Martha Stewart's Key To Fluffy Scrambled Eggs Is A Common Coffee Gadget
Leave it to Martha Stewart, the reigning goddess of American domesticity to completely rethink how to prepare the simple scrambled egg. While neither pan nor spatula are required to pull this off, you will need an espresso machine with a milk-frothing attachment.
It was to mixed reviews from commenters ("This looks delicious, if I'm being real with [yo]u guys," "DON'T DO IT MARTHA!," "Well done for thinking outside of the box," "and "My husband would kill me if I used his espresso machine to scramble eggs") that Martha Stewart recently demonstrated her morning breakfast hack in a short video released by The Food Network on X, formerly known as Twitter. She begins by cracking a couple of large, white eggs into a glass mug then sprinkles in some salt, pepper, and one and a half tablespoons of softened butter. Next, she lifts the mug under the milk frothing wand on her espresso machine and begins to swirl the mug while the frother billows out steam, cooking the eggs in less than a minute.
Creamy, fluffy eggs with little effort and cleanup
The steamed/scrambled eggs look creamy, fluffy and appealing. They have expanded in volume as Stewart spoons them over a piece of buttered golden toast. Blasting the eggs with steam introduces both air and water, resulting in large, creamy curds. The fluffy curds will also retain the steam after you have decoupled the mug from the steamer. The result is they will continue to cook, which could potentially lead to rubbery eggs. It may take a few mugs to master this technique and slightly undercook your frother scrambled eggs to prevent this.
While the practice of steaming eggs in a mug is unfamiliar to most Americans it is the house specialty at Café El Polo in Salamina, Columbia The tip appeared four years ago when culinary authority J. Kenji López-Alt explored Huevos Al Vapor for his first segment of his online video series Things Worth Eating. In the video, a restaurant employee deftly swirls his mug as frother blows out steam and the eggs expand like a balloon over the top of the mug. The eggs appear to have deflated just a little as López-Alt digs in with a spoon, then declares the result "the moistest hard-scrambled eggs you can get." He notes in the video, "I don't know why this isn't a more popular thing in the U.S ... If you don't own an espresso machine at home this might be a good reason to get one."
Take care to clean the frother
If you decide to give this method a try it is crucial to thoroughly clean the frothing wand on the espresso machine as soon as you are finished. This is not a task to put off. To do so you must first wipe the nozzle down with a soft cloth thoroughly dampened with undiluted white vinegar, aka acetic acid, which is sufficient to kill salmonella if it was present in the uncooked eggs. Once you have wiped down the steamer nozzle, point it down so it faces the drip tray then crank up the steam for 10 seconds to blast away any particles that may have found their way into the tube.
While this egg preparation is certainly a zag, we're big proponents of don't knock it until you try it. We'll leave you to decide which is the tastier of the unconventional methods, this steam wand one or doing up hard-boiled eggs on the grill.