How Scrambled Eggs are Made in 14 Countries Epicurious

You're about to see 14 chefs from 14 different countries make scrambled eggs. So, the dish we're making today is called Anda Bhurji. And funnily the word Bhurji means a scramble. Everyone has a different version of how they make it. I'm just going to be showing you my version of making Anda Bhurji. When the pan's heating up, I'm going to go in with my ghee. We always cook with ghee. It has a very high smoking point. So I can get this really hot. It's not going to burn. And it's just got a very nice mouthfeel. And when something's cooked in ghee, you can actually taste the ghee. I'm going to go in with my green chillies. I like my Anda Bhurji really spicy. I'm going to go straight in with my onions. The better a masala that you build, the more flavourful your Anda Bhurji is going to taste. Add some ginger garlic paste. Onions, ginger and garlic, those are the trinity of Indian cooking. So now that I have the rawness taken out, I'm going to add a little bit of turmeric. Some red chilli powder. I want that nice red colour on the Bhurji. The spices start to toast in the ghee. And when that's done, you'll see that the oil starts releasing itself back from the onions. I'm going to add some tomatoes. The acid in the tomatoes deglaze the pan. This is the colour I like. Spices are nice and toasted. The tomatoes are not completely cooked off. Crack the eggs directly into the pan. This is not like French scrambled eggs where they have to be like a certain runny custard. This is all about convenience. I see that the eggs are almost set. And it's going to be a great time for me to add the salt. My eggs are committing this nice caramelisation. I have a little chaat masala which is made with dry mango powder. Really tangy. Any other dish that comes from India, I have to finish this off with cilantro. These are like Indian style bread rolls, pav. Toast it off in some ghee. It's going to rip some of that pav. It's soft and spicy scrambled eggs with these buttery pavs. Can be had at any time of the day. So French scrambled eggs, I think it's a very good technique. It's going to make your eggs like very soft and creamy. This technique I did learn it in a Michelin star restaurant. Put some butter. A lot of butter actually. We're going to break our eggs. You don't want to have any white part or yellow part. I'm going to add a little bit of black pepper. Sea salt. We don't want the butter to get any colours. Now we introduce our eggs. And that's going to go very fast. And that's, it's like a little sauté. You can see that the sides flare out. So your spatula or your whisk can go in any corners of the pan. So what I'm trying to do is to not have big chunks of cooked eggs. Because that's what's going to make it hard. And when I get the consistency that I want, I'm going to switch it to a whisk. And break them down even more. Start to get tiny dry in the middle. And that's where you want to stop. We're going to stop the cooking with some creme fraiche. It's going to make it smoother and bring a little acidity, which is going to be good for the balance. And you can see how creamy and soft they are. And chive is not just for the colour. It's really going to bring a little flavour that's very enjoyable with the eggs. I like to serve it with a sourdough. Put a lot of butter on it. And voila, really good. I'm very happy. In my personal experience, scrambled eggs, the most American way, is bacon and eggs with a little bit of toast and some coffee. I just love a diner moment. So any excuse to kind of bring that back. Butter is, for me, the only thing we're scrambling our eggs in. It may not be healthier, but it is tastier. A little bit of milk is a little bit better than water for making a fluffier egg. So I like my eggs a little bit on the softer side, just as it's starting to cook on the edges, just like to push it toward the centre and just to watch it. I don't really like a lot of colour on my scrambled eggs personally. This process takes maybe two minutes. If they cook any longer, they're going to start getting drier. I like a simple breakfast. It reminds me of the classic American diner experience. The only thing I don't have is an older lady with soft eyes just basically asking if you want a top off for your coffee. Well seasoned, light, fluffy. This combination of bacon and eggs, a little bit of coffee, a little bit of toast, always makes me feel like everything's going to be right with the world. Today we're going to be making omelette frites, it's scrambled eggs with cumin fries. This is my favourite dish for breakfast in Algeria. I'm going to add some butter, salt. The key to make the best scrambled eggs is to keep scrambling. The air bubbles make the eggs like super soft. So I am going to add my French fries first. I cut them super thin and they become almost like soufflé fries. So what's really important is to keep scrambling your eggs at a lower temperature so the eggs get steamed up. I really do love eggs like super scrambled. I'm going to add the fries now with the cumin, a very essential spice for Algerian. Parsley. In Algeria, you can't