French, but minus all the butter…
Healthy eating just got insanely tasty. Hollandaise over eggs just seems like overkill when you can have luxurious custardy curds of French style scrambled egg, melting cream cheese, finely snipped chives, ribbons of smoked trout and the salty pop of salmon roe. This is the French method according to Julia Child and – surprisingly – it takes very little butter!
What You Need
3 eggs
Sea salt flakes and white pepper
1 tsp cold butter
To serve:
1 bagel, halved and toasted
1 tbsp low-fat cream cheese
Chives, finely snipped
2 smoked trout ribbons Salmon roe (optional)
READ MORE: 10 Power Breakfast Recipes Every Active Girl Needs In Her Life
Method
1/ Spread the bottom half of each toasted bagel with cream cheese and sprinkle with chives. Have the trout ribbons and salmon roe ready.
2/ For the scrambled eggs, add the eggs to a bowl, season with a pinch of sea salt flakes and white pepper, and whisk with a fork for 20 to 30 seconds.
3/ Smear a layer of butter over the base of the pan (reserve the remaining butter to add at the end of cooking).
4/ Add the eggs to the pan over medium-low heat. It’s important to get the heat right – you want the scrambling to happen slowly, but not so slowly that it never progresses from a custard and not so quickly that it sets instantly into an omelette. Stir slowly,
covering the base of the whole pan – nothing will happen for two to three minutes. (This may take longer on an electric plate.)
5/ When the eggs begin to thicken, start stirring more rapidly. If it starts to thicken too quickly, remove the pan from the heat for a moment (keep stirring), then return once under control.
6/ Once it’s almost at the consistency you want, remove the pan from the heat and add the remaining butter to stop the cooking process – the eggs keep on cooking in the pan even once off the heat.
7/ Immediately spoon over the bagel halves and finish with the trout ribbons and roe.
Serves 2. Per 342g serving: 1 714kJ, 16g fat (5g sat), 660mg sodium, 36g carbs, 2g fibre, 6g sugars, 27g protein
Cook’s notes
When stirring rapidly, some of the egg can splosh over the side of the pan. NYC chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten uses a pot so the high sides keep the egg contained. He also uses a whisk to keep the curds of even size. Here the richness comes from the eggs, not the butter, so if you can find them, use double-yolk eggs. Remember: good scrambled eggs should look like custard gone wrong! Add black pepper only on serving; if added when whisking the eggs, they’ll turn grey.
Here’s exactly how to use breakfast to lose weight. Plus: This protein-packed egg muffin breakfast is actually all you need.
