Egging It + A Favorite Farm Recipe

Do you remember just a few years ago when Americans were afraid to eat eggs? I do. It was no longer acceptable to bring deviled eggs to potlucks. I guess America is over its fear of the egg. It seems that every food magazine has an egg on its cover. Michael Ruhlman, the cookbook author, has a new 256 page book coming out April 8 called - what else - Egg. You can read an interview with him here. 

 

I have had chickens in my backyard since the late 1980's when we first purchased our first home. It wasn't chic or common at that point to raise chickens. I had to mail-order them and pick them up at the post office. Minimum order was 25 chicks so they would make it  - their little bodies would heat up the box so they would all arrive alive. 

 

I still keep chickens. Although I am not attached by any means to individual chickens, I really do love keeping these birds. They get me outside everyday - even in the dark of winter. 

 

I use my chickens as a complete composting system. Any scraps I generate in the kitchen (except coffee grounds, onions, garlic and leeks) go in a bucket each day and the chickens feast on them, along with a chicken mash I purchase at our local grain and feed store. Because I cook a lot of soups and dishes with animal fat (chicken, lamb, and bacon) that are made the day before they are meant to be eaten, I let all the fat rise to the top of the pot overnight. In the morning, I pry off the fat and feed it to the chickens. The next day, I always get a bumper crop of eggs. Like today - 7 eggs! I also have no problem feeding meat scraps to my chickens. The chicken books tell you not to which I'm always curious as to their reason. It could be that meat scraps can attract rodents but seriously, there are never any meat scraps left after a minute or two.

When I do garden chores, like weeding, I bring all the weeds to the chickens. They eat the greens and pick through for the bugs. I especially revel in plucking the nasty tomato hornworms when they arrive and feeding them to the chickens. In the spring, I dig the compost out of the enclosed chicken run and use it as garden fertilizer. It is amazing stuff.

 

Right now I have 10 laying hens, 1 guinea hen, and 2 roosters. I'm ordering 8 more chicks this year for replacements. I will pick a different breed so that they look different and I can tell how old they are. I haven't decided what breed to pick yet - better get on that as the order is almost due. Chickens don't often live into old age here although I do have a couple white Silkies who have to be at least 5 years old and had a Polish chicken who lived to be 7. Something always happens around here - dogs, wildlife and if the chicken is lucky - old age.

The hens are mostly Ameracaunas which I like for their blue and olive colored eggs. They are also very dependable layers of large eggs. I also have a couple Buff Orpingtons (brown eggs) and a white Silkie (small white eggs).  Ten hens is a good number for us. I didn't go broke buying chicken grain over the winter. I don't have too many eggs that I have to worry about getting rid of them. 

My chickens lay eggs that are usually large to extra large in size (except the Silkie who lays teeny eggs). I  have an old-fashioned egg scale above my sink so I can check the sizes. 

When baking, most recipes call for extra-large eggs which weigh 2 1/4 oz. If I think I am short on the amount of eggs needed, I'll stick an empty bowl on my scale  - I love this digital scale - do a tare weight on the bowl, put in the eggs and weigh. I then adjust by adding another egg if needed.  Here is a chart which can be helpful with egg sizes. After all, baking with eggs is a science.

In the spring, when eggs are coming like crazy, I make a lot of dinners (and lunch and weekend breakfasts) that center around eggs - omelettes, frittatas, asparagus with just cooked eggs on top oozing with beautiful colored yolks, and popovers. Popovers mean spring to me. 

My relationship with popovers goes way back to seventh grade. It was the first thing we cooked in our basic learn to cook cooking class. I distinctly remember the instruction from the teacher. We had less than an hour for the class. She said we had to get in, mix the batter, pop the trays into the oven and then wait. "Do not open the oven door," she said, "or the popovers will fall." I didn't make popovers again for years - until I started raising chickens and had the annual spring glut of fresh eggs. 

The recipe I use is below. It is from Julia Child's "Baking with Julia" and it is embedded in my memory I have made it so many times. It works every time. Make sure the oven is up to temperature before you put the popovers in. The oven needs to be really hot so the popovers pop up high quickly. Do not peak or open the oven a crack! Just follow the directions.

If you really get into making popovers, purchase one of these - a "no-stick popover pan." It is an awesome tool for making perfect, hassle free popovers.

Popovers 

From Julia Child's Baking with Julia

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon salt

3 extra large eggs

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
    (Note: If you use salted butter, cut down a bit on the salt)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Arrange the oven racks so that you have a good amount of space above the bottom rack so the popovers can raise without hitting the top rack. You need to do this BEFORE the oven gets up to temperature.

Grease the popover pan including the top rim or every other section of a 12 cavity muffin pan. The cavities that are filled should alternate so there is room for the popovers to spread out and not touch each other.

Place all ingredients into bowl and mix with a electric or handmixer until all ingredients are well mixed and foamy. Using a soup ladle, spoon equal amounts of batter into 6 cavities.

Place in oven quickly and back for 25 minutes at 425 degrees. Then turn down heat to 350 degrees and bake for 15 minutes more.

Eat hot when they are best. They can also be re-heated quickly the next day. Nice with jam too. 

We eat popovers for dinner with a bowl of soup or for tea in the late afternoon. They are a hit with everyone in our family. 

At our farmer's markets, homegrown, farm raised eggs sell for $6.50 per dozen. I've heard they go for  $14.00/dozen in NYC. What do you pay for your eggs and where do you get them?