No more boring breakfasts: A hardboiled egg dipped into sea salt and freshly ground cumin and black peppercorns electrifies the palate, in a good way.
Resolved for 2010: More interesting breakfasts.
Intriguing, flavorful, unexpected—and not complicated. The kind of breakfast you can fix while still half asleep, but that will electrify your palate—in a good way.
This morning’s menu: Hardboiled eggs dipped in Moroccan cumin, flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
First tasted: At Kasbah du Toubkal—a restored fortress near Imlil in Morocco’s Middle Atlas Mountains—at 7:06 AM November 15, 2009.
After the predawn call to prayer and a solitary walk along the parapets of this strangely Himalayan mountain retreat—it stood in for the Tibetan monastery of Dunkar in Kundun, Martin Scorcese’s 1997 film about the Dalai Lama—I was hungry.
The dining room was deserted but the smell of strong coffee wafted from a door in the back. I nibbled a few walnuts and a bruised apple.
Soon a sleepy cook scuttled in with three hardboiled eggs, still warm in their shells. I peeled one and dipped it into little bowls of cumin, salt and pepper. I took an idle bite--and my eyes popped open.
Freshly ground Moroccan cumin--warm, earthy and aromatic--coaxes the latent sweetness of the egg to the fore.
Why It’s Good: The white of the egg, usually bland, bursts into life with a sprinkling of black pepper and sea salt. (That much you already know.) But it’s the cumin—sultry, earthy, aromatic—that coaxes its latent sweetness to the fore. When you reach the firm but tender yolk, the flavor really blossoms: The briny salt and spices hit the rich, slightly sulphurous yellow orb with all their firepower, turning a simple hardboiled egg into a palate titillating breakfast.
How to do it: Put one or more large eggs in a saucepan with 2 inches of cold water to cover. Bring gently to a boil over medium high heat. After one minute, turn off the heat and let the eggs sit for 12 minutes. Rinse in cold water until the eggs are still warm, but will not burn your fingers when you touch them.
Serve the hardboiled eggs with little bowls of flaky sea salt and freshly ground cumin and black peppercorns. Peel and dip at your pleasure. Can you eat just one?
Bring the hardboiled eggs to the table in a bowl, or set them in egg cups if you have them. Pour your flakiest sea salt, and freshly ground cumin and black peppercorns into three small bowls. Peel, dip and eat.
One more thing: A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil makes the egg and spice even more delicious.
Comments (2)
This sounds like a delicious way to enliven a plain egg into something a little exotic. Your photographs are beautiful with the deep early morning shadows.
Posted by Nancy | January 18, 2010 5:26 PM
Posted on January 18, 2010 17:26
Thank you, Nancy. I find I often want a little something to titillate the tastebuds early in AM--and this is an easy way to go about it. I'm working on few more lively breakfast ideas--please keep reading...
Posted by courtenay | January 19, 2010 7:58 AM
Posted on January 19, 2010 07:58