Recently I ranked all of Heston Blumenthal’s books, and in that I named Heston Blumenthal at Home my favourite Heston book. To celebrate let’s show you a recipe that really typifies his approach: Heston Blumenthal’s sous vide scrambled eggs.

The humble scrambled egg, that anyone can do, often one of the first things people learn to cook. Some people add milk, some people microwave, though if you just go to it in a pan over a low heat you get delicious fluffy eggs packed with flavour.

Heston favours the sous vide method. By vacuum packing the eggs into a bag and leaving in a 75°C water bath. With the occasional massage of the bag the eggs cook slowly but come up to temperature perfectly and they come out magical.

As usual the genius Blumenthal touch isn’t the method – though that is great – but the addition of brown butter at the end is what makes it. The clarified butter taken to the nutty stage adds a layer of flavour that is great with the eggs, simultaneously sweet yet savoury.

This kind of recipe is very representative of Heston – scrambled eggs is dish everyone knows but the addition of a little science and careful thought it is elevated above the norm. Give it a try!

heston blumenthal's sous vide scrambled eggs

A simple recipe elevated with techniques

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Course Brunch

Cuisine British

Servings 1 person

Ingredients

  

• 3 eggs
• 10 ml butter melted
• 10 ml double cream
• 10 ml whole milk

For the brown butter

• 10 g butter

Instructions

 

To make the brown butter:

• Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat. Once the sizzling subsides pay close attention to the pan. Look for it to turn dark brown and smell like hazelnuts. Immediately strain through a coffee filter paper or muslin into a bowl or cup and reserve for later.

For the eggs:

• Set the sous vide setup to 75°C.
• Whisk the egg, melted butter, milk and cream together along with a pinch of salt until well combined. Vacuum seal the eggs in a bag.
• Submerge the eggs in the water bath for 15 minutes. Every 4-5 minutes remove the bag and massage to mix (be careful of the temperature, use a towel or gloves).
• Serve with your favourite toast (I like a bagel!) and optionally garnish with chives. Add a spritz of the melted butter and eat immediately.

Video

Keyword eggs