eggs, rice, chile

I've seen people whisk egg whites to achieve fluffy omelets. I do not care for that technique because the result is fried puff. Air eggs. I do not want that. In that case, lightness is achieved by creating foam, but the eggs are still overcooked and often with an unpleasant incongruent toasted exterior, that, when it comes to egg, is an indication of overcooking. It is like a fried souffle. 

The aim is light egg contrasted with dense egg and different from air-bubble egg. I want barely cooked egg not rubberized egg-like material. I've learned to watch carefully, to stand there and continuously lift the cooked portion so that liquid egg runs under the cooked curd into the evacuated space and to keep doing that until it no longer runs. Flip if necessary, but usually residual heat will finish. The result is a pile of cooked egg layers which can then be rolled or folded to double or triple the stack. This pictured here was folded in thirds, it was so thick that folding amounted basically to rolling, for an impressively high stack of exceedingly lightly cooked egg. You never see that. Apparently I'm the only person on the Earth who does this. I should patent this idea. 

I will call these "lifted eggs." 

I think I'll host a brunch sometime and serve egg prepared this way one at a time (which is really three eggs at a time) and carefully reserve them in a warm oven until they're all done, assemble the plates, and blow everybody's mind right out of their skulls. 

BLAM! Brains all over the place. 

But not today, I'm slumming it today. 

This is rice that is cooked using the rice-steaming skillz of two separate divergent techniques. Japanese prefer their rice a little sticky, I think, because it makes it possible to pick up with chopsticks. To cook, excess surface starch is rinsed, then the rice is steamed, then is sits off heat but still covered to completion. Europeans, on the other hand, fry the rice in oil first to ensure grain separation and a fluffy non-sticking result. For risotto  the liquid begins with a cup of wine, which when fully absorbed and evaporated  is continued with another boiling liquid. The point is to keep the rice uncovered and continuously moving in moderate amount of liquid so the starch gets knocked off the individual grains to form a creamy sauce along with the cooking liquid  delivered in increments which becomes concentrated through the process by absorption and by evaporation. 

This rice pictured here starts out European but finishes Japanese.  The rice was not rinsed. The dry grains were fried in olive oil, a decidedly un-Asian ingredient, until brown along with fennel seed and combination of dried chile peppers. Once browned, it was  doused with a cup of red wine which is an odd choice, but it's what I had on hand. The wine used was old, oxidized, and vinegary.  Stirred until all the liquid absorbed and evaporated, then chicken broth added to steam covered as ordinary Japanese rice. The result is wonderfully uniquely flavorful  fluffy dry rice in dire need of a sauce.

This is the surplus chile reserved frozen that already has brown rice and beans in it with lots of pork. So on this plate is a double whammy of rice; white rice as a base, colored  and heavily flavored, and brown rice in the chile which is performing as sauce.  White rice and brown rice, daring in'nit. 

Topped with amedium Australian cheddar that was on sale at W.F.. I wish I had bought more of that stuff, but it was an experiment.

I have no cilantro or parsley but I do have mint and basil so that's what is used here. 

This odd combination of ingredients, flavors, and technique, is incredible. It's days like this that I amaze myself. I would not serve this exactly as it is to guests, and if I were a chef it would not be on the menu.  I'm afraid it's unmarketable, but the way this egg is prepared, not as an omelet, not as regular scrambled eggs, unlike a souffle, and not itself enhanced with any internal extraneous material or flavors, is nonetheless quite the spectacle there on the plate in its soft lofty extravagant pile once it's cut into and its dimension exposed.