Clean Up Time, An Idea for Dispensing Dish Soap

After a night of fun and fabulous fare at your Friday fete, it's time to clean up. Trouble is, most supermarket dish soap packages are ugly, as are many of the You Know Who and Beyond pump bottles. On top of that, they gunk up quickly.

The Syrup Soap Dispenser After a couple of months of searching, I stumbled across a diner syrup dispenser which turned out to be perfect for dish soap.

It's one handed, cuts the flow of detergent with a flick of the the thumb, and it's not expensive. I got one for around $7.00, less than you pay for many special purpose pump bottles. It doesn't clog easily, and it's easy to clean up...just rinse. Best of all, it doesn't look awful next to the sink!

Savory Citrus: Olive Oil Lemon Confit

Fresh lemons of all varieties have been in my local market for a while now, but the peak of the season is almost over for varieties like yuzus, and meyers. To capture some of the essence of this seasonal citrus, I turned to one of the oldest preservatie methods around, the confit. Confit simply means poached in oil, and it's good for preserving everything from duck and tuna to garlic gloves.

They Don't Call it Zest for Nothing
The bright aromatic oils in the skin of lemons, called the zest, lend heady, floral notes to almost anything without any acid bite. To mellow it a bit so that it blends nicely with salads, soups, stews, meats and fish, make yourself an easy, no fuss citrus zest-olive oil confit. You can experiment with all sorts of varieties, but the regular supermarket variety (lisbons and eurekas) work great.

Lemon Peel Confit
Take about 8 lemons, peel them with a sharp paring knife avoiding as much of the white, spongy pith as you can. It sounds like a lot of work, but if you're reasonably good with a knife it only takes minutes. You can also use a vegetable peeler.

Get the zest ready by placing into a strainer that will conveniently fit into a pot of boiling water. Using the strainer, alternately plunge the zest into softly boiling water for 10 seconds and then into ice water for ten seconds. Repeat this process three times and then set aside. Parboiling softens up the peel, removes any leftover food wax, and tones down the zest's natural sharpness.

Next juice one of the leftover lemons into a small pan and add one peeled garlic clove and two cups of olive oil. Now comes the poaching part: put the oil-juice-garlic mixture on low heat, add the parboiled zest and steep the whole thing for an hour.

The goal of the confit is to heat the ingredients without browning anything, allowing them to soften, meld and release flavor slowly. Once the poaching is complete, cool the confit to room temperature in the pan, transfer it into a wide mouth jar and refrigerate. I've kept zest confit for up to a month, at which point it has usually already disappeared into everything from sandwiches to marinades, soups, and sauces.

Confit Everything
If you make the zest confit and like the method, you're in luck. You can make confit out of almost anything including onion, garlic, shrimp, fish, tomatoes, nuts, figs and more. It's not just for duck anymore.

Egging On-Freshness, Brown versus White and More

If you thought you loved eggs, ask yourself if you'd eat this burger? Fresh from Catalonia, this sandwich is not for the egg faint-of-heart. If I were going to eat this sandwich in the US, I might ask for a pasteurized egg. If I were in Europe, I'd just eat it and shut up about my health concerns.

Egg Age Test
Perhaps eggs deserve a higher place in the literary tradition than the Humpty Dumpty genre. For example, why not write, "His heart dropped like a fresh egg in pot of cool water," or "Her spirits soared like an old egg in a pot of cool water."

Ok, so the metaphor doesn't work well for emotions (except on opposite day) but the pot of water is a handy, easy freshness test. So if your eggs have been hanging around for an indeterminate length of time in the fridge, break out the bad metaphor and double check them with a quick dunk. If they sink, eat them.

Eggshells are porous. As they age, moisture inside the egg slowly evaporates through the shell and gets replaced with air. So a dried up egg will float, and who wants a dried up egg?

The Color of Eggs
Advertising notwithstanding, here's no inherent nutritional or freshness advantages between brown or white eggs. Brown eggs come from hens with more pigmented feathers and other features, and white eggs come from hens without significant pigment in their feathers and other features. There are other varieties of hens that lay blue and speckled eggs, but it's a bit harder to pick those up at the supermarket.

There are plenty of nutritionally enhanced eggs on the market as well. If you're not a fish eater, for example, and trying to increase your Omega 3 fatty acid intake (an arterial lubricant that can help with cardiovascular health) you can get eggs from hens fed an enhanced diet. Luckily, you're on top of the food chain, so you can reap the benefits of the chicken's repast.

It's a 75 Calorie Wonder? Or Wonderbread?
A hard-boiled egg has about 75 calories, 6 grams of protein, 212 milligrams of cholesterol and about 5 grams of fat. Taken all together, it's not a bad balance and it will fill you up, but the cholesterol content of an egg represents about 70% of the recommended daily intake. All of the fat and cholesterol in the egg is in the yolk, but so is half the protein. Again it is proven that there is no free lunch.

The Quick Delicious Way to Eat a Hard Boiled Egg
Eating a hard-boiled egg need not be a simple salt and pepper affair, although that's pretty good. But it need not be a production either. Here are a couple of suggestions that I love, and the reason I like to keep a couple of hard boiled eggs in the fridge at all times.

