It’s Been a Tough Year for Egg Lovers

It’s been a rough year for people who eat a lot of eggs (or bake). First we couldn’t find any eggs, then we could find some and they were $10 a dozen, then we couldn’t find them again. But things seem to be stabilizing, at least if theFDA and a small amount of anecdotal evidence I gathered is to be believed. (I asked some co-workers if they could find eggs and if they were cheaper. They said yes.)

This is good news, because we have a lot of egg recipes I’ve been wanting to try. Almost all of them come from our soon-to-be-released cookbook, “Milk Street Shorts,” and cast classic egg preparations in a new light.

Take, for example, these Fluffy Olive Oil Scrambled Eggs. French culinary wisdom would have you believe that butter is the only fat for the job, but oil can get much hotter without burning. When we scrambled eggs in olive oil, we found they cooked up lighter and fluffier, and not at all greasy, with rolling, variegated waves instead of tight, dense curds.

Or try Parmesan-Panko Fried Eggs, an adaptation of a dish by the late Judy Rodgers, longtime chef of Zuni Cafe in San Francisco. You fry the eggs right on a pile of Parm and panko. The cheese and breadcrumbs get brown and crisp while fusing to the white. We love the melding of textures—firm egg white, runny yolk and crisp breadcrumbs—like eggs and toast in a streamlined bite.

Speaking of eggs on toast: Have you ever considered inverting the concept, and nestling crisp, buttery croutons inside an omelet? For our Butter-Crisped Crouton and Gruyère Omelet, we toast roughly torn pieces of country bread in butter that’s been flavored with Dijon mustard and white wine, then fold them into custardy eggs with funky Gruyère. It’s a lovely bite.

Beyond breakfast, “Shorts” has many ways to eat eggs for dinner. There’s the Deconstructed Egg and Shrimp Fried Rice, a dish based on a meal Editorial Director J.M. Hirsch enjoyed at Shun Hing Cha Dong, a casual eatery in Hong Kong that’s famous for its omelet-like, set-but-wet eggs served on a mound of steamed rice. The dish is simple, hearty comfort food, and, as demonstrated to us by owner Wing Chen, it comes together with lightning speed. This recipe is our attempt to re-create Shun Hing’s shrimp-studded eggs in a family-sized portion.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, eggs and rice have long been my default clean-out-the-fridge dinner, usually in the form of a haphazard stir-fry. Our Egg-Topped Oven-Fried Rice with Broccoli and Oyster Sauce is a more streamlined and thoughtful version of that approach. Instead of a wok, everything happens on a sheet pan—don’t worry, the rice gets plenty crispy.

But perhaps my favorite eggs-for-dinner dish is the Spanish Tortilla with Potato Chips, which we learned from Spanish chef Ferran Adrià, the father of the molecular gastronomy movement. He uses a genius shortcut for making tortilla española, the much-loved tapa: Instead of slicing raw potatoes and then slowly cooking them in olive oil, he swaps in potato chips. As they soak in the eggs, the chips rehydrate, yielding a tortilla with a tender texture. Borrowing his time-saving technique, we keep our version of this egg and potato tortilla simple, adding some softened onions and a dash of smoked paprika. Toss a salad while the tortilla bakes and dinner is done.

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest.

And if you're looking for more Milk Street, check out our livestream cooking classes with our favorite chefs, home cooks and friends for global recipes, cooking methods and more.

Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.