I liked Anthony Bourdain, probably more than the average person. I read Kitchen Confidential, and I have two of his cookbooks (Les Halles is fantastic, Appetites…less so). I appreciated that he could have done anything with his rags-to-riches fame and fortune, and he decided to explore the world, have lots of disgusting food, and meet people and listen to them – without interrupting – to show us that it’s ok to understand other cultures.
So when I found out that he’d died, I was saddened. So I wanted to do a couple things to honor him.
- I watched two hours of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, because I’d like to think he’d say something like “why do you hate food” to me
- I made scrambled eggs, using his recipes
(sidenote: I always appreciated his harsh criticism, because I never felt like it came from a bad place. He had high expectations of the food he ate, and he felt like the people preparing the food were up to the task to meet them. It was never meant to make them feel small. It wasn’t manufactured rage bullshit like Gordon Ramsay, who seems to get off on being generally mean and destructive. Ok, I’m done there.)
His recipe starts out with diced bacon, so I sold my lady that I would be making bacon and eggs. The next couple minutes went something like this:
Me: “Hey honey, I’m going to make bacon and eggs, would you like some?
My lady: “Yaaay, that sounds great!!”
Me: “Great, I’ll start dicing up the bacon.”
(takes bacon out of the fridge)
Me (internally): “Hmmm, I’m not sure it’s still good, but it’s bacon, it’ll be fine.”
Bacon (out loud, to me only): “Yeah, you should really throw me out, I’m past my prime.”
Me: “Oh, I can get by with it, it’ll be fine.”
(pause)
Me: “Wait, what?”
(pause)
Me: “Yeah, honey, it’s just going to be eggs.”
Anyways, I figured at this point, since I won’t be adding talking bacon to the eggs, I’ll need to add a little more butter to the pan than normal. Then I realized that I would probably have done that anyways.
Then we get to the eggs, which I was able to get farm raised. It doesn’t show up well in the picture, but the yolks were almost unnaturally orange. That’s because their chickens eat plants, insects, scraps, whatever they can forage for. Unlike the mass produced chickens that get fed grain, supplements, Chris Christie, whatever the producer can get their hands on cheaply. If you can get your hands on farm raised eggs for a reasonable price, I highly recommend picking them up. They are so choice.
The last ingredient that he uses to make the eggs oh-so-tasty is sour cream. Which sounded great, until I opened the tub of sour cream and saw that it was well past its best days. Interestingly, it didn’t talk to me, which you would expect dairy in a tub to do (bonus Mel Sharples content below!!!)
What we did have, however, was French onion dip. Which is really just sour cream, dried onions, and other ingredients that I’m sure we don’t want to know about but taste absolutely delicious. And I’m sure Anthony would cringe for a second, and then say, “that’s actually a pretty good idea”.
(This is a man that admitted that KFC mashed potatoes were his guilty pleasure late night post-drinking food, he can appreciate sodium bombs.)
(He’s also right, those potatoes are delicious.)
I added some diced chives, because we had some laying around. By all means, use whatever you’d like to empty out the fridge, but I wouldn’t use too much – these are good enough to stand on their own.
Scrambled Eggs
Adapted from recipes from Anthony Bourdain
Serves 2-4, depending on your level of hunger
Ingredients
3 T butter
8 eggs
2 T French Onion dip
2 T diced chives
salt and pepper to taste
Directions
In a large non-stick skillet, melt the butter over low heat.
Beat the eggs in a medium sized bowl, using a fork, until eggs are combined but not over-beaten – you want to still have some streaks of white if possible.
Once the butter is melted, add the eggs. Let them sit for about 15-30 seconds, to let them start to set.
Using a rubber or silicone spatula, stir the eggs in a figure 8 pattern, occasionally dragging it around the sides and folding them to the middle.
When the mixture has come together and is starting to set, add the dip and stir it through the eggs. This will bring the temperature of the eggs down and slow the cooking process.
Once the eggs are close to your desired doneness, pour the eggs onto serving plates – they will carry enough residual heat to finish setting. Add salt and pepper, and top the eggs with the chives.
Adam's Messy Kitchen 