How to Cook Like Heston: Eggs Quiz | Cooking and Baking

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. To begin, we have a little breakfast. One of life's great pleasures is the soft boiled egg. Traditionally, the way to cook it is to boil it for three minutes, but Chef Blumenthal states that it is too risky. So for the first step, place a medium sized egg in a small pot of cold water. Let it go on the highest temperature, and once the water boils, what's the next step to perfection?

Answer: Remove from the heat and let it rest for six minutes.

The very moment the water hits boiling point, remove it away from the heat and let it go on for six minutes. Low and slow is the way to go here, and despite being away from the heat source, the water still contains heat that slowly penetrates into the egg without the shock of a constant boil. After six minutes, take it out of the pot and have at it. For a Brit, you dip it with toasty soldiers, but Heston goes for blanched asparagus for dipping.

Boiling it over a heat source for too long contains two risks. If the yolk is perfect and runny, the whites might get overcooked. Whilst if the whites have the perfect texture, you may have an undercooked egg yolk, and that's a health hazard on its own.

2. Continuing with the breakfast theme, we have another morning classic, scrambled eggs. Heston visits the town hall to check on how some ladies make their scrambled eggs. There are four techniques, and one of them is done by Heston, but which one is it?

Answer: Cooking the eggs in a bowl over simmering water.

Just like the boiled egg, low and slow is the way to go. Whisk eggs with milk and a little cream and pour it into a bowl. By using a technique called a bain-marie, which is cooking the eggs in a bowl placed over a pot of simmering water, the heat is slowly distributed to the eggs without risk of making it too dry and rubbery in texture. Keep stirring for 15 minutes and add a few dashes of brown butter for added flavour.

The other methods produced decent scrambled eggs, but with direct heat in contact with the eggs, they easily get slightly rubbery and lose some of the creamy texture.

3. Let's get cracking with another classic egg dish, the great poached egg. Many myths of getting that perfect poached egg are all the rage, but Heston only mentions one simple thing to getting it right, a fresh egg. True or false: a fresh egg sinks in water, while an old egg floats.

Answer: True

Indeed it is true. Fresh eggs are heavier and have a denser egg white, which makes it sturdy enough to withstand the poaching water. Older eggs tend to float in water due to the whites losing moisture, which in turn widens the air pocket in the egg. An old egg also has a very watery egg white. This causes the egg whites to twist and turn in the water, and this ruins the texture of the finished egg as it gets rubbery.

Myths such as twirling the water to wrap the egg white around the yolk is an unnecessary step, whilst using vinegar can be detrimental to an egg. Vinegar can either make the egg too sour, or harden the egg whites too much.

4. One of the great mother sauces, mayonnaise is next. This has no twist involved, but Heston wants to demonstrate a simple misconception. Many believe that it is very easy to split mayonnaise when you add too much oil in one go. To emulsify, which of these ingredients will help mix the water in the egg and the oil?

Answer: Mustard

Add a little mustard to one egg and 100-150 ml of oil, slowly whisking the oil in. Once the egg and oil is combined with the initial streams of oil, you can increase the rate of oil in the mix. This led to an experiment with developmental chefs Otto and Jockey, and a massive mixer tool. Using a mayonnaise of a single egg, Jockey and Heston pour in bottles of oil, each containing 500 ml of oil into the mayo.

After a whopping 1.5 liters worth of oil, the mayo splits and gets ruined in a messy style. Moral of the story, don't be afraid of mayo, have a go! No need to buy jars full of white blob at the supermarket.

This also shows how much mess can be made with an egg, some oil, a power tool, and three over zealous chefs.

5. Let's take it up a notch: Heston challenges himself to make a scotch egg. But this is not like any scotch egg, this is one that has a runny yolk in the center. The first step is to half boil the egg. After half boiling, you need to stop it from cooking any further. How do you stop it from cooking?

Answer: Shocking the egg in ice water.

Just like in the first segment of the boiled egg, leave it in cold water and once it reaches the boil, take it off the heat, but only for three minutes instead of six. This will harden the white just enough, but you must stop it by shocking it in ice water.

This will keep the yolk protected from being cooked too much. After it is cooled down, go ahead and peel the shell away. My method of peeling an egg is by cracking the shell lightly and peeling it under a gentle stream of running water. You can also use a spoon to help shape around the egg and peel.