go anywhere without harissa mayo. The omelette frites. Potato is super soft. I can taste the cumin and I can go for another bite. So today I'll be making kairan jjim. Kairan means egg and jjim means steam. I have a bain-marie here. It's just purely just to put all the ingredients and then mix it all together. Anchovy stock, salted shrimp, egg. You want to make sure it's completely bland. Now I need to warm it up and set a bigger bain-marie. I want to make sure it's hot. If the egg mixture is too cold and you put it in a pot to get the steamed egg, it's not going to puff it up. When you can see like an egg is cooking on the side, it's usually ready. We actually cook it in this ceramic bowl called ttukbaegi. And this holds heat very well. You want to kind of scrape it. You want to make sure it's not burning. And then it's going to start to trap the steam inside and it's going to start going up. Oh, it's coming up. Oh, it's expanding. Now I'm going to garnish it first with the sesame oil. I'll have seaweed powder, black pepper, and scallion on top. When you kind of move it, it jiggles. It's very soft and the scallion really brings that flavor even more along with the sesame oil and seaweed powder. So good. You must try it. I'm making scrambled egg from Nigeria. Some people call it egg sauce. I'm really not a fan of it. But I'm going to make it the right way. Mine probably is actually going to be presentable and good. So first I start with oil. Then I add the onions, habanero. It has to be spicy. Then I add the cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper. I want everything to simmer together. Smell is amazing, right? This is a very well done egg. Let's see what I've done. It's very good. This is egg sauce with class. Forgive me if I have to say that, but it's really very good. So this scrambled egg with tomato dish is quintessential to Chinese home cooking. In Chinese, the tomatoes are translated to foreign eggplant or western red persimmon. So I have some extra large eggs. I'm going to add white pepper and some cooking wine. The cooking wine will remove the eggy smell. You don't have to whisk them perfectly. Sometimes some people like to see a little bit of white in the dish. So we heat up the wok first and then add the oil. A really nice seasoned wok is nonstick. I'm going to push the eggs around just a little bit to fry the bottom side. I'll take the eggs out when the bottom side is set. The top side is almost set because the remaining heat will keep cooking it. I have the heat on medium low and I'm going to add the white part of the scallion and some finely chopped garlic. Stir until you can smell the fragrance. And I'm going to add some finely chopped tomatoes to make a tomato sauce. So this looks pretty good and I'm going to add some big chunks of tomatoes. When the tomato chunks are slightly softened, I'm going to add some salt, lots of sugar, some MSG. Add the eggs back in and then we're going to add some scallions and then a little bit of sesame oil. So traditionally, we actually use a rice bowl as our plate. We'll pick up the food and then rest on the rice bowl. It's sweet and slightly tangy and also savory. The eggs are soft but not too mushy. It's soaked with the tomato sauce. It's just like very satisfying. So comforting. My scramble egg dish is called soboro gohan. Soboro means crumbles. It's a rice dish with eggs that's seasoned and the other half is a seasoned ground chicken. I have a mixture here with the egg, milk, sake, and also sugar. This is considered as a western dish because I'm using butter and milk and eggs but still Japanese heart. Once butter is melt, just pour out entire liquid. So technique here is to make as soft textured scrambled egg as possible. Light, low heat. I start to see little curdles. Sometimes you have to take it off from heat to make sure you retain the silky texture to make sure I'm gonna have a small crumbles as much as possible. It's the ground chicken. Season with the ginger, soy, mirin, sugar, and touch of vinegar. Put the garnishes on top. Done. Looks good. The sweetness, saltiness, and also umami from chicken and also like a soft feel of egg. I really like this. So the dish that I'm making today we call in Brazil farofa de ovo mexido, scrambled egg farofa. We have as a side dish for like the Brazilian barbecue. I'm gonna put the butter. When start melting, I'm gonna add my onions, garlic, saute a little bit until change the color. The fun about this dish is you can use like different toppings. You can use bacon, you can add collard greens, you can use I don't know a lot of onions or even banana. A bit of my eggs, a little salt, and then I'm gonna add my eggs to the onion and to the garlic that I sauteed here. I don't want it to get dry really quick because I want to add my roasted cassava flour when it's still a little bit creamy. So if you don't know what's cassava, it's the same as a yuca. It is a very traditional like South American ingredient. Also in Brazil we use it a lot. You don't need to cook it more. It's roasted already. Black pepper. Now it's the time to plate the farofa. I'm using here the most iconic