Unrelated to the fact this week’s Scraps features a great recipe for eggs is the fact my friend, Bobby, has a book out in August called Isaac and the Egg. It is a massive coincidence. I promise. This isn’t a fake coincidence; by now you know the goal is to wing it as successfully as possible here and this week, for whatever reason, I’ve not had a ton of leftovers in. And I am also reading a book about an egg.
So I thought maybe Scraps is just about that this week? A week of not using leftovers? Fine. It’s been a week of finding recipes, doing a big online shop (and kind of revelling in Having Stuff In), and there has not being a single shred of food left each night. Also, as I write this on a Thursday night, Rob’s cooking something tonight, and Friday, who knows! Maybe we’ll just get a pizza and watch Pachinko (amazing show, Apple TV+, trust me).
This week’s stand-out is a really simple lunch that takes about 7 minutes to assemble. And below, I’ve shared the other stuff we cooked. No leftovers, which means it was pretty outstanding (or I’ve finally learned to measure?)
Also don’t forget next week kicks off veg month on Scraps! Four issues with not a single chicken thigh in sight.
1. Eggs fried in a garlicky, lemony, white-winey, chicken-schmaltzy sauce
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being ‘hardcore egg guy’ and 1 being like, eggs will literally kill me, I’m a 6. Maybe a 7. Pros: crispy, yolky, good in things when I get dinner. Cons: spitty pan, hissy noise, fussy, the counter is splattered with grease. If I put them in the medium pan the yolk splays out everywhere and looks tragic. If I put them in the mini egg pan, that marks the induction hob and I spent days scrubbing. But poached eggs on toast, with avocado, and some hot sauce, is objectively good. Fried eggs in bibimbap are sublime. Egg whites in cocktails always welcome.
So what happened? I literally have no idea, but it started the night before. Buckle up because I have to explain the original recipe to explain the egg thing. Basically, I’d seen this New York Times recipe for a lemony, winey chicken breast dish. Categorically not a breast man here (I made the same joke on Instagram, sorry) but they are really good in a few dishes (note to self: breast week?) including one I like where you kind of poach the chicken in this soy mixture and it tastes incredible. The trick is to pack the chicken with as much oil and liquid as possible – you know how dewy you get after a face mask? Like that for chicken breasts. So when I saw this recipe that involved cooking the chicken in an intense glug of oil, wine, garlic, and paper-thin slices of lemon, I really liked the sound of it.
What to serve it with? I’d had rice the night before, noodles felt a bit weird. I settled on really crispy roast potatoes, with loads of salt, plus some rosemary I had in the fridge. The dish was a revelation; the chicken cooks beautifully as it’s almost submerged in this golden liquid, and the lemon stays tangy and tart but also kind of confits in the oily, garlicky, winey sauce. Here’s what it turned out like.
Honestly a game changing dish. The smell was amazing. But even after we’d poured this sauce over the chicken, we had a bit left. Maybe three tablespoons. I stuck it in the fridge and the next day I was figuring out what I wanted to do when I had the idea of frying a couple of eggs in it.
On social media, people fry their eggs in pesto, and n’duja, but these eggs would take on the roasted garlic, the tart lemons, and even the umami-ish chicken flavour too. I’d serve it on toasted sourdough with a scattering of fresh herbs, and a dot of hot sauce. I wanted some kind of thick yogurt, too, with sea salt and lemon juice, but my shop downstairs only sold like, gooseberry yogurt and one that cost £6, but we make do with what we’ve got don’t we.
POV: the flat smells of lemon and roasted chicken juices and this really blissful new Oh Wonder song is playing from your speakers.
That’s what I’d do next time, I think, although that’s the only feedback I gave myself. It kind of needed the thick, mousse-like yogurt between the egg and the bread. If you do this yourself, maybe you dollop some hot sauce into the yogurt, or some harissa paste, and it’s kind of a spiky, hot yogurt. That would be good. Either way, I think I am now a solid 7.5 on the egg scale.
2. When in doubt, make larb
Not an original thought, is it, and I’d hate to claim I invented larb (I did not). But this is just the best dish to make; lately we have got into the habit of doing it on a Monday night. Dunno why. It comes together so fast, and it’s good with rice or noodles or even just some greens, since it’s technically a sort of meat salad.
The main flavour comes from the combination of fish sauce, shallot, lime juice, sugar, and chilli (I spent ages just using regular chillis for this, but trust me when I say bird’s eye chillis are the one here. They’re hot in a sort of ‘my tongue is excited’ way, not in a ‘my tongue is having a panic attack’ kind of way. Am I making sense? ). You add shredded herbs, typically mint and coriander, and then brown some ground meat – pork or turkey mince is good, I’ve also seen recipes with chicken mince (but I can never find that in Sainsburys). Very finely cubed chicken thigh might be good, if you can be bothered doing that in an evening. You need meat with a decent fat content, though.
You crisp up the meat, chuck it in with the saucy herby dressing, and serve it with whatever. I love making it so much. My only hack is, when you season your meat with salt and pepper, add a little bit of light brown sugar, too. It will help the meat (in my case, pork) caramelise and brown as it’s cooking.
The Honorary Non-Scraps Meal Of The Week (TM): This is a new section I have launched for a meal that was not made of scraps, but is so specific-tasting that I feel like it’s unlikely to be in rotation that often, either. It’s this turmeric caramel cod I made on Wednesday night. It’s so good! A really lip-smacking sauce made earthy from turmeric and sprinkled with cayenne, sweetened with brown sugar and rounded out with soy sauce. I literally have no idea what to do with the leftover sauce, so excuse me while I get my thinking hat on (currently imagining a big wrap with crunchy veg and maybe some rotisserie chicken, with this sauce drizzled over it). Watch this space.