6. Now, we have semi-cooked eggs, but there's still the meaty casing, breadcrumbs and cooking to go! I want to ask you though, after boiling these eggs, which method(s) does Heston use to finish cooking the meat totally?

Answer: Deep fry, then finish in the oven.

After peeling the eggs, grab your sausages and peel them. Mince the meat in a processor with corn flour, water, enough salt and hot dog mustard, because Heston loves that stuff. Wrap the meat mixture around the egg and dip in flour, egg and panko breadcrumbs.

Deep frying for a short time will get the beautiful golden colour outside, but leaves most of the egg white and the sausage meat uncooked. To finish it off, take out the eggs and place on a wire rack and tray to bake in the oven at 190�C. After three cooking processes, you get a moist, juicy scotch egg, complete with runny egg yolk. This is just so gratuitous, and I love it.

7. This next recipe is a personal favourite of mine. Heston always wanted to make the ultimate lemon tart, perfecting the tart and removing the guesswork in making it. To begin, we must blind bake the puff pastry. Usually, baking beans are used to prevent the puff pastry from rising, but Heston has a somewhat...bonkers item to use in place of it. True or false: Heston recommends using coins to help blind bake the pastry.

Answer: True

Now, this may seem insane, but listen here. First lay your flattened pastry on a baking tray or mold, prick it with a fork to prevent it from rising and crush some parchment paper to ease it on the pastry. Now, instead of baking beans, coins are poured onto the pastry. The coins help conduct heat better, and ensures an evenly baked tart shell. Bake at 190�C (374�F).

Personally, I am not sure if I recommend it myself. If I were you, find a light set of ball bearings as a decent alternative. Just ensure they are made of a metal, and that they are not heavy enough to damage the pastry. There's better use for spare change...

8. The biggest form of guesswork is in the setting of the custard. Normally, they ask to wobble the tart to see if the lemon custard has set, but it is such a vague test. Heston has it all sorted, and that is by using his best mate. Which of these will help him measure the 'heat' of the tart?

Answer: Instant read thermometer

Baking the tart is simple, after infusing the custard mixture with lemon zest and juice, pour into the tart shell and bake at 120�C (248�F), and with a thermometer in hand, once in a while check the custard's temperature. Once it hits 70�C (158�F), you know it will set perfectly when it cools down. No need to wobble, just prod, wait and enjoy the perfect lemon tart.

Now that is a proper tea time delight.

9. And now for something completely different, breakfast, but for dessert. Don't adjust your monitor, you are seeing it right. It's Heston's bacon & egg ice cream, and this will boggle your mind. To start, instead of using a commercial ice cream machine, what does he want us to use? A hint, it's super cold, and is made from carbon dioxide.

Answer: Dry Ice

With commercial ice cream makers being expensive and cumbersome, along with his need for theatre, dry ice is cheap, and can make ice cream in mere minutes with just you stirring with a wooden spoon and looking like a witch's cauldron. But be careful, dry ice is extremely cold at -78.5�C (−109.3 �F). So have protective gloves or use spatulas to pick up the pallets. Also, you need to well ventilate the place to ensure you will not get a potentially fatal carbon dioxide buildup.

10. We have eggs in the ice cream mixture, and that's a given. But how do you add that bacon flavour in it without placing chunks of crispy rashers in that smooth ice cream? True or false: Heston infuses bacon in the milk and cream mixture overnight.

Answer: True

Absolutely, infusing the milk with grilled bacon will literally get bacon milk! After the infusion, heat it in a pan with egg yolks and sugar, and cook on a low heat till it reaches 85�C (185�F). This will slightly scramble the eggs in the custard. Once it's reached temperature, strain the mix and let it cool. This is where the dry ice comes in, but Heston wants to do more than that...

Inviting some of the ladies from the Town Hall, he gives them a seemingly standard breakfast of boiled eggs, when in fact, they are sterilised eggshells injected with his bacon and egg ice cream mix. He then cracks them all in a pot and adds the dry ice for a lovely cauldron effect. After stirring, wait for the fumes to dissipate and serve. What a way to finish a course!

Source: Author Abby_91

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor WesleyCrusher before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

How to Cook Like Heston: Eggs Trivia Quiz

Welcome back, the series of cooking like the masterchef Heston Blumenthal continues. Each quiz we'll look at one key ingredient, and this quiz, it's going to be eggs. Let's crack on with this magical ingredient.

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