Messy and Picky

Doesn't that look absolutely delicious? It's an open face egg sandwich. Fried for a few minutes on each side so the yolk isn't entirely set, still a little oozy, but not fully drippingly so. A slice of Metropolitan Bakery's French table bread (my favorite base bread). A dab of El Yucateco habanero sauce for a little burn. Now what if I told you that was a goose egg?! Yep, that's a tiny sliver, the last 2 bites, of a gigantic goose egg from Pecan Meadows Farm out in Newburg, PA.

I picked up two of these beauties at Fair Food in RTM last week. We got them in on Thursday and they're $3 a pop. The eggs are 4.5" from end to end (3" tall) and 7.5" around the waist. I don't have a scale handy, but it's roughly 0.5lbs or so, maybe a little more 0.40lbs. It's a little heavier than 3 chicken eggs in my unscientific kitchen test. The color of the eggs range from stark white to a scratchy light brown like in the photo above. I don't know exactly what kind of goose the eggs are from, but I'll find out and update the post.

Here's a chicken egg (from Natural Meadows Farm as previously posted about) in front of the goose egg.

After cracking a chicken egg and a goose egg, I compared the shells. The goose egg shell on the left is the bottom piece so the top piece is the narrower, longer part. Without a micrometer handy, I'd say the goose egg was fully twice as thick as the chicken egg and that chicken egg is pretty thick. When I hit the egg on the side of the bowl for the first time, it basically laughed at me. And this is coming from a guy who's now very very used to cracking an egg pretty hard from these much thicker shelled farm fresh eggs. A couple more clangs and I had it.

So here they are side by side. Yes, I know, they're not perfect comparison vessels, but I think many people are familiar with those small, glass prep bowls (4" wide) and your basic cereal bowl (6" wide). The goose egg's yolk is about the size of the whole chicken egg. The albumen of the goose egg was so remarkably clear. After seeing how cloudy an emu egg was [see here], I expected this egg to be closer to that. But it was just as clear, if not clearer, than a chicken egg. Based on how it tasted and the texture, I'd say it had more water content in the albumen, but didn't taste watered down.

A glory shot of the French table bread.

So here's your average Lodge Pro-Logic 10" cast iron skillet; my favorite cooking vessel. It takes up about 80% of the pan.

I broke the yolk and flipped it. The yolk bled out a little bit and took up even more of the remaining 20% of the pan.

Here's your basic egg sandwich I made for Messy. A fried egg with some cheddar and Oldwick Shepherd (mold ripened sheep's milk, cave-aged 3-4 months from Valley Shepherd Creamery). Note, her sandwich is on Metropolitan's multi-grain loaf which is a tad bigger than the French table bread, but basically the same size.

Here's the fried egg on your average plate (not a full sized dinner plate), with 2 smallish slices of bread. This sucker was huge. But how did it taste? It wasn't different from a chicken egg to me. If anything, it wasn't quite as tasty as the Natural Meadows eggs. I'm just spoiled by them really. I'm told that goose eggs are richer than your average egg, more sulfury, but the Natural Meadows eggs are just unreal. But that's not to say that the goose egg wasn't tasty – it was delicious. The albumen turned a very white white and fluffed up nicely. I have one more goose egg to try out (Messy vehemently refused to eat a goose egg) so I'll be scrambling one up soon. I hit this fried egg with a sprinkle of sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to bring out the flavors. Then I dabbed a couple drops of El Yucateco for a little tingle on the lips which is how I love my eggs.

We got a bunch in on Thursday, but I have no idea how many are left for the next week. Call the farmstand to see if there are any for you: 215.627.2029.

With Easter approaching, here's a shot of some colorful eggs that aren't dyed. Above is a rainbow dozen from Mark Skinner's Natural Meadows Farm hens. Mark raises 16 kinds of heritage breed chickens on his farm out north of Harrisburg. He makes the trek into Philly several times a week going to various farmers markets to sell direct and some other spots around town where he wholesales.

The eggs come in the coolest colors from your plain white and light/medium/dark brown to cream, maroon, brown speckled, blue-green and what one person exclaimed to me at the Farmstand: "like Mississippi mud". A few months ago, I got Mark to sit tight after dropping off an order of eggs at RTM to scribble down all the varietals of hens he keeps: Light brown eggs: Speckled Sussex, Russian Orloff, Turken / Naked Neck. Brown eggs: Wyandotte, Buckeye, Delaware. Dark brown eggs: Marans, RI Red. Speckled brown: Welsummer. White eggs: Hamburg, Ancona, Blue Andalusian, Leghorn, Black Rosecomb (more of show bird), Old English Redcap. Green-blue eggs: Ameraucana.

