Turmeric Eggs

In response to my first turmeric post yesterday, Mike passed along this link to a NY Times article: (Registration may be required, who knows.)

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/the-11-best-foods-you-arent-eating/?em

Unrelatedly, Neil sent me the following via chat:

"Fuck meat. Eggs are the perfect food. Goodbye."

Which leads me to two questions: First, should I tone down the profanity that I typically use while writing? (Probably yes. I'm a dad now. I need to learn to stop swearing.) And second, why did he leave it at "goodbye"? That's so wussy, especially when he could have said something like THAT IS ALL or AND I AM OUT.

Anyway, between the Times article and Neil's obvious (though milquetoast) push, I figured I needed to make eggs with turmeric for breakfast.

Turmeric is complex stuff - I don't really know how to describe the taste. I don't even really know if I like it - but I enjoy it, if that makes any sense. I enjoy the way that I can feel it rolling over my tongue, lighting up different taste buds - first the back of my tongue, then the left side, then the back again. I'd love to see what it looks like, if the nerves were wires, crackling with lightning all the way into my brain...

Eggs. Eggs are what started all of this, actually - eggs are the first thing I ever really cooked. It's a good story - remind me to tell it some time. For now, let's take five large eggs - three for me, two for Victoria - and toss them in a mixing bowl. (I use a two-cup Pyrex measuring cup.) Add in a glug of milk (a glug [I think this comes from Bill Cosby] is the amount of milk that comes out between the time you tip the bottle over and the time it makes that glug noise.) and a pinch of kosher salt. Then a half-tablespoon of turmeric. While this is all happening, get a pan warming on the stovetop, high heat, and maybe chop up a few mushrooms, if you've got them handy.

Get out a fork and mix up the eggs. Watch out - the turmeric really clumped up when I was mixing, and I don't know how to stop that from happening. Sift it, maybe, or simply don't drop the whole amount at once into the mixture. Make sure the eggs get broken up and everything gets mixed, then toss the whole mess (mushrooms first, so they get coated in the egg mixture) into the pan. Get out a spatula, and just make everything stays moving. If a skin forms on the bottom of the pan, scrape it off; what you want is to get even heat and let the eggs firm up. Should take about two or three minutes. Take the eggs off the heat slightly before they're at your preferred level of firmness - they'll still cook for a while on the plate.

Voila - scrambled eggs. Easiest hot breakfast in the universe. The turmeric gives it a nice orange color - turmeric is a great food coloring - and a mellow, earthy flavor, as well. I almost never make eggs without cheese, but that didn't seem like the thing to do here. (Actually, I tend to consider eggs that don't include at least three types of vegetable and two types of cheese a bit underprepared, but that's neither here or there.) All things considered, a really nice way to spice up a simple dish.

Tomorrow... I'll talk about the dinner I made tonight, Kashmiri rice and salmon with turmeric in a coconut milk sauce.