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To Feed A Crowd For Easter Brunch, Bake Your Eggs. Two Chefs Offer Their Recipes

By ALBERT STUMM (For the Associated Press)

As anyone who has ever made breakfast for a crowd can attest, it's no fun stressing over how people like their eggs, or churning out pancakes until everyone but the cook has eaten enough.

Instead, for Easter brunch this year, bake your eggs. That way, you can feed a large group all at once and maximize time with your guests.

Two chefs offer recipes:

In her book "Sheet Pan Suppers," Molly Gilbert adapted several breakfast recipes to serve up to eight people, including the whimsically titled "Greens and Eggs and Ham" and a doubled-up version of Israeli shakshuka.

Traditionally prepared in a skillet, shakshuka has a base of sautéed peppers, tomatoes, onions and garlic. Depending on the size of the skillet, five or six eggs are cracked into divots made in the sauce with the back of a spoon, and the dish finishes cooking in the oven or covered on the stovetop. Chopped parsley freshens it and crumbled feta adds creamy, briny notes.

Gilbert, on the other hand, uses a larger rimmed baking sheet and heads straight for the oven. She tosses the chopped vegetables with oil and cumin directly on the sheet pan and roasts them until they begin to brown. She then mixes in a can of crushed tomatoes and takes advantage of the bigger surface area by making enough divots for 12 eggs.

In just about half an hour, the dish is ready, bursting with contrasting flavors and textures from a handful of ingredients.

"You get that sweet acidity from the tomatoes, heat from the peppers," Gilbert said. "And the creaminess of feta on top just makes it so good."

For even more free time away from the kitchen, an egg casserole called strata can be assembled the day before, refrigerated overnight and baked when guests arrive. It's something of a savory bread pudding, with beaten eggs binding torn pieces of bread and any combination of breakfast meat, greens, sliced vegetables and cheese.

Lauren Lane, whose eponymous website focuses on entertaining and easy weeknight recipes, praised the dish for being infinitely adaptable to whatever ingredients you have on hand.

"You can literally go to the fridge and pantry and make it at any given time," Lane said, adding that her most recent strata was made completely from leftovers.

Many recipes call for placing the bread on the bottom and layering the remaining ingredients, but Lane prefers stirring everything together. It's easier, and it also allows little pieces of bread to peek out and become crispy in the oven as the eggs puff up.

Strata can be made hearty with lots of cheese and cooked sausage or bacon, or lighter by loading up on greens and other vegetables. Fill out the meal with a nice salad, a basket of pastries or some chopped fruit.

"All that can be done waiting for the main event in the oven," Lane said. "So hopefully you're just pouring mimosas and not running around the kitchen."

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Sheet Pan Shakshuka, from Molly Gilbert's "Sheet Pan Suppers"

Serves: 6 to 8

Time: 30 to 40 minutes

2 poblano peppers, seeded and chopped

2 jalapeños, seeded and chopped

1 shallot, chopped

6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 tablespoons smoked paprika

1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes

12 large eggs

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

1/2 cup chopped parsley

Toast or warm pita bread, for serving

Preheat the oven to 350℉ with a rack in the middle. On a rimmed baking sheet, toss together the chopped vegetables, paprika, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil until the vegetables are evenly coated.

Bake until the spices are fragrant and the vegetables have started to brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven.

Pour the tomatoes, with their juice, over the vegetables and stir to combine. Use a wooden spoon to make 12 evenly spaced divots in the sauce. The sauce will be runny. Crack the eggs into the divots and sprinkle with salt.

Return the pan to the oven and bake until the eggs are cooked, 10 to 15 minutes for whites to set with runny yolks. Remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle with parsley and feta.

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Lauren Lane's Make-ahead Breakfast Strata

Serves: 8

Time: 1 hour, 5 minutes

8 large eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup half-and-half

Pinch of ground nutmeg

Pinch of cayenne pepper

3/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 green onions, sliced

4 ounces (about 1 cup packed) greens such as arugula, spinach or chopped kale

1 to 2 cups chopped vegetables or cooked bacon or sausage (or combination)

8 ounces leftover bread torn into 1-inch pieces, such as English muffins, white or sourdough bread

1 cup shredded mild melting cheese such as Gruyere, provolone, goat cheese or Gouda. (more for the top if desired)

Preheat the oven to 350℉ with a rack in the middle. Grease a 1 1/2 quart (9-inch square) baking dish with butter or cooking spray.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, nutmeg, cayenne, salt and pepper together in a large bowl. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Pour into the prepared baking dish and top with the additional cheese if desired.

Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Uncover and bake until the strata is puffed, golden brown at the edges and set in the center, about 15 minutes more. Test the center for doneness.

Fried Egg Cooking Hack 'you Didn't Know You Needed' With No Oil Or Flipping

Cooking fried eggs without oil is easy by adding water and using a lid instead (Image: Getty)

Fried eggs are one of the most versatile breakfast ingredients and everyone has their own way of cooking them.

While some like them sunny-side up or over-easy, others prefer over-medium or well with a firm yolk.

Either way, three of them require careful flipping to achieve the desired texture, which is notoriously hard to master.

But with one TikTok content creator's cooking hack, you'll never have to flip an egg again

The simple trick, which was shared by Sean Jimminson on his TikTok account (@seanjimminsonfitness), cooks the egg without turning the yolk face down and potentially breaking it.

The method is often used for a dish known as Shakshuka (Image: Getty)

Sean talked his followers through "the fried egg hack you didn't know you needed", adding: "All you need is a frying pan, an egg, a splash of water, and a pan lid."

It also eliminates the need for any oil which is great for people trying to cut out or reduce their intake of saturated fats.

The combination of the lid and water is used to effectively steam the egg, cooking the yolk through from the top.

Sean said: "Add a splash of water onto the lid and cover the egg. And you'll never have to flip an egg again. Once it's sealed, remove the lid and you'll get perfectly cooked fried eggs every time."

When steaming eggs, the contact with ultra-hot water vapour heats the egg in the same way that boiling water or a hot cast-iron pan would.

This has a similar effect on the yolk as poaching, but of course, the final result depends on exactly how long the eggs are cooked.

Over easy eggs, which are cooked on both sides but still runny inside, should be cooked for approximately two minutes. And the best part is, there's no need to flip them over when using Sean's clever tip.

Many TikTok users were impressed by the steamed-fried egg hack, prompting some to comment on the video.

One person claimed that the method "worked perfectly" while another said: "Been doing that all my life. My mother did it before me. We always call them sunny side up."

A third person chimed: "oooooooohhh.....Get my pot lid out that cupboard!! Well trying this."

Some criticised Sean's tip claiming that it's "not good for a crispy white", which is achievable when using oil to fry the eggs.

How Egg Yolks Get Their Color, From Mellow Yellow To Electric Orange

While egg whites were the heroes of the early aughts, healthy fats have become the talk of the town. Now that yolks seem to be permissible in a healthy diet, egg yolks have reached next level in a spectrum of color from mellow yellow to electric orange. Writer Marian Bull ponders why "Orange Is the New Yolk" in a recent story for Eater.

Evan Kleiman: I'm so happy to have you. I have opinions.

Marian Bull: I can't wait to hear them.

What has been America's relationship with the egg yolk?

Well, it's changed a lot over the last 70 years. Thanks to some potentially misleading scientific studies in the 1950s, there was a big fear of dietary cholesterol in the second half of the 20th century in the US. Many of us who were alive and eating in the '90s are familiar with the egg white omelet, or maybe the carton of egg whites that you or your mom might have had in the fridge at any point between let's say 1980 and 2000. But given the interest that has developed among American eaters, diners and cooks in the last 20 years for finding more locally sourced ingredients and "natural" ingredients, we've become really excited about eggs and about putting eggs on non-breakfast foods. As we've become obsessed with humane farming practices and locally sourced food, the egg yolk has become this icon of virtue, regardless of how it's reached our plates.

When did the virtues of a jammy, orange yolk move from the restaurant to the home kitchen?

The egg entered more casual fine dining restaurants in the mid to late 2000s, in part because of the popularity of Dave Chang's Momofuku in New York, but also, thanks to the recession, which was a time when fine dining chefs were finding ways to serve cheaper ingredients in fancier ways. I think that in the mid 2000s, and especially in 2020, when so many people were stuck inside cooking and watching food videos, the egg, especially the jammy, soft boiled egg, which was definitely popularized by Bon Appétit, there was a spread in the magazine in the mid 2010s that was the first mention there of the jammy, seven-minute egg. It became this affordable luxury. 

