The Good Egg

Good cooks have always known that when you have an egg, you can make a perfect meal at a moment's notice. Now nutritionists are confirming what our mothers told us: the egg is good food. In this landmark collection, Marie Simmons, an award-winning cookbook author whose deftly irresistible flavor combinations have inspired millions, celebrates the versatile egg with more than 250 recipes. This is the most comprehensive book on egg cookery ever published, and it's a dazzlingly diverse collection. It encompasses sophisticated dinners -- Gnocchi with Butter and Herbs, for instance -- as well as such superb desserts as Fallen Chocolate Soufflé Cake. And it's filled with tips and techniques for the basics: how to scramble, fry, bake, poach and hard-cook eggs. In these pages can be found convenient appetizers, comforting soups, flavorful sandwiches, innovative salads, sauces, soufflés, cookies, cakes, pies and tarts. Simmons provides us with literally hundreds of dinner possibilities, many of them vegetarian. She reinterprets such classics as quiches, adding broccoli and provolone or caramelized tomato and corn, and rediscovers dishes from the past, including the savory bread puddings called strata. She takes pasta far beyond red sauce with renditions that include eggs, fresh vegetables and herbs, and she serves up exciting main-dish salads for warm weather and, for wintry months, hearty Greek lamb stew with artichokes, thickened with egg-lemon sauce. And yes, there are scores of recipes for breakfast and brunches, ranging from Eggs Scrambled with Wild Mushrooms and Fresh Herbs to Eggs Baked in Fresh Tomato Salsa with Melted Cheese, not to mention French toast, Popover Pancakes, and more than thirty different omelettes and frittatas -- meals for any occasion. For dessert, choose between seductively light selections such as Hazelnut Meringue Cookies and Lemon Angel Food and rich creations like Classic Crcme Caramel, Lemon Curd Tart with Berries, and Spiced Sponge Roll with Maple Cream Filling and Walnut Praline. With egg information and intriguing snippets of lore throughout, THE GOOD EGG is the ultimate cookbook for a new generation of cooks.