Do You “Egg Foo?”
Young, that is! It’s an iconic dish – here’s a description:
“Egg foo young (Cantonese: fu jung daan) is a savory Chinese-American omelet characterized by its thick, pancake-like shape and fluffy texture. It is traditionally deep-fried or shallow-fried in a wok, which gives it a crispy, golden-brown exterior while maintaining a tender interior.”
Why am I telling you this? Because the great Writer / Chef Michael Ruhlman made it, so I had to as well!
Here is the photo that he shared and the recipe from Michael – he shared it on his Substack page and you should subscribe! I will share a link at the end of the story:
Of course, Ruhlman’s recipes are perfect, so of course I “jazz’d” on this a bit….first, I made the rice, with a few additions:
I make my rice with chicken stock, and I add sautéed garlic and some roasted corn – a bit more of a pop when you eat it:
Next up, time to “foo!”
I took sliced pork and diced it up, then combined the pork with 1 tbl oyster sauce and 1 tbl soy sauce and set aside to marinate:
I don’t use oyster sauce enough: it’s pungent and rich in flavor…set that aside because next up I made the slurry:
I made this sauce by whisking together the stock and cornstarch, along with sliced garlic and ginger – then I set it aside for the next part of the process, cooking up the marinated pork:
So, the rice is done, the slurry ready to go, and the pork cooked…so now I mixed the eggs, added the water chestnuts and slurry, then added the marinated cooked pork/chicken mixture and fried it up in a pan…
OK, I bother the flip of the egg foo young pancake a bit, but it didn’t matter: it tasted great!
Thanks Ruhls for the recipe – I subscribe to Michael’s Substack page where he posted it…go and subscribe yourself here:
I love the flavors of this dish – but why oh why didn’t I put some diced green onion on top for color? Because I forgot to buy it!
Oh well, I’m an amateur! I have cooked Ruhlman’s recipes before – remember this?
I am very happy with the plating of this dish, but making it almost broke me!
Here’s that story!
Some of you may know that I made a TV cooking competition show for PBS with Ruhlman:
This was BEFORE “Top Chef” – you can see more about the show and a lot more of Michael’s cookbooks by clicking on my story here:
I cooked one of the recipes from that TV series when I did my “52 In 22” cooking challenge:
I love this dish and make it regularly – here’s the recipe so you can too…
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Categories: Bite Eat Swallow, Bite! Eat! Repeat!, Chef memoirs, Cookbooks, Eat This!, Food, Food Writing, Recipes, Wacky Food, World's Wildest Food
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I have the mollet egg bookmarked for one of those sad days when I need a good laugh! Certainly a lesson in everything turning out good in the end! 🐣
It was REALLY tough for me to do, but it tasted good so you are right about that! Thanks for the comment!
This dish looks and sounds terrific.
Perchance I do not ‘quite’ agree with this very healthy offering being an American-Chinese dish per se – meaning ‘hibiscus egg’ it does originate from areas around what used to be known as Canton but is very well known, with but slight alterations to the recipe, in Vietnam, Japan and Malaysia, The best recipe I have noted is by our Nagi Maehashi of ‘recipetineats’ who does have millions of readers in the US and bestsellers on the NYT list.
Im only referring to how it is made in the US, NOT that it is from here…sorry if my post suggested that, because I agree this dish is clearly asian influenced and has to be from a country in that region for sure!
My wife’s first choice for Chinese food is egg foo yung, she loves it. It’s not something I usually choose, but I sometimes have some of hers if the portions are too large.
Best wishes, Pete.
My first time making what is basically an egg omelette over rice, and I loved it!