At the weekend I was on writing retreat, and I had a lovely time. Two whole days of nothing but tip tapping away on my laptop in bed, with the heated blanket on. No housework, no admin, no de-cluttering, no shopping, nothing except writing and a little bit of cooking and a vast amount of coffee drinking…
When I am home alone at the weekend, I do like an eggy breakfast. As one of the people I wrote about over the weekend was Marlene, I decided to have a go at her method of making scrambled eggs.
For about 15 years I have made my scrambled eggs in exactly the same way, namely, to the “Morty Method”. Morty is a very funny man I knew when I lived in Manchester, and he taught me a particular way of scrambling eggs. Basically his method was as follows. Melt a big chunk of butter over a low, low heat. Scramble one egg at a time, and when the eggs are almost done, add another egg, and keep going, until you have used as many eggs as you are after for your brekkie. Sounds a bit like the eggs would be overcooked, but they never are, they are always creamy and good. I use a silicon spatula to turn the eggs at my place, in the top of a double boiler, and a flat wooden spatula in a non-stick saucepan when I am at Mr R’s. I add my salt and pepper at the end.
But I realise, that it is very easy to get stuck in a particular way of doing things. So today I decided to give Marlene’s method a go. Here’s how she makes hers.
Marlene Dietrich’s Scrambled Eggs
To each batch of three room-temperature eggs, add one extra yolk, salt; beat with a fork, not with an egg-beater. Heat butter to a golden yellow, not brown. Pour the beaten eggs into it, flame low, turn slowly with the fork. Turn out flame. Keep turning with the fork to desired consistency. Serve immediately.
Marlene’s eggs were very good. Tasty and a nice texture. But you know what? I’m sticking to the Morty method. My saucepan was a bugger to wash-up, and using a metal fork just feels weird…
To me, Morty was famous for his scrambled eggs, but amongst our little Manchester posse he was most famous for his MORTY EYES. This is when the eyes of the Morton went all googly after too many beers. It amused me greatly to find this when I googled “morty eyes” – perfect!
