Egging

Timely to write about eggs with Easter Sunday just round the corner.

Eggs, a cheap simple bundle of goodness, packed with nutrition, good on its own and at the same time an all time great enhancer for other food, used in so many dishes and almost indispensable in baking, desserts (even ice-cream!).

Eggs has cultural significance too. In some parts of the world, egg decorating is a popular Easter tradition. The painted eggs are often hidden for children to find in an Easter egg hunt.

I have personally gone through an egg evolution. When I was young, Dad used to bring us for breakfast at the local coffee shop and always ordered soft-boiled eggs for us. The soft silky watery eggs are served in a small coffee saucer and drizzled with light soy sauce and sprinked with white pepper. This still remains as one of my favorite breakfast dish till today. A mouth of it brings back flood of childhood memories.

Then there is hard boiled egg and two very distinct dishes came to my mind, again linking back to childhood. As a school girl, Mom used to prepare a vermicelli soup dish with 2 hard boiled eggs for us every year on our lunar birthday - the vermicelli symbolises the number '1" and the 2 eggs "00" which represents scoring "100" in our exams. One of Mom's specialty is Braised Pork Belly with Hard Boiled Eggs - something I grew up eating. There's always dried beancurd in this dish and whole garlic and the dish is braised for hours in dark soy sauce till the pork belly is soft and tender. It goes very well with plain rice porridge which is what I used to have as a staple for lunch everyday. Dad being a Teochew, must have rice porridge (Teochew style, not the Cantonese congee style) for lunch everyday.

Scrambled eggs was my next evolution as my tastebud grew with my age to include more western cooking and not just confined to Mom's great home cooked food. McDonalds breakfast is probably the first time I tried scrambled eggs since this is a very western style of cooking which is not Mom's style. My first home cooked scrambled egg was prepared for me by my husband. The first few versions were probably not quite the right taste - too little milk, too much milk, too omelete looking or too runny...today he has perfected the art of scrambled eggs and this is a regular breakfast item for our kids. Now would the children grow up remembering scrambled eggs as their comfort breakfast food? I was also quick to balance that with the introduction of soft boiled eggs when they were old enough and I was not so worried about them eating half boiled eggs and getting a bad tummy from it. I tried cooking the "100" dish for them on their birthday before but that didnt quite go well with them and they refused to eat two eggs. Now that was not good then as I wouldnt want them to get just '10" or even '1"!

When I started travelling overseas for work, I remembered one business trip many years back when I was in Sydney and meeting a local colleague for breakfast. That was probably the first time I tasted Eggs Benedict. This is a dish that consists of two halves of an English muffin, topped with ham or bacon, poached eggs and Hollandaise sauce. Oh how I love that Hollandaise sauce on top of those poached eggs! I fell in love with Eggs Benedict and todate have tasted Eggs Benedict in various countries and I must say Australia still has the best. There are conflicting accounts of the origin of Eggs Benedict which you can read from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggs_Benedict




My other love of eggs as I go through my egg evolution is Eggs Florentine which is similar to Eggs Benedict but substitutes spinach for the ham. Spinach is one of the greens which I love and it goes fantastically well with eggs too. Even in our chinese dish there is a 3 eggs dish (salted eggs, century eggs and chicken eggs cooked together and served over tender boiled spinach). One of the best 3 eggs dish (not sure what it is really call) is from the Chinese restaurant "Lei Garden", located in Chijmes, opposite Raffles City.

茶葉蛋, which is Tea Egg, is a fragrant and flavorful traditional Chinese food. The original recipe uses various spices (most commonly Chinese five-spice powder), soy sauce, and black tea leaves. This is commonly found in Pasar Malam (street market) in Singapore and I recalled my first taste of this was again, when I was a child. Having one of these Tea Eggs at the Pasar Malam shopping was a treat for me. Tea eggs are a common sight of street food in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China too.

My eggs journey was taken to a new height when a couple friend of ours bought a sous vide machine recently and I had my first taste of sous vide eggs at their place. The taste was superbly heavenly and doubly so when drizzled over with truffle oil.



Now that I have discovered there are even more ways to serve eggs with the list below, I shall set out on a bigger journey to continue my egg experience evolution and journey.

Eggs Blackstone substitutes streaky bacon for the ham in Eggs Benedict and adds a tomato slice
Eggs Atlantic or Eggs Hemingway substitutes salmon (or smoked salmon) for the ham. Huevos Benedict substitutes avocado for the ham, and is topped with both salsa and hollandaise sauce.
Eggs Hussarde substitutes Holland rusks for the English muffin and adds Marchand de Vin sauce
Eggs Sardou substitutes artichoke bottoms and crossed anchovy fillets for the English muffin and ham, then tops the hollandaise sauce with chopped ham and a truffle slice.
Artichoke Benedict replaces the English muffin with a hollowed artichoke
Country Benedict, sometimes known as Eggs Beauregard, replaces the English muffin, ham and hollandaise sauce with a American biscuit, sausage patties, and country gravy. The poached eggs are replaced with eggs fried to choice
Irish Benedict replaces the ham with corned beef or Irish bacon
Portobello Benedict substitutes Portobello mushrooms for the ham, and is a popular alternative for Catholics observing the Friday Fast.
Eggs John Scott replaces the Hollandaise sauce with HP Sauce.
Eggs Provençal replaces the Hollandaise sauce with Béarnaise Sauce.

Juggling

Have you ever seen a juggler in action? Imagine the level of focus and concentration, the years of practice before he can achieve that art of juggling. What goes on in his mind during his act of juggling? How does he progress from level to level, three bottles, four and even five or more?

The picture of a juggler in action came to my mind this evening as I was struggling to try to cope with managing the kids, thinking about work, yearning for free time to get started on the books I just bought, planning the menu for the week, marking my son's assessment after putting him to bed (and wondering when I can find time to go through with him) - all in one night. Too many things on my already crammed mind. I couldnt quite focus and concentrate and it feels exceedingly quite overwhelming. Perhaps two bottles first, I told myself, don't try to juggle with four or five in one night.

Now, a friend of mine juggles very well with her life as a working mum. Her act of juggling is a truly world class act, perfecto. Very inspiring and I still can't quite figure out how she does it. It makes me wonder at my own incompetence of being a juggling working mom. I ponder over what I need to do better to manage at least three bottles, maybe I can start with plastic bottles so I won't end messing up everything. That is, aim for small achievement, settle for less, expect less and learn to be contented with less. For instance, translating that to practical life, I can stop pushing my son in his schoolwork and instead of daily violin practice, try aiming for once a week. At work, I should perfect the art of delegation better, empower empower empower.

All contrary to what I read in "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mum" book.

Now seriously, talking about that book, the author seems almost like a character in a fictional book. I mean, how did she do it? How can she sustain it? I sometimes get so overwhelmingly tired physically and emotionally pushing the child to do more that I wonder if that is what I want my children to remember me of, rather than lovely memories with mom doing fun stuff. I yearn for simple pure bonding time with the kids, not having to constantly ask my poor son if he has done this or that homework, scolding him for work not done, work done wrongly and work done without effort. Sigh.

While I strive to be a juggler of five glass bottles some day, for now let's just say I have talked myself to learn to be perfectly contented to settle for an act of juggling with just two colorful, unbreakable plastic bottles. And more importantly, to learn to enjoy the juggling act and derive joy at the same time.