Putting My Eggs to Pasture

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Cooking is my passion, cooking is my life; so when I discovered a problem with a common ingredient I felt compelled to alert the public. For years in both commercial and home cooking I have used pasteurized egg products ( you know, the egg mixture that comes in a milk carton); but recently I purchased and used pasteurized whole eggs, for an outrageously rich rice pudding I was preparing for a Food History class, in Morrisville, NC. The pudding is cooked, and the egg whites are whipped and folded into the luscious mounds of whiteness to add richness and fluffiness. The problem was the pasteurized egg whites would not whip or stiffen to a peak no matter how long I beat them. I was left with something that looked like watery translucent mucus. I had to discover why, so I did a bit of research.

R. A. Knight, K. Mears, T. L. Parkinson and J. Robb wrote an article entitled The baking properties of pasteurized whole egg in 1967 in the International Journal of Food and Science and Technology and discovered the secret to my dilemma. “A comparison was made of raw and pasteurized egg from twenty-eight processing plants. The average composition of the raw egg agreed closely with published data on commercial shell egg but the pasteurized samples contained slightly less fat and total solids.” Pasteurizing the egg every so slightly, lead to a loss in baking quality causing the performance to be slightly inferior to that of none pasteurized raw egg.

According to the Federal Drug Administration pasteurized shell eggs are actually heated in warm water baths using controlled time and temperature, to destroy any bacteria that might be present, but the process does not cook the eggs. It does however affect the egg white, since egg white is sensitive to high temperatures. Therefore it was safe to assume that egg white proteins are susceptible to heat damage which may adversely affect their properties. The Federal Drug Administration suggested the addition of whipping agents such as sodium lauryl sulfate and triethyl citrate to restore foaming properties. I had neither of these artificial foaming agents on hand so I did the next best thing and used good old fashioned none pasteurized egg whites.

The next time you reach for pasteurized eggs thinking you are purchasing a product void of contaminants, which may in fact be true, do so with a grain of salt particularly if you need the egg whites to enhance that hollandaise, soufflé, or Rice Singapore, a gift from the late-great Chef Dione Lucas’ classic cookbook, Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook: Classic Recipes, Menus and Methods as Taught in the Classes of the Gourmet Cooking School. It is truly the most decadent rice pudding known to mankind.

I could not end this blog without providing my version of Rice Singapore. The recipe is long and involved but well worth the work.

Rice Singapore
(Adapted from a recipe by Dione Lucas)

Serves 6

Read through this recipe carefully before beginning.

Ingredients:

2 quarts whole milk (cold)
1 pint heavy cream
3 egg whites, whipped to stiff peaks
½ cup washed rice
2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin (2 envelopes)
1 ½ cup sugar
½ vanilla bean pod (fresh)
2 teaspoon Ronald Reginald's Vanilla Melipone® Mexican Vanilla (http://www.ronaldreginalds.com/)
2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 pint fresh strawberries
3 tablespoons Framboise or Kirsch

1. Wash and drain ½ cup of Carolina rice (http://www.carolinaplantationrice.com/)
   
2. Wash the rice until the water runs clear)
   
3. In a large, heavy pot pour in 1 quart of cold milk
   
4. Add ½ cup washed rice, scrape out the vanilla beans tiny black seeds and reserve for flavoring the whipped cream, then add the ½ vanilla bean pod to the pot
   
5. Place the pot over low heat, the slower it cooks the better (it should cook for about 2 ½ hours)
   
6. Stir often until the rice begins to absorb the milk
   
7. Then each time you stir begin adding a small amount from the second quart of cold milk
   
8. You will gradually add the milk until the rice has completely absorbed all of the milk
   
9. Remember, don’t rush this, the slower this is done the more delicious your pudding will be
   
10. When all of the milk is absorbed, stir into the thick rice mixture 1 ½ cups sugar
    
11. Rub the mixture through a strainer or put it through a food mill
    
12. Soften: 2 tablespoons of unflavored gelatin (2 envelopes) in ¼ cup of cold water, and 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice
    
13. Add gelatin-lemon mixture to the strained rice mixture
    
14. Stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved
    
15. Put a large metal bowl over another bowl of ice
    
16. Stir rice mixture over ice until the mixture becomes very thick, gently fold in stiffly beaten eggs whites, combine thoroughly, set aside
    
17. In another metal bowl that has been placed over ice, beat 1 pint of heavy cream and the scrapings from the vanilla bean
    
18. When the cream is thick, fold it into the rice mixture and quickly fill the mixture into a lightly oiled 8-inch ring mold or whatever 8-inch shaped mold you have on hand (I use a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan)
    
19. Cover the mold with greased wax paper
    
20. Place the mold in the refrigerator to set for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight
    
21. Before serving, wash and hull 1 pint of fresh strawberries
    
22. Sprinkle the strawberries with 3 tablespoons of Framboise or Kirsch and serve on top of each wedge of Rice Singapore.