Brazilian cut of beef called picanha. It's the back part of the cow. Top sirloin and there's a lot of flavor. A little bit of scallion. Now we have the Brazilian colors, yellow and green. So a little piece of the meat, farofa. That's how we eat it. It's like Brazilian barbecue. I am making telor padang, deep fried egg. You can get this dish from street stalls in Indonesia. Medium heat. A lot of oil because we're gonna deep fry it. Pinch of garlic powder. A little bit of chicken bouillon. This gives a little bit of MSG kick. Asian shallots. It's very different with French shallots. Scallions. Then the star. Sliced chili. Sprinkle of salt. You want to get like a little bubbly for it to get crispy on the pan. I'm looking for slightly crispy texture. I'm trying to put the hot oil on the top so it gets evenly cooked. Oh, look at that. In Indonesia, we have a term. If you don't eat it with rice, you haven't eaten anything. There you go. This is sweet soy sauce. That's actually invented in Indonesia. Chinese trader brought soy sauce. And Indonesia is a source of palm sugar and all the spices. Oh, yeah. Absolutely delicious. What makes the scrambled eggs Georgian is how you cook it with ghee. Because scrambled eggs in Georgian called ghee butter or erbuk vertzi. And it's seasoned with fresh herbs or dried spices. Here we already have chopped tomatoes. We take a little bit of this mixture of herbs. Fresh cilantro. Baby parsley. Dill. And opal basil. Probably a spoonful of onions. Salt. This is traditional Georgian sauce for summertime. Use a spoonful of ghee. Ghee gives a different flavor than the butter. And ghee predates refrigeration era. It's safe to keep for a few months because it doesn't have milk solids. It's clarified butter. Summertime, this used to be my lunch a lot. You can see the little toasted edges. And you just add the eggs. Overall texture should be very delicate and very soft. So we sprinkled it a little bit with fresh herbs. For proper Georgian sauce, you must have the sauce in the sauce boat. You may use the spoon, but it needs to be in the right vessel. In any Georgian meal, you have to start with bread. And bread also doubles for dinner. Knife that you can use to push the food onto your pork. These eggs taste like summer with farm fresh goodness. Delicious. Today I'm going to make huevos pericos. This is our everyday breakfast. Usually in Colombia we use cacerolas, which are made with aluminum. But why do you want to stick your eggs if you have nonstick pan? Melt some butter. People use olive oil or even lard. But I like butter. When our butter melts, I'm going to put some of these onions. I'm also going to put some scallions, the white part. So now we're going to put the tomatoes. And we want to make what we call sofrito. Salt. And then I'm going to put some pepper. So now is the time to add our eggs. Why we call them huevos pericos? It's because it has the colors of the parrot. It's green, yellow, and red. Back home, people eat this egg super, super dry. But I like my huevos soft, creamy. It's just like keep moving it and then keep the temperature not that high. So I'm going to use an arepa paisa, a corn bread. In Colombia we have so many different kinds of arepas. But this one is the one that I call the Colombian canvas. You can put anything on top of them and it's a beautiful snack. So I'm going to put this avocado that I have, blowtorch, cilantro, and some scallions greens. And that's my huevos pericos. It's really hard to explain because it's such a simple dish. It's just some eggs with sofrito, but it tastes like home. Crunchiness of the arepa, the softness of the egg. It's comfort food. So this is an absolute staple of Turkish breakfast called menemen. It's a very simple dish of tomatoes and eggs. Every restaurant that serves breakfast serves this. If they don't, they're not Turkish. Okay, you want medium heat, some olive oil. Okay, there is a controversy in Turkey. Some people say no onion in menemen. Some people say no peppers. Some people say only tomatoes. Just to make everyone happy, I'm going to put all of it. I like a little bit of spice in my menemen. So I'm going to put a little bit of crushed pepper. And I love oregano. Seasoning my eggs. I'm going to put a little bit of salt. Okay, now you want to keep stirring. Perfect texture is it's not too dry, but it's not too wet either. This would be made communally just like this. And you would eat with the bread. It's going to be a big bite. The most interesting thing about this dish to me is it doesn't taste like tomatoes or eggs. It tastes like menemen. Scrambled eggs and kielbasa is a Ukrainian breakfast dish. So you have to eat well before the day starts. Sprinkle some oil. Here we have kielbasa. It has pork, a little bit of beef and garlic. It's the most famous Ukrainian sausage. We often eat it on a sandwich or even soups. We pour eggs over the kielbasa and just try to scramble it. In Ukraine, we usually eat eggs on a baldan side. To make this Ukrainian, we can use dill. I usually have it in my freezer. I use it almost in every dish. Tastes like home. It's good. These are the best eggs in the world.