Day 1: The Right Way to Cook Eggs

So, I’m a pretty good cook. And I cook eggs a LOT. But as it turns out, I had no idea what I was doing!

Not entirely true, we only made one type of eggs - French omelets - so I while I don’t technically know that I have been frying my sunny side up eggs wrong too, its probably a safe assumption.

Anyway, it turns out the “right” way to cook a French omelet is this:

1. Get all of your ingredients and materials together. One of the first thing I’m learning is to have everything at the ready. That includes: 2 eggs, cream, salt, butter, your skillet, spatula and a plate to roll the eggs out onto.
2. Beat your eggs without aerating them. You’re not trying to get them really frothy; rather, think of it as dragging the tines of your fork through the eggs to break them up.
3. Add cream! Because why not. About 1 tbsp.
4. Add a pinch of salt. Also turns out that my pinch is a lot smaller than my Chef’s pinch.
5. Meanwhile, get an 8 inch non stick skillet nice and hot and throw a BIG pat of butter on there. This apparently is the key - heat. I always thought low and slow with eggs, but it turns out you actually want the heat high enough that the eggs cook really quickly. How to prevent the eggs from browning? By vigorously shaking the pan around to get the eggs to move and fold around themselves so they all end up cooking evenly. And by vigorously, I mean basically banging the pan against the burner.
6. Okay so your butter is in the pan and its starting to bubble. Before it also starts to brown, pour the eggs into the pan and count to 5. Thats the point at which you’ll start to bang things around, and shake up the eggs a bit.
7. Now pause, and use your little rubber spatula to poke down any of the edges that have crept up the side.
8. Shake it again! Take it off the heat, and swirl your eggs around (vigorously!) to make sure that they're cooking evenly
9. Ok, now your eggs should look nice and ripply, with just a teensy bit of liquid at the top. This is the moment of truth! Take your pan off the heat with your non-dominant hand (apparently this is very important). Your hand should be right in front of your body, so that the handle is pointing at your chest. With your spatula in your dominant hand, fold 1/3 of the eggs down. Shake the pan a little bit to loosen the rest of the eggs, and using the spatula, kind of roll the rest of the eggs away from you and onto your plate.
10. Voila! Ideally you have made a nice perfect little roll. In reality, you now have something that looks kiiiiiind of like scrambled eggs but not really, and certainly nothing like Jaques Papin would have made but whatever, you’ll get there. If you’ve timed it right, the eggs should be just slightly puffy from the cream and the heat, with no brown spots anywhere, and when you cut into it, nice and moist and deliciously creamy.

First day, done!