Cappuccino eggs

There's always a food angle. I was leafing through Make, a quarterly techno-magazine that's like the old Popular Mechanics but way geekier, with articles on making a 12-sided lampshade or how to unpimp your ride (that is, make your cool bike look like a junker so no self-respecting thief will want to steal it). And there in the back was a note by columnist Saul Griffith saying that his local espresso place scrambles eggs with its milk steamer. It occurred to me that I've heard of this being done elsewhere.

It sounded as if it made sense -- a lot of scrambled egg recipes say to add some liquid (usually milk, rather than water) to give the eggs a softer texture. On the other hand, it sounded impossibly geeky. I had to try it.

Well, the eggs cooked, in a basic sort of way. It was hard to get them evenly cooked, though, and the large, soft curd texture I happen to like was out of the question with all that spitting and bubbling going on. Still, cappuccino-scrambled eggs don't use any butter or fat, so maybe this is useful if you're more afraid of those things than of cholesterol. And if you don't want to just boil some water and poach your eggs.

A couple of things to watch out for: You'll need toothpicks to clean egg debris out of your steamer nozzle. The bowl gets quite hot. And watch for flying bits of hot egg. Jeez.

-- Charles Perry

Photo by Charles Perry