn't matter. Also as a tip, try adding some ground mustard powder to your scrambled eggs. It really brings out the flavor. :-)

When to Salt Scrambled Eggs

From Cook's Illustrated:
"How do scrambled eggs work? Can you salt them ahead of time? How can you keep them from becoming watery and weepy? 

Investigating scrambled eggs further, we wondered if early salting (before cooking) makes scrambled eggs watery. We salted beaten eggs one minute before cooking and another batch right after scrambling in a hot skillet. Interestingly, tasters consistently disliked the eggs that were salted after cooking; these eggs were rubbery and firm. The eggs salted prior to cooking were tender and moist. (With these results in hand, we wondered if salting the beaten eggs an hour before cooking would make the eggs even more tender. It didn’t; they were nearly identical to the eggs salted just before cooking.)

A bit of investigation revealed an explanation: Salt affects the electrical charge on the protein molecules in eggs, reducing the tendency of the proteins to bond with each other. This produces a weaker protein network, which means more tender scrambled eggs. In the absence of salt, the protein molecules interact more strongly, forming a tighter network and resulting in a firmer, more rubbery texture. We recommend salting eggs just prior to cooking."

I miss Graham Kerr's cooking show(s). They were very entertaining and educational, much like Alton Brown's show "Good Eats" is now.

Personally, I don't often salt foods while cooking because I compulsively add salt at serving time. I find salt to be more effectively used at that point, and it leaves how much to be added to the diner instead of me. I tend to oversalt things, and not everyone appreciates or can tolerate that.

"Ina Garten of Eden, baby!
Don'tcha know that I love you?
Ina Garten of Eden, baby!
Don'tcha know that I'll always be true?"

Hehe! I know. Lame. Couldn't help myself <grin>

I've found that if you want to get that mouth-watering reaction and taste enhancement that salt gives, the best thing to use while cooking is the coarse-grained kosher salt. Unless you go nuts with it, you almost don't know it's there. Witness Campbell's soup. That stuff has so much sodium in it you'd think it would make you squint after the first spoonful.

Table salt, on the other hand, is much more obvious. I'm not sure why that is, but I have a theory that it's the iodine they put in it.

Either way, sodium chloride is sodium chloride, so if you have a problem with it, taste isn't an issue. You need to use some other condiment such as one of the many varieties of vinegar.

I don't mind dating myself. I'm less than a year away from 50 now, so I'm not proud anymore. It's golden anniversary time! If I would have known I was gonna live this long, I might have taken better care of myself. Not likely, though. I'm such a hedonist <grin>

Turnabout's fair play, though. You're dating yourself by getting my obscure references <grin>

Greg -

The recipes I've seen that use cream use very little - maybe a tablespoon to 3 eggs, or a teaspoon per egg. I'm not sure if that's really what differentiates them as much as the gentler cooking method used. They're done slowly, in a double boiler. Seems like a lotta trouble for scrambled eggs, but that's just me. Of course, if you're going to jazz 'em up to impress somebody, that's different.

I read the whole essays! Interesting how few can go into the kitchen! OK about cooking scrambled- Another dish! Don't scramble(mix) in the pan ; when half cooked turn it over and cook for 15 seconds and Lo behold, you have an omlette! Could mix onion bits and even peas to the mix