Anthony Bourdain's Figure-8 Technique For The Fluffiest Scrambled Eggs

Anthony Bourdain was infamous for hating brunch. In his memoir "Kitchen Confidential," Bourdain wrote, "Nothing makes an aspiring Escoffier feel more like an army commissary cook, or Mel from Mel's Diner, than having to slop out eggs over bacon and eggs Benedict for the Sunday brunch crowd." In his defense, it wasn't the eggs themselves he hated, but rather the tired concept of using leftover foods and hungover chefs to charge a premium price on the weekends. While it's no surprise the late chef and TV personality had strong opinions on just about everything, scrambled eggs come up in his books, interviews, and travel shows quite a bit.

One reason might be his French background; his paternal grandparents were French, and he sometimes spent summers on the southwestern coast of France, just outside of Bordeaux. Those mastering French cuisine know that eggs are the building blocks of flavor, technique, and texture. If you've ever enjoyed a quiche Lorraine, a chocolate soufflé, or a rare steak topped with creamy béarnaise sauce, you have the Frenchie's prowess of les œufs to thank.

In an interview with Insider Tech, Bourdain gives an informative but no-nonsense treatise on his scrambled eggs technique. No water, no cream, no messing around. While you might think eggs are one of the easiest meals to whip up, there's a surprising number of ways it can go wrong. To follow Bourdain's fool-proof method, you'll need a hot pan (but not too hot), very fresh eggs, a bowl, a fork, salt and pepper, and good butter. Bourdain recommends gently beating your eggs, salt, and pepper with a fork in a separate bowl just before adding them to the hot pan. Though you might be tempted to pre-beat and refrigerate the mix until later, he warns this will end up in a grayish stippled sludge that looks more greasy diner, less classy French bistro. 

You'll know the eggs are not over-mixed if you see a "ripple" of white and yellow in your blend as you pour them into the pre-heated pan full of hot butter, letting them form for a minute before getting to work. Here's where Bourdain works his magic: "I push them around using a sort of figure-8 pattern ... you don't want tiny little bits of egg as your final product, you want something fluffy, airy, rippled." When it comes to his perfect scrambled eggs, the less that's done to them, the better. Like many delectable dishes in life, it's simply a matter of quality ingredients, a little bit of technique, and a whole lot of patience.