Precise query: How do you want your eggs? Your scrambled eggs, particularly? Are you a firm-and-folded particular person? A loose-and-scoopable fan? “There is no such thing as a such factor as a wonderfully scrambled egg,” writes Ella Quittner in her new extraordinarily enjoyable cookbook, Obsessive about the Finest. In it, Ella tries out each potential cooking technique, to seek out one of the best routes to basic dishes: juicy roast hen, melty cabbage, chewy chocolate chip cookies, or on this case, soft-scrambled eggs. “So custardy that they’re midway to dessert,” she says.
After dozens of trials, Ella developed her personal exact (however very doable) method for reaching, if not the proper scrambled egg — as a result of that’s, after all, subjective — then actually the softest and creamiest. “That is one in all my favourite solo dinners on a busy evening,” says Ella. “I like that it takes such little effort and time, however tastes like one thing you’d pay an arm and a leg for in a brunch restaurant.” Serve with a chilly glass of white wine, she says, “and well-buttered toast — after all.” Effectively, naturally.
Right here’s Ella’s technique:
Caramelized Shallot Smooth Scramble with Comté
From Obsessive about the Finest, by Ella Quittner
Serves 1
3 eggs, chilly from the fridge
1/2 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt, plus a pinch for the shallots
1 heaping tbsp chilly crème fraîche
3 tbsp salted butter
1 massive or 2 medium shallots, peeled and finely diced
1/4 cup grated Comté cheese
Flaky salt
Freshly cracked black pepper
Notice: Whereas Ella’s recipe requires shallots, she notes you can swap them for any allium — like yellow onion or leeks.
Crack the eggs right into a small bowl. Add the kosher salt. Use a fork to interrupt the yolks, then forcefully whisk the eggs collectively for 30 seconds, or till completely homogeneous. Add the crème fraîche to the eggs in 5 or so little parts (so it’s not multi function clump). Refrigerate the bowl whilst you cook dinner the shallots.
Set a small-to-medium skillet (nonstick, chrome steel, or well-seasoned carbon metal) over a excessive warmth. Drop in 2 tablespoons of the butter. When it melts and foams, alter the warmth to medium-low and add the shallots with a pinch of kosher salt. Sauté, protecting the warmth reasonable to keep away from burning the butter, for 8-10 minutes, till the shallots are translucent and browning across the edges they usually style candy and concentrated.
Flip the warmth to low and push the shallots to the perimeters of the skillet. After about 1 minute, add the remaining tablespoon of butter. Add the chilly eggs. Don’t contact them for 90 seconds! Significantly, I’ll know. After 90 seconds, the eggs ought to have begun to arrange across the sides, just like the very early levels of a French omelet. Rotate the pan 180 levels, so its deal with is going through the other manner it was going through earlier than. Use a silicone spatula to attract within the eggs and shallots from the sides, nearly to the center, however off to at least one aspect by a couple of levels — just like the spatula is a pilot taking a aircraft simply astray. As you scrape towards the center, make sure you scrape beneath the set eggs you’ve simply drawn inward earlier than shifting on to the following stroke.
Don’t contact for an additional 90 seconds! I’ll positively know. After 90 seconds, repeat this spatula movement. Sprinkle the grated Comté over the center of the eggs, the place the big, set curds are hanging out. Flip the warmth as much as medium for 20-40 seconds, and end cooking any runny egg across the edges that has stubbornly refused to agency up. Pull the eggs from the warmth whereas nonetheless shiny on prime, and slide onto a plate.
Prime with flaky salt and black pepper, and serve.
Thanks a lot, Ella! We completely love your e book.
P.S. Two extra egg recipes: a simple make-ahead strata and Austin-style breakfast tacos.
(Images by Michael Graydon and Nikole Herriott. Excerpted from Obsessive about the Finest by Ella Quittner, on sale now from HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright © 2026 by Ella Quittner. All rights reserved.)
