All I know of eggs I learned from Jacques Pepin

I was lucky enough to watch Jacques Pepin do a cooking demonstration at The French Culinary Institute in New York City last week. He taught us everything about eggs.

In the photo, my mind was in a frenzy because I was standing next to Pepin and I forgot to smile!

Pepin is known for his TV cooking show Fast Food My Way and his numerous cookbooks. He is dean of special programs at The French Culinary Institute.

He began his lecture by separating egg yolks from whites.

Some people separate a yolk from the egg whites by cracking the egg and pouring the whites into a bowl, leaving the yolk in the broken shell. Pepin said the separated yolk still has some egg white around it. If you're using egg whites in a dish, you're not utilizing that last bit.

He preferred to separate yolks from egg whites with his hands. He cracked an egg and broke it open over his hand, letting the egg whites slide through his fingers. Only the pristine yolk was left in his hand.

I remember Pepin demonstrated the same technique on an episode of his TV show. That's how I learned to separate eggs. But sitting there in that theater, watching him do it person, made the lesson much more meaningful.


Throughout the lecture, Pepin welcomed questions. 

He was very accessible. Before the demonstration began, he said, "We have 15, 20 minutes. I can take pictures and sign books." 

Some of us shyly came down and took photos with him.

I felt very comfortable in the audience. It didn't seem like Pepin was on some higher plane than the rest of us. He was right there, explaining the many different things you can do with eggs.

Pepin had a different way of boiling eggs.

I learned how to boil eggs by heating eggs in water on a stove until boiling and then taking the saucepan off the stove to be left alone for 12 minutes.

He boiled water on the stove. He might have pricked each egg with a pin, but I'm not exactly sure. he placed the eggs in the boiling water. Four minutes for soft-boiled eggs, then four minutes more for hard-boiled eggs.

"When I was a kid, we ate a lot of egg, more egg than meat," Pepin said.

He showed us how to make a gratin like his mother used to make. It had a layer of sauteed spinach on the bottom, then a layer of boiled eggs, bechamel sauce and then everything was covered in cheese. He cooked it in a 400 to 425 degree oven for 15 minutes.

Assistants portioned out the gratin into samples for the audience to eat. There was no way I was not going to like the gratin. It had cheese and boiled eggs. (I'm definitely going to try to replicate the recipe at home.)

We also got to taste what I think was scrambled egg with chives and sundried tomato. It was such a lovely bite.




Pepin showed us how he made omelets. He cracked eggs into a bowl and seasoned them with salt and pepper. He whisked the eggs with a fork to add air to the eggs.

He threw a pat of butter in a saute pan. When the butter had melted, he poured the eggs in the pan. As the eggs began to cook, he made criss-cross motions in the pan to make the eggs curdle. Then he carefully folded over half of the omelet, making a half-moon shape in the pan. He gently slid the omelet onto a plate.

He made another omelet with mushrooms, layering slices of sauteed mushrooms on top of the omelet. We clapped at how elegant he made the omelet look. But when he took his first bite into an omelet, he chose the plain one.