If you'd like to grab a dozen or few of these eggs, you can catch Mark at The Piazza Farmers Market on Saturday 10a – 2p or at Weaver's Way Co-op up in Mt. Airy or at Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market.

And one final tip: if you're looking to hard boil eggs, use older eggs. The egg shell will separate from the egg easier with older eggs.

Cherry Grove Farm makes some amazing cheese. Their raw milk cheeses are all aged at least 60 days (US regulation, so even their brie isn't a true brie) in their "cave." They make a decent variety of it too as you can see on their site here. Their cheeses also look nice too which doesn't hurt. Above is their Maidenhead cheese:

Semi soft cheese washed with local beer from Flying Fish Brewery in Cherry Hill, NJ. Super flavor and creamy texture are but a few of Maidenheads' attributes!

To me, it's like a harder, stinky brie. I'm no super cheesehead, but I like me a good cheese so forgive my lack of a proper cheese lexicon. It's definitely a creamy cheese, like Cherry Grove describes it as being, not dry and brittle and not buttery like a brie. Cutting into the wheel, the aromas are released and all that are within a few feet of it will smell it. It's not one of those take a step back because the nose hits you so hard cheeses, more of a pleasing stink to it.

Next up is their Herdsman which, I believe, they just started distributing last year. From the site:

Most often compared to cheddar, this creamy raw milk cheese is our best melting cheese for anything from an omelet to fondue. Unlike cheddar, Herdsman does not separate when melted.

I couldn't tell you about the Cherry Grove recommendation to use it as a melting cheese in omelets since it's so delicious on its own. I don't recall the flavor being as complex as it is this year. Last year, it was more of a fluke cheese from what I recall. They didn't intend to make it, it just happened. Perhaps one of those happy accidents in the cheesery.

And here's how we cut wheels of cheese at the farmstand. For perspective, that's your typical 8" – 9" chefs knife. This wheel of Cherry Grove's Toma Primavera is about 17" in diameter.

This washed rind recipe comes from the Piedmont Section of the Italian Alps. Toma has a deep, creamy flavor and can be best be described as "tangy." It melts beautifully and releases a stronger aroma and flavor when melted.

The Toma is my favorite of the Cherry Grove line. It's got a delicious, old, aged flavor, but without the crumbliness. It's got a richer color to it than the Herdsman (which I didn't take the time to distinguish enough while taking and editing the photos, d'oh) making that much more pleasing to the eye. I'm told that DiBruno Bros. further ages and washes the Cherry Grove Toma to a more brilliant red (bacteria) colored exterior. Very cool. This will lead to a distinctive taste different from what you'll find when purchasing Cherry Grove Toma elsewhere (like at Fair Food).

Cherry Grove has a really cool operation just north of Princeton, NJ. I really want to take a field trip up there to see everything. Reading the description of their farm lifts my spirits. Pasture raised cows producing luscious milk which makes delicious cheese. The whey from the cheese making process going to the pigs which live in a forest in the middle of the property. 1,000 pasture raised chickens roaming free. Even the wood they use for heat and hot water is from a great and sustainable source: tree surgeons drop off piles off wood on their property. This saves the surgeons money from dumping fees at landfills and this gives Cherry Grove free fuel! Awesome.

All of Cherry Grove's cheeses are available at Fair Food from (I think) $14.99 – $21.99 /lbs. We also have the Shippetaukin Blue, but I didn't cut any of it the other day, so no photos. It's an incredibly salty blue. Also on the crumbly side. I prefer my blues much creamier. A co-worker of mine couldn't finish the little chunk I cut for her as it was too salty. I'm pretty sure Whole Foods carries Cherry Grove cheeses and DiBruno Bros definitely does. I'm no good at pairing foods together, so you'll have to go somewhere else for that. I like cheese with just about everything. Happy munching!

Just a quickie post on a veggie I've never seen before: baby fennel. It's just what it sounds like. I'm not a fennel fan (nor anything fennel/anise/licorice flavored) so I won't be having any of it, but well, it's available at Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market. The crazy Saturday rush crowd may have already swooped in and grabbed all that we got in during the week (3 lbs), but we might get some more on Tuesday.

They're not even 1.5" wide at the base. The stalks are a solid 18" long with those familiar Apiaceae family leaves (think dill, carrots and parsnip).