I serve Rice Singapore on my ruby red dessert plates by Crate & Barrel (http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=80&f=12866) Remember any time you are serving a white dessert use either a red or crystal plate. This dessert is definitely a divine dine!

Knight, R.A., Mears, K., Parkinson, T. L., Robb, J. (1967), The baking properties of pasteurized whole egg [Electronic version], International Journal of Food Science & Technology , 2, (2), 143–167.

Lucas, D. with Geis, D. (1964). Dione Lucas Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook: Classic Recipes, Menus and Methods as Taught in the Classes of the Gourmet Cooking School, New York: Bonanza Books.

Egg Solutions: The complete reference for egg products. (n.d.). What effects do pasteurized egg products have on baking? Retrieved July 4, 2007, from http://www.aeb.org/EggProducts/resource/faq.html

It's Done & Bad Restaurant Experience

Friday, January 18, 2008

Well, all I can say is, it's done. I just contacted my first real vendor and sent the email. This puts me in the mainstream of life, a place that absolutely horrifies me. I know, the woman who could do almost anything, walk on water if need be, is horrified. Yep, scared to death and I will just have to see where this little adventure takes me. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of fear....what is it but FAST EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL! Isn't that what I always tell folks?

Subject change.

I recently went to breakfast with my daughter at local restaurant chain in the Durham area and the experience was "sad" to say the least. The waitress who looked a bit retarded, no disrespect toward the handicap, but if you have mental health issues, working with the public should not be one of your primary job selections...oooops, did I say that?????

Well, anyway, she brought us watered down coffee, (I know, not her fault since she probably did not make the coffee) something we both detest and although my daughters food included all items mentioned in the menu, mine did not. I asked for wheat toast instead of biscuits and I thought I was supposed to get hash browns, however that could be a mistake on my part. The interesting thing is that she never, ever brought my wheat toast. Nope, not ever! She didn't even come back to check on us to see if everything was alright. Damn!

I did not complain because, she has been there since we started going to the place (a couple years) and it is highly unlikely in the day of "not being able to find talented, intelligent, resourceful, articulate, responsible wage slaves" that the restaurant would every reprimand her or acknowledge my complaint.

I will simply not return, never, ever to that restaurant. I say this to restaurant owners and managers:

If you are not doing good business, check 7 things:

1. Check your food. Sit down and eat at your own restaurant. If you think it's nasty, so do your customers.

2. Have your family and the friends you trust check your food. Have them sit down and eat at your restaurant. If someone thinks something is nasty, so do your customers.

3. Stop using dirty mop heads to clean your floors. The sour smell will always, always, always overshadow the sweet and savory aroma of your cuisine. Customer's will think your food is nasty and not return. If your nose does not work, ask one of your customer's how the restaurant smells. Look this is 2008 and times are going to get bad, really bad, before they get better, just ask your customer's their true opinion; preferably customer's who are not repeat offenders, they have probably become immune to the smell.

4. Take food orders yourself. Taking orders yourself will let you know how easy or difficult it is for your wait staff. If it is easy as pie and your wait staff is having difficulty you will either need to re-train or higher individuals with higher intellect...that may also mean paying more. Remember, it's 2008 and today you truly get what you pay for...you pay nothing well you know the rest.

5. Give your wait staff their tips every night. No really, people who know they are going to get money on a daily basis sometimes see that as an incentive. Put a beautifully framed tip chart in each restroom by the paper towel holder. People often use the restroom before leaving a restaurant and this is a pleasant way to remind them to tip. Make it fancy, in calligraphy if possible. DISCLAIMER: IF YOUR RESTROOMS ARE NASTY AND FILTHY THIS WILL NOT WORK AND YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL LEAVE AND NEVER COME BACK!!!

6. Model great behavior. If you are the kind of restaurant owner or restaurant manager who is never there or who just has a shitty attitude your staff will pick up on it and mimic the same behavior. You know the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and birds of a feather. If you go to a restaurant and the folks act like they just don't care...darlin' they don't...get up and leave and never go back. The best way to send a message that you, the customer will no longer tolerate bad, disrespectful, incompetent service and nasty food is to just "NOT ENGAGE."

7. It's called food service for a reason. The two words go together for a reason people! The entire restaurant experience really involves two things "FOOD and SERVICE." The two are not one or the other, they are joined at the hip, neck, back, leg, thigh whatever, like Siamese twins. You cannot have a good restaurant experience without good food and good service, an issue with either can completely ruin not only the experience but the customer's whole day.

I would rather have only ten great restaurants to choose from than one thousand lousy restaurants trying to be great. The next time you get bad food and/or bad service; don't return, let the restaurant owner figure it out, improve or close. Then we will all be closer to a really great "DIVINE DINE."