Egg

I have to admit, it was a little strange writing a recipe for breakfast tacos, as much as I love them, because I think of them as so free-form. In my college days in Austin, when I powered my way to class by eating a couple of these every morning, I would change up the order pretty much each time. Cheese and salsa are must-haves, but otherwise my favorite combination is potato, egg, and chorizo. But you can also add (or substitute) black beans, avocado, bacon, and the like, in whatever lineup gets you going. Leftover breakfast foods, such as hash browns, are welcome additions, too. This makes two hefty tacos: a hearty breakfast or brunch.

I’ll admit to a tendency toward obsession, especially when it comes to food, as my experience with duck eggs proves. I bought my first dozen a few years ago at the Saturday farmers’ market at 14th and U Streets in Washington, D.C., and from the first time I fried one, I was pretty much hooked, buying duck eggs and only duck eggs and going through a dozen every week or two, at least while the ducks were laying. I’ve since veered back toward moderation, especially after remembering that these richer, more flavorful eggs are also higher in saturated fat and much higher in cholesterol. Still, I like to splurge every now and then, and this puffy frittata is one of my favorite ways. It also illustrates the magical properties of egg whites as a leavener; the simple process of separating whites from yolks, beating the whites to the soft-peak stage, and folding the two together results in a light-as-air texture, something between a frittata and a soufflé. Nonetheless, you can use these same ingredients in a more straightforward frittata; instead of separating the eggs, just follow the method for the Mushroom and Green Garlic Frittata (page 32). And if you can’t find duck eggs, chicken eggs work fine here, too.

I don’t make a habit of having potato chips in the house, because I really don’t have much self-control around them. But when I read in Anya von Bremzen’s go-to cookbook, The New Spanish Table, that chef-genius Ferran Adrià makes a tortilla de patatas (that glorious traditional Spanish omelet) with potato chips, I was tempted to buy some. That same year, 2005, my friend, chef José Andrés, a protégé of Adrià’s, also included a potato-chip tortilla recipe in his energetic book, Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America, so the decision was obvious. It turns out that this humblest of dishes, one of my favorites when I traveled in Spain, was perfectly easy to scale down to single-serving size. To justify its place on my dinner table, though, I added shrimp to make it a meal. Eat with a green salad or other crisp vegetables on the side. If desired, spoon some Red Pepper Chutney (page 17) on top.

Try as I might, I just couldn’t leave the bacon out of this omelet. Obviously, nothing goes better with eggs. But beyond that, bacon gives the slightly bitter chard an addictive smoky and, well, meaty flavor, while the goat cheese offsets it all with a tart creaminess. The result: a hearty, one-dish meal.

The payoff for having made the Stewed Cauliflower, Butternut Squash, and Tomatoes (page 55), beyond that first bowl of pasta I hope you had with it, is that you can use it for quick treatments such as this one. With its runny yolk enriching the vegetables, it’s a satisfying breakfast dish on its own, or it can morph into a brunch or breakfast-for-dinner dish with the addition of crusty bread and a side salad.

I spend a bundle on mushrooms from a bountiful display at the Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market just about every Sunday—but not in the summer. That’s because mushrooms are available practically year-round (many of them are cultivated), while tomatoes, corn, broccoli, and the like have a shorter season. So I reserve my mushroom purchases for when the bulk of the other seasonal produce has faded or hasn’t quite arrived. In the spring, I love to combine them with one of the items I spend all winter looking forward to: green garlic, basically an immature form of the plant, picked before it has fully formed its bulbous collection of cloves. You can use the whole thing like a leek or green onion (both of them in the same family), but it has the addictive taste of fresh, pungent garlic throughout. Since I also associate spring with eggs, I like to pair them with mushrooms and green garlic in a simple frittata. If you can’t find green garlic or want to make this in another season, feel free to substitute a small leek. Eat this frittata with a side dish, such as salad, bread, and/or hash browns, for a filling meal.

The only place to start with something so absurd yet perfect as this dish is in the middle. The bacon is ready to flip in about a minute and a half. The edges get super-crispy (who has ever noticed before that bacon has corners?), while the lean inside stays wet and meaty. And the fat actually firms and ripples, like lardo that’s been working out. Suspense builds when you flip the bacon and crack the eggs on top. It’s awful—like watching a landslide threaten to wipe out your village—as the egg whites run toward the edge of the hot brick, but the salt is so hot they rapidly lose steam (pun intended) and sizzle to a halt, with at most just a few rivulets dribbling over the sides of the block. The whole thing is done in less than 5 minutes. Take a bite and things get weirder still, with the sheen of salt simmering underneath the egg and bacon instead of on top, and a jumble of textures—creamy, crunchy, chewy, juicy, fatty, fleshy, and eggy.

Mushrooms, noble as they may be, are not proud creatures. Poking their heads up from the loam, they stand humbly with a prepossessing calm that more or less begs us to pluck them. Fresh eggs, once you face off the fierce gaze of the hen and pull them from under her warm breast, are similarly good-natured, understated and half-smiling like the oval face of a Modigliani portrait. But dress the egg and the mushroom with a pinch of black truffle and the two rise up, swell with pride, and regale you with their tales of farm and forest.

The classic recipe for this very rich sauce goes with everything from meat and fish to eggs and vegetables. It’s usually made in a double boiler, but if you don’t have one, you can improvise. Make a double boiler by putting one saucepan over another slightly larger one and filling the bottom one with an inch or so of water. Make the sauce in the top saucepan and let the water in the bottom pan simmer—it should not touch the sauce—so the sauce will cook slowly. If your sauce still breaks, transfer it to a bowl. Off the heat in the top of the double boiler, whisk another egg yolk. Gradually pour in the curdled sauce in a stream and whisk vigorously until all the broken sauce has been incorporated into the egg yolk. Make the sauce no more than 30 minutes before you plan on serving it. Do not attempt to reheat or it will break.

Eggs Benedict is a decadent breakfast composed of two crispy slices of good Canadian bacon on top of two halves of a toasted English muffin. Two perfectly poached eggs sit on top of the Canadian bacon, and the eggs are covered with rich, lemony hollandaise sauce. Serve with Home Fries (page 209), Skillet Hash Browns (page 211), or Stone-Ground Hominy Grits such as Hoppin’ John’s or Anson Mills (page 207).

Torta—Spanish for “cake,” “loaf,” or “sandwich”—is also a substantial brunch entrée in which the eggs are baked, often with vegetables. In this version, caramelizing brings out the natural sweetness in the onion and red bell pepper. Serve this torta either hot or at room temperature with sourdough toast and slab bacon.

This Bubby’s version of Dr. Seuss’s whimsical creation will satisfy kids and adults alike. Serve this children’s classic with Home Fries (page 209) or Stone-Ground Hominy Grits (page 207).

In the spring we go to the farmers’ market for morels and in the fall for chanterelles. Either mushroom is wonderful in this dish, as are cremini, oysters, hen o’ the woods, trumpets, porcini, and portobellos. One cautionary note: Know your mushrooms, and never eat any that you pick yourself unless you are absolutely certain they’re edible. See Alice in Wonderland for the effects of eating the wrong mushrooms or speak to someone at your local emergency room for details.

Andouille, a spicy Cajun sausage, is a must in dishes like jambalaya. Here, along with another favorite Louisiana ingredient, crawfish, it flavors a delectable scramble that will make you think of New Orleans. You may use either fresh or frozen crawfish tails. In case you’ve never eaten them, crawfish tails have a flavor that is somewhat like shrimp, only sweeter.