Nero Wolfe’s 45 Minute Scrambled Eggs

If you haven’t read any of the Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout, you’ve deprived yourself of endless well spent afternoons. That’s why the books exist. They’re lunch to dinner length and engaging so you don’t nap away a day off.

My dad claims to have read them all though I don’t see how he knows. I’ve read ten or twelve, I think. Maybe I’ve read six of them twice or four of them three times. They’re not meant to be life changingly memorable. The plots are intricate enough to keep you guessing but evenly so throughout the series. They’re tuxedos; none of them impolitely stands out, interchangeable like a Bertie and Jeeves story, but with crimes more serious than pilfering cow creamers.

Murder’s not the thing anyway, at least for me. It’s the joy of spending time in the agoraphobic Wolfe’s brownstone with the orchids or in the study where every seat has an attending table to sit a beer on, stopping for a ham sandwich and a glass of milk with Archie Goodwin the narrator, or imagining the menu put out by Fritz Brenner, Wolfe’s live-in chef.

A&E did a Nero Wolfe T.V. (television) series, with Stout fan Timothy Hutton as an executive producer. He also played Archie. You can’t stream it anywhere right now and I don’t want to spend $48.11 to buy the series on DVD nor do I want to dust off my DVD player so I can’t tell you if the episode of the show I saw was a faithful adaptation of one book or a mash up of several, but there was a dame in distress and Wolfe agreed to put her up in the brownstone. The scene was taken from the book The Mother Hunt, or so the internet tells me. I don’t think I’ve read that one.

“Do you like eggs?” She laughed. She looked at me, so I laughed too. Wolfe scowled. “Confound it, are eggs comical? Do you know how to scramble eggs, Mrs. Valdon?” “Yes, of course.” “To use Mr. Goodwin’s favorite locution, one will get you ten that you don’t. I’ll scramble eggs for your breakfast and we’ll see. Tell me forty minutes before you’re ready.” Her eyes widened. “Forty minutes?” “Yes. I knew you didn’t know.”

I remember laughing and thinking, I bet forty-five minute eggs would be fan-something-tastic, but there’s no way I’d ever put that much work into something so simple. Recently I had an unpleasantness with a Tarte Tatin and needed a redemptive cooking spell to ease my mind. Labor intensive eggs became attractive.

I’m not putting this out as a recommendation. It was delicious, but I can’t say that the difference in flavor between this method and my less than five minute go-to is commiserate to the extra fretting. I’m did this for Wolfe fans or anyone else who heard about delayed anticipation eggs and wondered if the attempt was worth making.

Stout – “the Editors at Viking Press” are also credited as authors – put out The Nero Wolfe Cook Book featuring dishes served in the series. Bits of it are available on blogs here and there.

Scrambled Eggs I Assume Are Usually Made by Fritz but Were Made by Himself at Least Once for Mrs. Valdon

• 6 large eggs
• 1 cup light cream
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 grindings fresh black pepper
• 2 tbsps. butter
• 4 tbsps. clarified butter
• few drops tarragon wine vinegar

The first obstacle to making eggs that take forty-five minutes to cook is making eggs not take five minutes to cook. For that you’ll need a double boiler, or bain marie if you’re snobby or insecure. You don’t need to go out and buy one. If you have a pan or casserole dish, like the Pyrex on in the picture below, that fits into a stock pot, like the one in the picture below, without falling to the bottom you’ve got have the tools for the job.

Put six or so inches of water into the stock pot and bring to a boil.

Whisk the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper together in a bowl. I’m obliged  to write in a bowl for some reason. I don’t think you’d try to mix them on the counter or anything. It’s a conceit of the genre.

Once you have a boil, reduce to a simmer, put the non-clarified butter in the soon-to-be top pan, and the make it the is-now top pan. When the butter’s melted, pour the whisked eggs and company into the top of the double broiler.

Cover and go away for 15 minutes. The rest of this cooking process can be summed up in stages. I’ve arranged a photo montage for your viewing pleasure.

Act I: Nothing Is Happening.

Act II: Is Something Happening?

Act III: Maybe I Should Turn Up the Heat.

Act IV: Is That Supposed to Look Like That?

Act V: Oh, Wow! This Is Starting to Work!

The process took around thirty-five minutes rather than the aimed for forty-five. Don’t tell anyone. Once the cover comes off you have to stir every few minutes and I did turn up the heat slightly in Act III, but that was panic asserting itself. I turned it back down after a few minutes.

While the eggs are cooking put the clarified butter in a small pan over medium low heat to brown a bit and then reduce to a simmer.

There’s no magic moment when the eggs announce their arrival. I got tired of wondering “Is it done?” and declared it so when I liked the consistency, tasted, and adjusted for salt. Add a few drops of tarragon wine vinegar (if you don’t have tarragon vinegar, put some leaves in with the browning butter and add white wine vinegar at the end instead) to the brown butter and pour over the eggs. Give a final stir and serve.

They were far and away creamier and richer than my usual. I loved them, but I didn’t “Let’s do this all the time!” love them. It’s a fun parlor trick for when you have overnight guests you want to annoy by making them politely wait for breakfast. They’ll love the result and so will you, but you made them antsy for a while and that counts for something.

Now, back to trying not to burn Tarte Tatin. Enjoy.