Scrambled Eggs with Porcini Mushrooms and Onion

Frying the onion and porcini

1. Scrambled eggs with mushrooms are especially tasty made with completely fresh porcini picked in the forest the day before. No other mushrooms compare in aroma to fried porcini. The mushrooms should be fresh and young – with dense, almost firm flesh and no insect damage. By the way, if you freeze porcini, nearly all of their flavor and aroma survives thawing. Dried porcini are possible in theory, but they are quite tough even after soaking. A simple omelet with mushrooms can also be made with store-bought button mushrooms.

   

   As they say, you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. You need fresh chicken eggs. I could say that eggs from a backyard hen are better, but, as you understand, store-bought eggs are not from backyard hens. So it is up to you. To make the eggs with mushrooms tender, add a little milk to the mixture, literally a quarter cup. When frying the porcini you can add onion – it gives the dish a note of sweetness. For serving dishes like this I always use fresh parsley – I recommend it.

   

2. Prepare the mushrooms: clean the porcini thoroughly of any leaves and soil, wash them, and pat dry with a towel. Porcini do not need to be boiled – that way they stay firm and keep their incredibly pleasant aroma. Cut the mushrooms into large pieces, but not cubes – the pieces should be flatter, almost like slices.

3. Fry the onion. Heat butter over medium heat in a large flat-bottomed skillet. For obvious reasons it should be real butter, not a spread of unknown composition. Eggs with porcini made in butter have a very pleasant, delicate mushroom smell that nothing distorts. Peel the onion, cut it into thin strips, and fry in butter until it starts to turn golden.

   

4. Fry the porcini with the onion for 6–7 minutes over medium heat. For even browning, stir them with a spatula and do not cover the skillet with a lid. It is important not to overcook the porcini – they should be soft and keep the shape of the pieces. In the end the eggs with mushrooms should have clearly visible large pieces of mushroom.

   

Pouring in and frying the eggs

1. Crack the eggs into a bowl, add a pinch of salt, and pour in the milk. Stir the mixture with a fork, but do not whip it. Stirring the eggs is what gives the dish its name – scrambled eggs, which we make with porcini and fried onion.

   

2. Reduce the heat to minimum and spread the mushrooms and onion evenly over the bottom of the skillet. The dish is not stirred after the egg mixture is poured in: the pieces stay exactly where you put them.

   

   Carefully pour the egg mixture over the fried porcini and onion with a ladle. It is important not to leave gaps, so the eggs have no breaks. The egg mixture should also be poured below the mushrooms and right up to the walls of the skillet.

   

3. Fry the eggs with mushrooms over low heat until fully set, without covering the skillet with a lid. This usually takes 8–10 minutes. When you gently shake the skillet, the egg mixture stops “jiggling”. That is the sign the dish is ready.

Serving

1. Move the eggs onto a plate of a suitable size. The dish is fried in plenty of butter, so it does not stick to the bottom and sides of the skillet at all: just tilt the skillet toward the plate and the eggs with mushrooms slide right out.

   

   Season the finished dish with black pepper, preferably ground from peppercorns just before. Sprinkle the eggs with finely chopped parsley – just the leaves, throw the stems away. Serve the eggs hot, with white bread. Enjoy!