[Sca-cooks] Middle Eastern Food Questions

[Patrick Levesque]

I've been doing some more thinking about this. The eggs are generally added
whole (white and yolks) when most of the liquid has boiled away, near
completion of the dish. The eggs would therefore add a coating that would
wrap over the food in the dish, almost like an icing (the effect more
startling when they add rosewater, sugar or spices on top of the eggs as
well). This would be much more intimate than just an omelette added on top,
and different from a poached egg in that I believe it would adhere in places
to the food underneath.

I have a feeling that in coating the dish it would prevent heat from
escaping, but that's just a theory.

The way around this requires a steam or electric warmer, but it is doable.
If your warmer is able to maintain a temperature of 80 degree celsius (which
is, what, about 180 F?) you could ladle the dish in separate service bowls,
break the eggs in (the white will cook at this temperature), dump the bowls
in the warmer for the necessary time and the final result should approximate
what was presented in period.

I'll have to find a bunch of egg-eating volunteers to try a few options out
eventually :-)

Petru



On 22/08/06 16:42, "lilinah at earthlink.net" <lilinah at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Patrick Levesque <petruvoda at videotron.ca> wrote:
> 
>> The first focuses on food presentation.
> SNIP
>> For most dishes this is not an issue, as you can just prepare bowls for
>> individual tables, but in some cases eggs are broken on top of the surface
>> before the lid is set.
>> 
>> As I don't eat eggs, I'm not too familiar with how they react to different
>> forms of cooking, but I'd guess they'd form some kind of fried egg over the
>> dish (say, meatballs and pieces of meat and veggie). How could you reproduce
>> that effect if you were serving, say, 12 tables of 8 (and did not have
>> access to 12 small cooking pots)?
> 
> As for how to serve them, clearly you can't put, oh, say, 96 egg
> yolks on top of a pot. So while i've never done this, i'd suggest not
> long before serving, taking the meat out of the "sauce" and putting
> the sauce in a couple wide shallow pans, heating it to a simmer,
> dropping in the egg yolks, covering the pot, and cooking a few
> minutes until they're done. Then slip them out, if you can, although
> if not, oh, well, do your best. Then plate the meat, pour the sauce
> it, then top each dish with 8 yolks.