Recipe · BREAKFAST
Cheesy Scrambled Egg Toast
Scrambled eggs are a protein-setting problem with a very narrow window. Egg proteins begin to coagulate around 62°C and, given more heat, keep contracting and squeezing out the water they were holding. That is the whole story of bad scrambled eggs: not burnt, just over-set and weeping.
Low heat buys you time inside that window. Starting the butter and eggs in a cold pan together buys a little more, because the eggs come up to temperature gradually rather than hitting hot metal. Constant slow stirring keeps any one part of the mixture from getting far ahead of the rest, which is what produces small curds instead of a few large rubbery ones.
Take the pan off while the eggs still look slightly underdone. They carry a lot of residual heat and will continue to set in the pan for a good half-minute after the flame is gone — cook to the texture you want and you have already overshot it.
The cheese goes in after the heat is off. In a hot pan it splits, releasing fat as an oily film and leaving stringy solids behind; off the heat it softens into the eggs and enriches them instead.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1 tbsp butter, plus more for the toast
- 30 g Gruyère or mature cheddar, finely grated
- 1 or 2 slices bread
- Salt and black pepper
- Chives, chopped
Method
- Beat and season. Beat the eggs with a good pinch of salt until completely uniform, with no streaks of white left.
- Start cold, stay low. Put the butter and the eggs into a cold non-stick pan together and set it over low heat.
- Keep moving. Stir slowly and constantly with a spatula, scraping the base and the corners, for 4 to 5 minutes. The eggs should thicken into small, glossy, custardy curds.
- Cheese off the heat. Take the pan off the heat while the eggs still look a little underdone, then fold in the cheese so it melts into them.
- Serve. Toast and butter the bread, pile the eggs on, and finish with black pepper and chives.
Worth knowing
- The cheese goes in off the heat. Added in a hot pan it squeaks out its fat and you get greasy eggs with rubbery strands in them.
- Eggs carry on cooking in their own heat after the pan is off, which is why you stop early.