Peel the egg, slice it in half, sprinkle it with salt and cracked pepper then drizzle with a tiny amount of olive oil. The added richness and flavor of the olive really elevates the egg.

Get the egg ready to go as above, but instead of salt and pepper, try a little Tabasco with a little olive or peanut oil. If you feel like going crazy, use a dollop of mayo instead of oil (definitely not the healthy choice, but delicious).

Again, prep your egg, then shave a little Parmesan and grind a little pepper over it. You really don't need much more than that.

More About Eggs: The Cheese Omelet

I'm a shameless fan of breakfast. I can't resist darkly browned sausages, deeply roasted coffee, and toasty buttered bread. But the high heat that's great for browning the goose is definitely not good for it's eggs. Nothing tarnishes the joy of a pre-noon nosh for me like a rubbery omelet, or worse, a browned one.

When I make a cheese omelet, I aim for a uniform, puffy, pale yellow round that's neatly folded over a few shavings of Parmesean, Romano or other sharp cheese. Subtely seasoned with butter, a bit of salt, and a dusting of finely-ground pepper, for me the perfect cheese omelet is moist and light without a trace of runny, uncooked egg. The Denvers, Westerns, and Spanish omelets of the world might be fine for dinner, but for breakfast, simplicity trumps place-names.

The Charming Curd
The trick to making omelets is to stop thinking about omelets and start thinking about large-curd scrambled eggs set together at the last moment. The truth is that there's really no good way to cook an omelet all the way through by letting it just sit in the pan (unless you're making frittata, which is something else entirely).

Don't Be Afraid of Alien Technology, Except for the Microwave
Although you may be tempted to escape the burnt egg debacle using a microwave, you're inviting rubbery texture and flattened flavor to the table. Microwaves are blunt instruments: too blunt for the egg.

Instead, embrace the other alien kitchen technology: the non-stick pan. There are some wonderful next generation pans that are tougher and safer than non-sticks you grew up on. The caveat with all non-stick pans is not to overheat them, but for eggs, this will never be a problem since eggs do best cooked on medium-low heat. If you're a die hard, you can make an excellent omelet in a high quality non non-stick pan, but just be prepared for a steeper learning curve on getting your omelet out cleanly.

Making the Goo, Gently Does It
Crack two or three eggs into a bowl, add a teaspoon of water for each egg (not milk or cream) and blend with a fork (not a whisk) until the yolks have broken and the mixture has barely combined. You're not looking for milkshake smoothness, more a rough mixture. Whisking adds air and can also alter some of the proteins in the white, which can toughen the final product.

Now add a big pinch of salt. Yes, I said it! While there's a lot of talk about salt toughening eggs, according to Harold McGee (who would know) it's balderdash. So boldly salt & pepper your eggs before cooking: your omelet will have better flavor all the way through.

Cook the Goo, Gently Again
Get your non-stick skillet going at medium-low heat and add a little butter. Reduce the temperature to low and pour. As soon as the egg hits the pan, curds will form, and it's time to begin a slow clockwise lifting and turning-over motion.

Using a silicon or wood spatula, work your way steadily around the bottom of the pan making sure to lift and turn every square inch. The goal is to bring the whole thing to no more than 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Much beyond that, and the custardiness will give way to inner tube.

Tender is the Morning
Keep lifting and turning until there's just enough uncooked egg left to glue the whole thing together and rest your spatula. Remove the pan from the heat and let it set for a few moments, flip it over in the pan if there's still some uncooked egg on top (or don't if there's not), shave a little sharp, salty cheese over the round, fold it over using the spatula, and slide to a warmed plate.

Garnish with a little pepper if you like, or just leave it alone. It's already a little bit of breakfast heaven. Why mess with that?

It's a French Wrap
This custard style omelet is attributed to the French, and Julia Child is often cited as the chef who brought the technique stateside. The word omelet is adapted from the French word omelette, which in turn most likely derives from a latin word meaning layer.

How to Boil an Egg

It seems like a simple task, but boiling an egg for slicing or Salade Nicoise calls for technique. A perfect egg should be rich and luscious with tender white and bright yellow center. It should never be dry and crumbly in the yolk, or worse, marred with that green patina you sometimes see.

I hesitate to use the phrase "hard cooked" because what you really want is an egg that's pliant in the yolk with slight darkening toward the center. After all, cooking eggs is mainly about getting the yolk right.

Where Does the Green Ring Come From?
The good news is that the ugly green gray ring that sometimes appears around the edge of the yolk is harmless. The bad news is that it's fairly disgusting to look at. The other bit of good news is that it can be totally avoided.

The ring forms when sulfur in the egg white reacts with iron in the yolk. The most likely cause of is overcooking, but apparently (according to a University of Nebraska posting) it can also be caused by an abundance of iron in the cooking water.

How to Avoid the Dreaded Green Ring & Get Perfect Firm Egg Yolks
I've been using this method for several months now with perfectly consistent results. I hope you find the same success.

Take cold or room temperature eggs and put them in a pot of cold water. Put it on the stove and bring the pot to a boil. Once the water has reached the boil, remove the pot from the heat and set your timer for 10 minutes. After the timer goes off, plunge the eggs into cold water and relax. When you crack open your eggs, it all has gone to plan, you'll find a bright yellow, slightly moist and dense, delicious yolk.