Cooking Scrambled Eggs With An Espresso Machine

[Joshua Grinnell]

Feeling experimental this morning, I tried following up on a persistant rumor I found on the internet while working out the kinks of our espresso machine: the milk-frothing attachment "makes great scrambled eggs" or "amazing, light and fluffy scrambled eggs." It's always left as that, which makes me feel like it's a canard close to the sausage-stuffing attachment ("I can stuff my own sausage!" "Yeah, but do you?" "Hush, you strumpet") for a standing mixer.

I gave it a shot and there are some hits and misses. One, the eggs do indeed come out very light and fluffy. Secondly, they're sitting in about an inch of water from having steam shot through them. So, once they're drained they're actually quite good. We only have market eggs at the moment and they're too precious to experiment with more today.

I'm using a ceramic mug, which may be too insulated to work properly, and I tried to keep the tip of the steamer from hitting the bottom of the mug. I'm using my usual scramble mix (egg, dash of milk, salt). Any ideas? Is anyone waking up to a heaving cup of steamed scrambled eggs in the morning?

[zoramargolis]

Hmm. I wonder of you could crack an egg onto a greased piece of heavy plastic wrap, gather it into a bundle with a twist tie, put the bundle into a cup and "poach" it with the steamer nozzle. Then you wouldn't get a watery egg or get egg up into the nozzle, which might clog it.

Then again, why go to all that trouble, unless you don't have a stove, and only have an espresso machine?

[pax]

I am in awe. I can't even get espresso out of the thing half the time and you're serving a complete breakfast.

[ulysses]

you've got to be careful with this one. most boilers have a little suction right when you shut the valve off. I've seen a large boiler in a resturant espresso suck up a drop or two of milk and completely destroy the boiler. The milk breeds bacteria in the warm wet boiler and eventually fills with a liquid resembling cat urine infused with pepperoni pizza. I can only imagine what a microbe of egg would do to a small boiler.

[pax]

S'funny, I'd have thought that the repeated steamings would kill off any nasty little buggers. I can see congealed egg getting stuck and wreaking havoc, though.

[Joshua Grinnell]

Then again, why go to all that trouble, unless you don't have a stove, and only have an espresso machine?

Mainly for the sake of trying, but also because of the "best eggs ever" testimonials. It's actually worse to have discovered that these are pretty good but in need of work, as I could have just let it go if they were sub-par.

I'll also keep vigilant for any stray eggs shooting back into the machine, but it's strange to think that an attachment created for steaming milk could be so easily defeated by milk itself.

[jpschust]

as clever as this is, frankly making really quality scrambled eggs in the morning is pretty easy. a lot of people make them in a pan instead of a homemade double boiler (read small pot with water in it and glass bowl on top of the pot). Set up the double boiler the night before, throw a little bit of butter in there, crack the eggs and whisk for a few minutes on low heat until you're done.

[Beto]

I'll also keep vigilant for any stray eggs shooting back into the machine, but it's strange to think that an attachment created for steaming milk could be so easily defeated by milk itself.

Commercial espresso machines have an anti-siphon valve on them precisely to prevent sucking stuff into the boiler. On a domestic machine, it would be advisable to open up the valve to clear out the steam wand before you cool the machine down.