Eggs are so often the answer in our house. It’s a busy weeknight, I never made it to the grocery store, and I have to get dinner on the table pronto. What’s it gonna be? Eggs. Or, it’s a rainy Sunday morning, we slept late, and now we want to eat a satisfying breakfast while lingering in our jammies for longer than I’d care to admit. Again, eggs. They’re cheap, low in calories, easy to cook, and filled with a lot of nutrients that are otherwise difficult to find: the full spectrum of B vitamins, omega 3s, zinc, copper, and more. But they have to be done right, because bad eggs are about as big a bummer on a plate as I can think of. Perfect scrambled eggs, by my definition, are meltingly soft and fluffy, almost like a cloud. To get them that way, I use baking soda, which reacts with the eggs’ natural acidity and creates pillowy air pockets.
— Suzy Scherr
• ON-DEMAND: Listen to Faith and Suzy talk about this recipe as well as many other clever uses for baking soda you may have never thought of. •
Excerpted from The Baking Soda Companion © 2018 Suzy Scherr. Published by The Countryman Press, a division of W.W. Norton & Company.
Photo: Pixabay.com
- 8 large eggs
- Kosher salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs and baking soda with a pinch of salt and a grind or two of black pepper until light and frothy.
- Melt the butter in a 10- or 12- inch nonstick skillet over medium- low heat.
- Add the beaten eggs to the pan and stir slowly with a wooden spoon or spatula, bringing in all the beaten egg from the edges of the pan to the center, forming large curds.
- Your eggs are ready when they look just a teensy bit undercooked and still slightly runny— they’ll continue to cook slightly even after you’ve removed them from the heat.
- Serve immediately.
Thank you I knew it was something like that. They were delicious.
i have a mystery to solve. my eggs cooked as above with more baking soda than advised came out toxic tasting. horrible! trying to discover if it was the eggs, cant be the butter, the baking soda or the non stick copper frying pan(aha). thanks for any feedback
Hi Suzi. It’s a mystery to us, too. Next time, try it with the amount of baking soda listed in the recipe and see if the dish comes out better. If it doesn’t, time for fresh(er) eggs.
It was almost for certain your extra baking soda. Too much baking soda will give a bitter and salty taste to the food, so much so that it will be impossible to consume!
You cooked them on too high of a temp. Cooking is chemistry. When you add a rising agent and use too much heat it causes it to crystallize rather than expand. This prevents the air pockets in the mixture from expanding and extracting components from the surrounding materials.
TL;DR: Lower your heat or use a heavier pan at the same heat. Should take 10 minutes.
Too much baking soda. This is a very specific recipe and baking soda is tempermental.
Hi Suzi,
It seems baking soda acts as a cleaning agent to copper. I suspect this is source of the toxic taste you describe.
Can baking soda be used in Instant Pot egg bites?
Not sure, LeMoyne. We haven’t tried it. I hope someone who has might chime in. . .
Yes you can. I just whipped up a batch using almost the exact same recipe as above, one more egg though. Cook on pressure for 8 minutes followed by a quick release.