‘Everything starts with EGGS’
Legendary chef Michel Roux on the indispensability and versatility of the noble egg Laura Brehaut
‘It’ s a lovely feeling, holding an egg in your hand that has just been laid,” legendary French chef Michel Roux says. He recalls his childhood hen, “that lovely Julie.” She laid fewer eggs in the winter than summer, but he loved her nonetheless.
The egg is an indispensible ingredient, used throughout the world to a staggering degree (1.1 trillion chicken eggs are produced per year). But with little more than the contents of its shell, the humble egg also makes a meal.
From the perfect omelette to a classic soufflé, in a new edition of Eggs ( available May 29, 2018), Roux shares his vast knowledge of the food. The egg is undervalued in the culinary world, he says, often overshadowed by more extravagant ingredients.
“Chefs talk about foie gras, caviar, lobster, the best seafood, the most indulgent species... I won’t say I don’t use those products but everything starts with eggs in life,” he says. “I say in French… ses lettres de noblesse (noble pedigree; glory) because it’s a noble product.”
Roux devotes the first six chapters of the book to the mastery of key cooking methods – such as boiling, poaching, and scrambling – where the egg is the dish in and of itself. The remaining seven chapters focus on the egg’s “genius in all forms of cooking”: its critical role in sauces, ice creams, meringues, soufflés, and more.
Revisiting the subject for this latest edition has made him even more respectful of eggs, Roux says: “Eggs are more than an element of cooking… The little egg is life.”
His restaurant – The Waterside Inn in Bray, England – has held three Michelin stars for more than 30 years. There, they use freerange eggs fresh from a local farm. Roux recommends buying organic or free-range eggs “whenever possible” – for reasons of animal welfare and product quality.
“We all know that freedom makes things happy… and the egg yolk is a much better colour. (A free-range egg) tastes like an egg. Battery chickens’ eggs don’t taste like anything,” he says. “When you burst an egg yolk of a free-range chicken, and you look at it running, it’s like a painting.”
The egg – supremely versatile and customizable – suits any meal, any time of day or night. But from an unassumi ng soft- boiled egg with toast soldiers to elegant eggs en cocotte ( a. k. a. baked or shirred eggs), one technique rises about the rest for Roux: scrambled eggs.
“The oeufs brouillés is really akin to what I would call give and take. It’s almost like you’re becoming one with the eggs when you’re cooking them. You’re stirring with a wooden spatula, taking the pan off the heat, putting it back and then at the end, adding the cream,” he says.
“And you can’t do it any other way. You can’t just leave it there even for two minutes… You have to stay with it all the time. There’s something sensual about it.”
ACCORDING TO GUINNESS, THE HEAVIEST EGG LAID BY A HEN CAME IN AT 454 G, WITH A DOUBLE YOLK AND DOUBLE SHELL. IT WAS LAID BY A WHITE LEGHORN IN NEW JERSEY IN 1956.