Folded Egg Bagels
with some tips on buying and cooking eggs
How do you like your eggs? My answer is all the ways. There are a lot of foods I could give up but eggs are not one of them. I love the runny yolk of a fried egg, the jammy texture of a medium boiled egg and the way scrambled eggs melt tenderly in your mouth. The recipe I’m sharing today is in many ways scrambled eggs on toast, but it’s also a lot more than that. More because I’ve given each of the elements in this classic comfort a small tweak to nudge them into the territory of extra special.
Instead of completely stirring the eggs in the pan to scramble them, I’ve gently scraped them around to ‘fold’ the eggs into a round of egg filled with waves. Which in turn create pockets perfect for melting crumbled, slightly acidic Wensleydale cheese. Replacing toast we have bagels, which always feel fancy to me. There’s something about holding a bagel that feels very satisfying, with your fingers embracing the inner curve as you bite down - which somehow also seems to help hold the sandwich together.
Mushrooms add the final flourish. These butterscotch mushrooms from Wylde Market have, as the name suggests, a particularly golden colour and are small like button mushrooms but a touch longer. They taste nutty and rich. My trick for cooking perfectly tender mushrooms with a yielding bite (and without a hint of sliminess) is to add them to a hot, dry pan and cook without any fat for a few minutes until starting to stick and burnish. Then add the butter or oil and cook for another minute or two to finish them off. This method prevents them from drinking up the oil in the pan and becoming soggy. It works with all mushrooms, just slice or tear them first if they are larger.
Code cracking
If you’ve ever looked at an egg carton and wondered what the coded numbers mean, here is the answer.
0 = Organic farming (so the hens have to be fed an organic diet, and have to be able to roam freely)
1 = Free range (they have to have outdoor access and a certain amount of space)
2 = Indoor barn farming (they can roam but inside only, and most likely with less space)
3 = Caged (they won’t see the light of day and they’re often very tightly packed too)
Usually the space given to the hens for organically farmed eggs is greater than that of a free range, but the free range coding is a minimum so some brands do offer more space even if they don’t provide organic feed. The key thing, is to look out for these numbers and not the wording on the packs. Writing words such as ‘happy’ on the carton doesn’t actually mean anything. You can also look for the RSPCA symbol on packs, but it’s worth noting that some barn farmed eggs qualify for this standard even though the chickens won’t have access to the outdoors.
Folded egg bagels
Serves 2
6 organic eggs
100g butterscotch mushrooms
2 poppy seed sourdough bagels, halved
About 20g salted butter
50g Wensleydale cheese (I used Yoredale), crumbled
2 tbsp brown or tomato sauce
1 Whisk the eggs in a bowl and add a pinch of salt and a splash of water. Whisk again until light and frothy. Set aside.
2 Put a frying pan over a medium-high heat then add the mushrooms. Cook for 3-4 minutes until golden underneath then flip over. Fry for a few minutes until they’re starting to stick then add a knob of butter, some salt and pepper and stir fry for another few minutes, until golden all over and juicy. Remove from the heat.
3 Meanwhile, heat a knob of butter in another frying pan over a medium-high heat until melted and sizzling. Pour in half of the eggs and leave to set for 10-20 seconds, until you can see it solidifying in the centre. Use a rubber spatula to drag the egg from one side of the pan to the other, leave it for a few seconds then repeat. Draw the egg that sets together around the pan a little at a time, allowing it to set for a few seconds between each movement. Once it’s all together in a circle of mostly set egg, sprinkle over the crumbled cheese and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a warm plate and repeat with the remaining egg.
4 Toast and butter the bagels. Spread some brown sauce on the base of each then top with the folded egg and some mushrooms, then add the bagel top. It will be messy to eat but that’s part of the pleasure.
Tip - It may seem like adding water is a strange, old fashioned way to bulk out eggs but it actually lightens them a little, giving the finished result a lighter texture.
Mindful mentions
Bean Workshop // I am hosting a workshop with my friend and brilliant nutritional therapist, Sam Hamrebtan, at OmVed Gardens in North London on Sunday 22nd June. We will be sharing the power of beans, showing you how to create nutritious, flexible and waste reducing recipes with beans as the staple ingredient. Tickets cost just £25 and you’ll get to enjoy the beautiful space at OmVed as well as enjoy some tasty food. Find out more and book tickets here.
Get Cooking // The Cookery School at Little Portland Street is offering a free nightly online cookery course via their YouTube channel to anyone and everyone this month. If you know someone looking to learn to cook or improve their basic kitchen skills, send them the link so they can cook along. Find out more here.
Wylde Market // I developed this recipe using ingredients from Wylde Market - an online shop that works like an in-person market in that all of the ingredients listed are what is available that week. They sell top quality ingredients from small scale farmers and producers that care about regenerating the land and sourcing with care. All orders are delivered on Fridays. If you’ve not shopped from them before, you can get £15 off your first order via this link. (Full disclosure, it’s an affiliate link, so if you use it, I’ll also get money off my next shop. But sharing is caring right).