Most people can cook an egg but to get that very specific, jammy, not undercooked, not hard boiled yolk, it does take a certain level of finesse. So it's super accessible but it's still something that you can fuss over. Everyone has their own way of doing it. Some people will boil the egg then put it in ice water, some people won't. Then, of course, there was the whole sous vide boom of the late 2000s, early 2010s. I think it's very familiar but especially now that we're getting these much more orange yolks on our eggs, it's a way for people to feel like they're having this little luxurious and very photogenic garnish on top of a plain bowl of pasta or rice.

Let's talk about those seductive orange yolks. Do they occur naturally?

Sometimes they do. There are certain breeds of heritage birds that do produce a darker yolk, particularly the Copper Marans hen, which has long been prized, particularly in France, I believe, for its rich flavor, its richly colored yolk. Even the egg itself is sort of a copper color, hence the name Copper Marans.

In the US, are they associated with a particular brand?

No, there are some brands that claim that some of their farms do raise Copper Marans hens and obviously there are small farms that raise them. But as far as brands that you can find in the grocery store, I think maybe one or two of them. The thing about this kind of heritage breed hen is that they don't lay as many eggs as the run-of-the-mill, industrial hen that these more high-production producers are using. So it's actually a less economically viable hen for a farmer to buy.

What are farms doing to get that yolk and seduce customers? Are they doing some kind of special feed supplementation?

There are a number of things that you can add to chicken feed to change the color of the yolk. Marigold and turmeric, I think, are two of the most popular options, which are natural ingredients and they don't really affect the flavor of the egg. There's nothing wrong with supplementing a chicken's feed with that. There's definitely something to be said for eating something that's beautiful. But there is this obfuscation of how those eggs are coming to look that way.

Yes, I understand there's a chart, sort of like a paint palette, that farmers can get and decide on what exact color of yellow to orange they want and how to go about getting that. 

Yeah, it's called the yolk fan. What's really interesting is that I think in different countries and across different cultures, the color of the yolk means something different. I've heard that in England, their version of the cheap diner egg that we have here is a super orange egg whereas our cheap diner egg is a pale yellow. So it is very easy for farmers, regardless of the living conditions of their chickens, regardless of the breed of their chickens, to achieve a wide variety of colors in the yolk, from pale yellow to a deep, dark orange.

As a person who has spent a lot of time in Europe, I'm familiar with picking up a carton of eggs that has deeply orange yolks. But I had an experience here in LA recently that really made me think. I went to a restaurant that is known for making an absolutely delicious and perfect omelet. I was so jonesing on this omelet, which I'd had many, many, many times before. It was served to me and it was orange. I mean orange. There was no yellow. I started to eat it and then felt I couldn't eat it. I ended up leaving because it so disturbed me. I've thought about that so much since it happened.

It's funny how a slight change in that color gradation can really affect your experience of what you're eating. I wrote this piece for Eater about the rise of the orange egg yolk. The reason that I got this idea was that my boyfriend bought a dozen of these eggs, made scrambled eggs for us and they almost looked radioactive. They were so orange. They tasted completely fine. They tasted delicious. They tasted like scrambled eggs. But I was really put off by them. I actually spoke to Susan Spungen, who's a food stylist, for the piece. She said that she likes to buy these orange yolked eggs for photo shoots because they are so visually striking. But one time she tried to make pâte sucrée with them and she couldn't use it for the job because it looked like it had been artificially dyed. It was like if you rolled out your pie crust and it was orange.

Depending on what you feed chickens, egg yolks can be a variety of colors, from pale yellow to deep orange. Photo via Shutterstock.

It's so interesting how in a pasta, it would read perfect. It would read rich, homemade, delicious. But in a different setting, for me at least, I had the exact same experience you did.

As they say, we eat with our eyes, right? But that also means that we can be grossed out by our eyes if it goes a little too far.

Are we also linking this color to a virtuousness, a super, all-natural experience?

I absolutely think so. Let's say you go to an upscale grocer where they have a lot of different kinds of eggs that you can buy. If you scan the different labels, you will notice that these labels are trying to make you think that these chickens are just living in the lap of luxury, they have acres and acres of land available to them, they have the world's most orange yolks. There's a lot of virtue signaling in the copywriting on these labels. It can make it really confusing, as a consumer, as somebody who's shopping and wants to buy yourself a dozen eggs that hopefully don't make you feel bad about yourself. But I think that the orange yolk has definitely become a signifier of virtue, of animal welfare, of "natural" products. And I think that can lead to companies sort of taking advantage of that.

I really love when we get to nerd out in a segment so thank you for going along on this orange yolk ride with us.

It's truly my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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