Eggbeaters

I recently tried out Eggbeaters for the first time and have to say that I was quite happy with them. I made a great omelette using the Southwestern variety.

The website is a little kitsch and oddly 80's (at least to me) but there's nothing wrong with the product itself.

The point of Eggbeaters is that Eggs are a great source of protein and relatively low in calorie; however, they are ridiculously high in cholesterol which is almost entirely found in the yolk and not the egg whites (hence all the 'egg white omelette' orders you've heard.) Of course, because God has a sense of humour, virtually all the vitamin benefits of eggs are also in that cholosteral filled yolk. Eggbeaters makes their product out of the white but adds vitamins to make up for those lost in removing the yolks. This results in cutting the calorie count in half, eliminating all the fat and cholesterol.

I had mistakenly assumed that they were some sort of facsimile or vegan analog to eggs when in fact they're just egg whites fortified with things like beta carotene. (Beta carotene gives the Eggbeaters a normal yellow color as well.)


They come in flavored varieties as well: Garden vegetable, Southwestern, Cheese & chive. The sodium content is a touch high in some of the flavoried varieties, but not bad if you don't throw salt on your food (which you shouldn't need to if you're making it anyhow.)

Risotto al Nero di Seppia

Earlier I mentioned my favorite Sardinian desert and reminiscing about that gastronomic delight had me thinking about all the other amazing things you can get there that you can't seem to find here (outside of poor imitations in only the biggest cities.)


One of my all time favs has to be Risotto with Cuttlefish ink. Sounds strange, to be honest it smells strange, stains your teeth, and yet has the most amazing soft and delicate flavor. A link to the recipe will explain the work involved.

Here's a short video of what happens to you after you eat it, LOL:




Lucky bastard...

A fond food memory from Sardegna...

...I was lucky enough as a child/teenager to spend several years living on the island of Sardegna (Sardinia) and one of my favorite things to eat there was a dessert called 'seadas' (in some villages 'sebadas'.) I tried to find a recipe for them a few years ago and failed miserably; however, it is a relatively simple dish but the nuances are important. Today there appear to be several recipes (all very similar) for them so I'd like to provide one below which matches my best recollection of the dish. Essentially it is a little calzone of slightly sweetened dough filled with cheese, fried, then drizzled with bitter honey and lemon. Simple and yet exquisite, truly.

(Here's where I lived by the way: 6 Monte Altura, Palau, Sardegna

The recipe below serves 5, and you'll need:

500 gr of white flour
400 gr fresh cheese (some villages used a mild pecorina, some use a ricotta, and others some alternative fromaggio dolce)
50 gr lard
Some wheat flour
A half a lemon
Bitter honey (the best is usually from the blossoms of the strawberry tree)
Frying oil
Salt

Place the cheese in a saucepan, add 250 gr water, a tablespoon of wheat flour and grated rind of half a lemon; place the container on heat and mixing continuously leave it there until it is uniform and dense.

Remove from heat, extract a small amount of cheese , dampen your hands and form a little squashed circle of about half cm high, then dry it on a dishcloth.
Carry on like this until the cheese is finished.

While it all dries, pour the flour on a rolling board and work it with the lard, salting and joining as much lukewarm water as is necessary to have a dough of the right consistency (this will require experimentation - mmmmm...)

Spread it thinly with the rolling pin obtaining a wide, thin pastry strip; place the squashed cheese onto the strips and use the remaining strips to cover them; squash the ends together so that no air gets in and then use a toothed form of about 11cm to obtain bun shapes.

Fry in boiling oil, drain and bathe with bitter honey and drizzle with more lemon.

Apparently you can now also get frozen seadas ready to fry at the market, as I found in this GooTube video: