January 2021 – Forfeng’s Blog

Compound Butter, Part Deux

Posted on January 27, 2021 by Chef Forfeng

Rosemary, Basil and Black Garlic Salted Butter rolled in Cracked Black Pepper

Yesterday I did a short online food session for the Nebraska Bed and Breakfast Association; a good portion of the topic was on Compound Butters. Last year I had written a blog post on Compound Butter Tips and Ideas for Innkeepers. I wanted to elaborate a bit more on some of the questions we had yesterday on some accompaniments and uses for compound butter for hospitality people and any home cooks who want to up their game a tad in the kitchen.

I’ll start with the butter itself. I had in the past post mentioned Kate’s Homemade Butter (still a favorite!). It was introduced to me quite a few years ago by an innkeeper friend. When you are ready to make compound butter, you want the butter soft enough to push a finger into but not melting. I prefer to use a whip rather than a paddle as I find it makes the butter much airier.

Whip butter on high for about twenty minutes, I use a Kitchen Aid mixer, but a hand mixer will also work; just be prepared for your hands to get tired holding the mixer up. 🙂 You want the butter to be light and easily spreadable, and it will change color to a much lighter shade.

What pairs with compound butters? My flat answer for that one is well, everything, what can you mix with butter to make compound butters? My flat answer is well, pretty much anything edible (within reason). But that flippant answer doesn’t generally help anyone. If you do not have a trained palate and it’s become easy to just “know” that this ingredient will go well with another ingredient, that’s great, but I realize it’s not so easy.

Honey Matcha Butter rolled in Toasted Sesame Seeds

In terms of what goes well with what. Think ground level, any sweeter compound butters, like a few listed on the afore mention compound butter blog; like Toasted Pecan and Maple Butter, Orange Honey Butter, Ginger and Grapefruit Butter, etc. will pair well with any sweets, especially breakfast sweet dishes like waffles, pancakes, french toast, muffins and quick breads.

Can you use sweet butters on savory dishes? Yes, but I’d limit them to some vegetable dishes (to balance out any acidity or tartness in the dish) fish, or poultry. It’s not a hard and fast rule of thumb, because a nice maple ginger compound butter is fantastic on a grilled steak, but it’s also a matter of personal taste and preference.

Savory butters like Roasted Cerignola Olive and Rosemary Butter, Chipotle and Smoked Paprika Butter and Jalapeno, Lime and Cilantro butter for example, will go very well on pretty much any savory dish, vegetable, meat, poultry, or fish.

Crossover butters or ones where there is a fine line between sweet and savory are more weighted towards using them just for savory dishes, but some like Chocolate Balsamic Butter, Honey Sriracha Butter and Macha Tea and Ginger Butter, go very well on muffins, sweetbreads, and pancakes or waffles. Especially if you are doing a pancake or waffle recipe like a sweet potato pancake. Honey Sriracha Butter is awesome on Sweet Potato Pancakes. Why? Because of the base ingredients. Honey and Sweet Potato pair well. Sriracha and Sweet Potato pair well.

When thinking about what ingredients will work well with others, if you don’t know, do some experimenting. Taste the base ingredients by themselves and see if the flavors meld. And I mean don’t make a recipe with the ingredients. Try a small taste of a fresh tarragon leaf for example, and then try a vegetable or a small taste of another spice. Much of cooking is a matter of preference.

I love Anise but loathe Tarragon (which has a slight anise flavor), so it’s never and will never be in my pantry. But that’s a personal taste preference. I do know what it pairs with though because I’ve explored that in depth. The same with doing compound butters and pairing them with dishes.

Do a little experimentation. With the exception of herbs like cilantro, which to some people it tastes like soap, if something tastes good to you, there’s a pretty darn good chance it will taste good to someone else.

When you are making compound butter, don’t be afraid to make it in larger batches, whether rolled into a small tube in parchment paper and chilled and then sliced and frozen, it is a great added taste (and texture) addition to a lot of dishes.

For a little more variety, don’t just add ingredients “to” the butter; what else compliments it? This weekend I made several compound butters. The rosemary, basil and black garlic butter I rolled in some fresh cracked black pepper.

This butter will be a lovely accompaniment to some nice tuna steaks we had in the freezer. The matcha and honey butter rolled in toasted sesame seeds is being reserved (frozen) for the next time I make spicy Asian stir-fried shrimp. And last but not least, the maple lime butter I rolled in Hoosier Hill Farm granulated honey (Yummy!) and had it on fresh biscuits this morning.

Short butter roll/long butter roll (above) rolled in parchment paper

What about those ends of the butter logs, what to do with? I freeze them until I have enough to make a pie dough with. Most home cooks won’t care what the ends of butter rolls look like, but for me, it’s a force of habit to save them. The chocolate Grand Marnier logs I had made and had bits and pieces and ends of will go into a nice chocolate and toasted pecan pie crust soon.

What about amounts? Use your taste buds on this one. I don’t do set in stone amounts with compound butters unless the ingredient is one that does not vary in flavor. One chopped teaspoon of fresh garlic to 1 cup butter may be great midsummer, or if you have a particularly pungent bit of garlic, but what about midwinter, when it takes almost twice as much garlic to get that garlic flavor you are looking for?

Even brands can change the taste significantly amount wise. We have a fondness for Kikkoman Lime Ponzu and Chili Ponzu, and I’ve tried other brands, they are not as citrusy or as tasty to use in my opinion, so the amount would vary. Plus in those cases if I was making a ponzu flavored butter I might be adding more citrus zest if having to use an alternative brand.

Just like experimenting with flavor paring, taste your butter. Does it taste good? What else does it need if anything. If you don’t taste the added ingredient and you just taste butter, add more.

Last but not least, salted or unsalted butter for compound butters? If you are not adding salt to the rest of the ingredients for a compound butter (like a sea salt or other flavored salt), use salted butter. Use unsalted only if adding salt flavor to it, like Kosher, sea, flavored or an ingredient that might already be slightly salty, ie, some types of olives, soy sauce etc.

But but but, what if it’s for a sweet dish? Salt enhances the flavor of pretty much any sweet dessert, even nonbaked ones. When I make my chocolate mousse, I add a pinch of salt. When used in moderation, it does what it is supposed to, enhances the flavors already there.

Actually one more thing (sorry I lied :), when using spices, not dried herbs but spices, toasting spice mixes lightly in a cast iron pan can add some lovely additional flavor to your compound butter mixes. Just make sure your kitchen has good ventilation, especially if toasting any hot spices.

Stock Glorious Stock

Posted on January 19, 2021January 27, 2021 by Chef Forfeng

Demi-Glace. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s Stock!

Stock sweet stock, liquid gold, a good stock is something you can drink “as is”. Forget about adding it to a soup or sauce. It’s good on its own with the slight addition of a touch of salt and pepper.

While I can cook pretty much any cuisine under the sun and have mentored under French, Austrian, Italian, and I’ll call them “Modern American cuisine” chefs for lack of a better term; Plus I’ve had several Asian friends who taught me a considerable amount about Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Indian and Moroccan cooking; among others, my strengths and love is as a saucier. I love to make soups, stews, sauces, and…..you guessed it, stocks.

My pinnacle of perfection in a sauce (just like a lovely stock) is taking a spoonful of it to taste for any adjustments, and just wanting to drink the sauce down by itself.

Forget the seared tuna, the pork medallions, the chicken scallopini; just give me the sauce. Yummers!

The key to most good sauces, specifically for meat and poultry, is a damn good meat stock. Brown sauce (made with a meat stock) is one of the traditional Mother sauces; I’m not going to quibble about is there 4, 5, 6 or even I recently saw a classification for 7 Mother Sauces (also called Grand Sauces) because that’s not the topic at hand here, stock is.

A traditional brown sauce (or Espagnole sauce) is a rich, dark colored sauce made from stock thickened with roux (generally fat and flour and cooked a bit), pureed tomatoes, and mirepoix (usually carrots, onions and celery), and then strained with various additions to it to make various sub sauces or daughter sauces.

There are a million and one recipes on the internet and in cookbooks for how to make brown sauce, and all pretty much the same, so am not going to waste your time with a recipe, when your buddy Google is easily at hand.

What I do want to talk about, is the base for a damn good brown sauce is an excellent stock. And I’ll preface this by saying I am NOT trying to pick on my Alumni school here because it is the premier Culinary school in the world (call me bias), but I do have to add that I learned more about traditional French cooking working for Chef Yves Labbe at Le Cheval D’or in Jeffersonville, VT then I learned at the Culinary Institute of America.

Yves took pretty much everything I was taught at school and chucked it out the window. His cooking was traditional country French culinary, meaning cream, butter, and salt in large amounts in pretty much everything.

Yes, we used all of those ingredients in the E Room, also known as the Escoffier restaurant, now renamed the Bocuse Restaurant, at CIA, but there were many differences.

The #1 difference and not just in the French restaurant in school but also taught in the basic skills classes you have when you first start the culinary program where they teach you basic stock making and mother sauce making. The difference is in the stock.

When I was first hired as Yves’ Chef de cuisine, he ran me through some of the basics of what he had on hand all the time. On my prep list, the first day was to make a large pot of stock for use in many of the sauces on the menus.

I browned the bones, prepped my vegetables, all was going well until…………………..I started skimming the stock.

Imagine in your head, if you will, a short red-faced Chef with a very heavy French accent yell quite loudly “What are you doing???????”. Me: “Well, Chef, I’m skimming the stock.” Queue the heavy French accent again. Chef: “NO, NO, NO! Do NOT skim! Fat is FLAVOR!” A phrase to be repeated numerous times in the course of working there but usually used in a loving way about things like butter, cream, and anything bad for you in general.

It was, I think, the only time he ever raised his voice to me, but he did adore yelling at my Sous Chef on a daily basis, “Jayyyysoooonn (Jason) what the ell (Hell) do you think you are doing??“.

A brief discussion ensued where I stated I was doing it the way the CIA had taught me, skim the impurities off, including the fat, etc.

To make this brief, Yves wanted to prove a point and had me make the stock the way school taught me, using lean ingredients, etc.. He made a batch the way he traditionally made it, lots of fatty meat, table scraps, pan drippings, and pretty much any vegetable lying around that would add flavor including peelings. He did take the fat off the stock but AFTER it was chilled off and solidified on top.

I do have to say, my first taste of his stock vs. the “traditional” way taught me was “Hot damn, that’s incredibly good!” Yes, his stock was muddy looking and not clear vs. how CIA wanted a clear and beautifully clarified one. His take on it was this was how it was done in France and when you added additional elements to a brown sauce, roux, herbs, cream, butter, liquor, or wine, the finished product was enhanced more by the flavor, and the clarity itself was kind of moot at that point anyway.

We did make consommé at the restaurant, and his was crystal clear. But Fat IS Flavor.

I also worked for an Austrian chef, his nickname behind his back was not a very nice term honestly, people might remember the Soup “fiend” from Seinfeld; this was the Food “fiend” The character reminded me of a conglomeration of several chefs I worked for over the years. His “No soup for you” reminded me of a Thanksgiving Day at Trapp Family Lodge (where I did my externship from CIA) and Chef Michel Martinet’s “Nobody faint in my kitchen” rant, also a topic for a future blog post.

In this kitchen (the kitchen of the Food “fiend”), the first few months, every new cook had a bucket next to their work station. At the end of every service period, the chef would spread a tarp out on the floor and everything that could have been utilized in some way, in a stock for example, ends of bell pepper that could have been used for garnish, etc. if it was found in the bucket, he docked your pay. Don’t worry he didn’t use the scraps after the fact 🙂

I learned more about food scrap utilization from him, and as a result, had a very low food cost in the restaurants where I was in charge of the kitchen. He was so anal retentive that when we chopped parsley for garnish (this was the early 90’s and parsley plate garnish was still a “thing”), he made us use a pastry brush and get every little speck of chopped parsley off the cutting board to use.

You might say whether you are a home cook or a professional chef, parsley is cheap, but in a restaurant that would go through 8-10 bunches of chopped parsley a night, a couple of cents adds up every day. I don’t remember the exact amount that I costed out years ago, but I estimated that if he had not made us do this, he would have by the end of the year thrown out about 400 dollars of product just from that little bit left on every cutting board.

He put pretty much anything in stock, and his favorite stock was called the “everything” stock, and it was on low every day and every night. Things got added to it continuously, meat and vegetable scraps, and it got strained down when the big pot was too full and started anew.

You might think there was no consistent flavor because there was such a mélange of beef, pork, chicken, duck, and other meat and vegetables, but it always consistently tasted wonderful. When I helped open Harvest Market in Stowe, VT. this was always a hot seller, I’d make big batches of vegetable and “everything” meat stock and we would sell it by the quart out of the freezer section at $7.00 a quart, not too shabby for scrap utilization, but it tasted wonderful!

This chef was a close friend of both Yves and Chef Michel Martinet. I just found out Michel passed last year and was very saddened to find that out. He was a mentor of mine, and I had gone back to work at Trapp Lodge after I graduated from the culinary before being lured away to another job.

I still have the recommendation letter he wrote for me in 1991 when I went back to school to finish and graduate.

In Vermont’s Green Mountain area, specifically the Stowe and surrounding towns, there was a network of chefs from the old country, and their word (and knowledge) was worth their weight in gold.

In years going forward, when I ran my kitchens, I saved every scrap that was usable for stock and, when I had room froze it if needed until I had enough for a big batch of stock. Homemade stock beats commercial stock base every single time, plus it’s cheaper.

How does this apply to a home cook? If you have a little spare freezer space, start saving those carrot ends, garlic peelings, celery tips, herb stems (after the leaves are removed for use), chicken bits, sparerib bones, roasted chicken carcasses, etc.

If you are a big fish lover, same thing, shrimp shells, crab shells, fish bones, and lobster shells for fish stock. No, I don’t mix them with a meat stock, but you can mix fish stock with chicken bones for an enhanced flavor.

When you have enough product for a gallon or so, add it all to a big pot, cover with water and simmer for a few hours, and strain.

Chill down responsibly, ie, please don’t just stick several quarts of hot stock in your refrigerator as you don’t want to poison your whole family.

Putting a pan in a water bath with ice cubes or chilling it down with a chill stick is so much safer from a food safety perspective. Retail refrigeration is just not made to keep up with a lot of hot steam added to the mix. It’s never anything I would recommend in a professional kitchen either but it’s a thousand times worse in a home kitchen.

When your stock is chilled overnight, the fat will rise to the surface and form a solid layer, and it makes it that much easier to remove it at that point rather than trying to skim off any fat prior.

Stock freezes very well, or you can reduce even further to make demi-glace, which is a much-reduced stock.

What NOT to put in “everything” stock

Too much onion or garlic peelings (unless you like a heavily garlic or oniony flavored stock How much is too much? The peels from a dozen onions is too much per gallon of stock, peels from 10 cloves of garlic the same.
Anything in the brassica family; cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, rutabaga, kohlrabi, rutabaga, collards, turnip, brussels sprouts etc.
No potato peelings of any kind, this includes white potatoes (all varieties), sweet potatoes/yams
I would also stay away from adding things like taro root and cassava as well, while they won’t make your stock sour, similar to squash and squash peelings they can give a starchy mouthfeel to a stock.

Both members of the brassica family and potatoes will make your stock sour, but pretty much any other kind of vegetable is fair game. Any leafy greens can also be added but use sparingly and add towards the end of the cooking time.

Just making vegetable stock is also fantastic, just exclude any meat products. For only vegetable stock there are some additional notes you may want to consider as vegetables if used in larger amounts can overwhelm the delicate flavor of a vegetable stock. If the vegetable base calls for something predominately, like making a vegetable Jambalaya, Okra is fine, but it will also impart a strong background flavor.

Use sparingly:

Okra
Asparagus
Beets are ok, but no beet skins, greens can also be used but added later in the stock cooking stage.
Chards
Cilantro and larger amounts of any strong herb, rosemary, and marjoram fall into that category.
Hot peppers
Lettuces (remember no cabbages)
Spinach

Demi or Demi-Glace (photo at top) is made by reducing a stock down significantly, while traditional recipes say that demi is reduced stock plus brown sauce (or Espagnole sauce), all of the commercial kitchens I’ve ever worked in, it is only very reduced stock. Traditionally reduced by half, I reduce it to about 1/4 of the original liquid. You will not get the gelatinization that you will with a vegetable stock or fish like you will with a meat stock when it’s as greatly reduced.

I typically will take a batch of demi (like the one above), cube it up into 2 inch pieces (after it’s been chilled and solidifies) and freeze the cubes slightly separated on a well wrapped sheet pan to keep out freezer odors. When frozen, I’ll put into a ziplock bag and can take cubes out as needed for sauces or soups/stews. Go forth and happy stocking!

Mango and Apple Swirl Spice Cake

Posted on January 11, 2021January 11, 2021 by Chef Forfeng

Preheat oven to 325 F

Makes 2 ea. 8 Inch Springform cakes

Like most of the baking recipes I have been doing during quarantine baking, they are either adapted from Epicurious or Bon Appetit, mostly because if I do end up doing the original given recipes to test whether we like them or not, they usually turn out exactly as promised (unlike many of the other baking recipes floated around online) that have not been tested in actual test kitchens, i.e. to make them reasonably foolproof.

I don’t know how many times a friend has called me up and said, “Oh, I just tried this recipe, it looked soooo good, and I must have done something wrong….” and then sends me the recipe. It’s usually something that’s author error, either not scribing the recipe down correctly or adapting someone else’s and not testing or just making it up as they go along. Apologies if that sounds a bit skeptical, but considering how often friends reach out to me for culinary advice and how many times I’ve looked at a recipe and went, “it’s not you, trust me, it’s not you.” You can’t expect non-professionally trained people to recognize there is not enough (or too much) of a spice, or it’s missing a step, or an ingredient or five is not entirely correct or not even there, i.e. missing it completely.

The original recipe this is based on was Swirl Spice Cake from Epicurious.

The first time I made this, I added in some diced apples, we had been getting some wonderful local apples this past fall, and when they start to turn a little or get spotted, i.e., my husband won’t eat them, I dice them up and freeze them to use for baking or cooking. The first time I made this, I doubled the recipe, got distracted, and added half the amount of sugar called for. I compensated by drenching it in orange Grand Gala liqueur, orange juice concentrate and powdered sugar, about four times the amount called for in the Epicurious recipe (with the addition of the Grand Gala and minus the pecans with some altered spice mix as well) for the first time I messed with this.

A few additional differences between the original and this recipe as I altered to taste some of the amounts and ingredients. Salted vs. unsalted butter in the streusel mix, their Savory to Sweet mix is different, mine because I like espresso vs. regular coffee in recipes, and being out of at the time: pecans, orange peel, cardamom, and fennel. I have all of those now (except for the bee pollen) but like the flavor better with the original mix I made.

Baking time is different from the original recipes as I use springform pans. No parchment liner instead of loaf pans with liner, decrease the amount of sugar slightly. When I did the recipe again with the appropriate amount of sugar (see note last paragraph), it was too sweet, especially with the orange glaze (no liquor). Plus, I added some passion fruit flakes for this batch, which added some slight tartness.

I’ve been using maple syrup as a sub for pure vanilla for ages. It is cheaper for one, and I’ve baked with both side by side, and honestly unless the vanilla is for something specifically vanilla flavored, you can’t tell the difference in a baked product, custard yes, baked no.

I also cream the butter and sugar, add the rest of the wet ingredients, and then slowly incorporate the dry ingredients. A lot of these recipes online make you do five steps for things that you can get the same results with two stages, and I had been doing those 2 or 3 steps for years cooking professionally, so I kind of roll my eyes when I see some things.

Many of these online recipes make me crack up because it takes twice as long to do something that doesn’t have to be done the way suggested. There is also a huge difference between when you have a couple of hours free to make a cake at home vs. you’ve got about 10 minutes or less to whip something together in a restaurant kitchen.

For the middle streusel mix:

¾ cup light brown sugar
¼ cup AP flour
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
½ cup melted salted butter, I prefer Kate’s Homemade Butter (localish out of Maine)
¼ cup espresso powder or very finely ground regular espresso (a little less if using the straight coffee as the flavor is stronger)
2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 Tablespoons ground ginger

Dry Ingredients:

4 cups AP flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
½ teaspoons baking soda

Wet Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups sugar
1 ½ cups salted or unsalted butter, room temp
6 eggs, room temp
1 cup sour cream
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
½ oz. Suncore passion fruit flakes

Add to batter:

16 oz. mango chunks (I used Wymans frozen mango chunks and cut them up a little bit more as the chunks were kind of large, let them defrost prior to mixing into the batter), do not strain any liquid.
16 oz diced apples (skin on) of your choice. (For this recipe, we had some frozen diced Macoun apples from our local orchard that were going soft so had diced them up and frozen to use for baking at a later date.)

Cake Glaze:

½ cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons orange juice concentrate, room temp
5 Tablespoons Grand Gala Orange liquor
(you can skip adding the sugar and orange juice but definitely recommend dousing with the orange liquor)

Method:

In a stand mixer with a paddle, cream butter and sugar together, incorporate in slowly all of the eggs, than add the sour cream and maple syrup. Add in the dragonfruit flakes and mix on slow.
Sift the dry ingredients together and slowly incorporate into the sugar/butter/egg mix. Scrape batter into a large bowl and incorporate the apples and mangos.
Spray the pans with non-stick cooking spray, I prefer Vegalene (available in restaurant supply places or Amazon) as it’s what we always used in professional kitchens and in my opinion it’s much better than retail cooking sprays like Pam.
Mix the spice mix together including the melted butter, it will look a bit granulated.
Spoon half the batter into the pans and spread evenly, split the spice mix between the two pans and swirl around evenly on top of the batter, spoon the rest of the batter over the top and settle it. I pick the pans up about 2 inches off the counter top and tap a couple of times onto the counter to help settle the batter.
Bake for 1 hour 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean
Remove from the oven and place on a baking rack and let cool in the Springform pans for about 15 minutes before loosening the springform clips.
Remove the outer ring of the springform pan, leaving the cakes on the bottom forms. You may want to move the rack on top of a baking sheet at this point as the next step can make a little bit of a mess.
Combine the orange juice concentrate, Grand Gala and powdered sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves, spoon the mix over the top and sides of the still warm cakes.(or just the liquor if you choose)
Serve warm or let cool completely before refrigerating. Good hot, cold or toasted. Wrap well as the cake can pick up refrigerator odors. This recipe freezes well.
This is a pretty dense cake, it gets denser when refrigerated, more like a traditional pound cake than airy cake.

I made several mini cakes with this as well mixing in Suncore red dragon fruit powder (red coloring), the cook time was about an hour and 15 minutes for these, I have been playing around quite a bit with Suncore foods color powders off and on. I fell in love with their food color powders a few years ago but don’t buy often as they are a bit on the pricey side, but well worth it for the results especially for cookies, meringues, macarons and custards.

It’s on my to do list to mess with them with some fresh pasta which I will do at some point soon. I’ve made black pasta with squid ink in a few of my restaurants before but have not experimented (yet) with their ebony carrot powder which I’m looking forward to. When I was at CIA and we had a module called Experimental Kitchen in our first year, my partner for the week and I were experimenting with colored pastas and dessert pastas, considering this was in the very early 90s probably a little before it’s time but we had a lot of fun with them. I do remember we tried some pretty wacky flavors, but the pasta with dried blueberries and blueberry extract was absolutely beautiful in it’s pre-cooked state, sadly a bit washed out when cooked but delicious when we paired it as a chilled dessert dish with some Creme Anglaise and white chocolate shavings.

The mini cakes added a nice light pink color to the top of the cakes but I didn’t add enough to significantly color the interior but it did add a nice little extra tangy flavor to the mini cakes.

Ch-ch-ch-chia! Cooking with Chia seeds

Posted on January 5, 2021January 5, 2021 by Chef Forfeng

One thinks of Chia, and one has a flashback (if you are old enough to remember this) to the Chia Pet craze of the late 70s and early 80s. I admittedly had a chia pet that my cat used to decimate regularly.

Chia seeds were vaguely on my horizon as one of the “happening” food trends and the “new” superfoods a few years ago, even though they have been around for a long, LONG time. No pun intended.

Chia seeds came on my horizon when the pandemic started hitting, and stores ran out of staples, like eggs. Thankfully the shortages didn’t last long, but it sparked my curiosity with what else can we use in baking and cooking as an egg substitute? Even powdered eggs were in short supply for a time. I’d used egg replacer in the past but never really investigated alternatives before.

In my quest to find and try egg replacers that actually tasted good, were at least semi-good for you, and worked well as a binder, I tried quite a few things.

Applesauce, Ground Flaxseeds, Commercial Egg Replacer, Tofu, Vinegar and Baking Soda, Yogurt, Buttermilk, Arrowroot Powder, Aquafaba (the liquid left from canned beans and chickpeas, Agar-Agar, Gelatin and Chia seeds were all egg replacements I have experimented with over the last 6 months.

Some replacers had mixed results, and some I found were better for replacements than others. Most of these replaced eggs well for baked goods but were poor substitutes for eggs in other mediums. I tried them with savory (and some sweet) recipes like Caesar dressing, hollandaise (yes that too), puddings, mousses, or breading a product (i.e. dipped in egg, then flour, then breading product) or used as a base for a batter for frying.

I know there are several others I have not yet gotten to (and may), but these are ones I’ve tested so far:

Chia Quick Bread — Chia (whole seed) Quick Bread (left) with apples and dried cherries. Same recipe on the right without chia seeds. The chia loaf took a little longer to bake, but also rose considerably higher than the recipe without chia seeds

Applesauce; use unsweetened or add less sugar for baking. Not a good replacement for thickening savory dishes or a replacement for breading or batters (for frying).

Ground Flaxseeds; not bad as a binder for baking; I found you needed to add more moisture to any baking recipes plus, I did find even small amounts had a flax taste to it, not bad if you like flax seeds but not my favorite. Flax seed ground does make a nice breading material for chicken though, adding a nice, slightly nutty flavor. Not a good replacement for thickening savory dishes or a replacement for breading or batters (for frying).

Banana, great as binder, adds a bit of a banana flavor to any baking (not a bad thing unless you don’t like bananas), makes baked goods moist and a bit denser than recipes with eggs. Not a good replacement for thickening savory dishes or a replacement for breading, but it is a good substitute for eggs in batter dishes for frying (again, as long as you don’t mind the slight banana taste) make sure the banana is pureed well.

Commercial Egg Replacer; I’ve used this in the past for baked goods and had a little bit stocked in the pantry for the imminent (but thankfully never happening Zombie apocalypse). Bob’s Red Mill and Ener-G were the two I’d most frequently baked with. Egg replacer works fine as a replacement for baked goods, not so much for savory items. Not a good replacement for thickening savory dishes or a substitute for breading or batters (for frying).

Tofu; Silken soft tofu pureed up makes a decent replacement for baked goods but tends to make the final product denser than recipes with eggs. I use tofu in cooking, but firm tofu cubed or baked in slabs. This works “ok” pureed to thicken savory dishes but it doesn’t thicken quite enough to my taste.

Vinegar and Baking Soda; Apple cider or distilled white works the best. Use with cakes, sweet or quick breads. Not the best for substituting in cookies. Not a good replacement for thickening savory dishes or a replacement for breading or batters (for frying).

Yogurt; Similar to Vinegar and Baking soda, Use with cakes, sweet or quick breads. Not the best for substituting in cookies. This is a good replacement for thickening savory dishes (whole milk plain yogurt) and is a good replacement for breading or batters (for frying).

Buttermilk; same as yogurt.

Arrowroot Powder; I love arrowroot; I use it as a thickener for soups and sauces frequently, its great for breading (especially Chinese food), and it is an excellent replacement for eggs for pretty much any use.

Aquafaba; (the liquid left from canned beans and chickpeas); best used as a substitute for egg whites, also a great replacement for breading savory items to bake or sauté. It does do some odd things with batter for frying, I’ve found though.

Agar-Agar; A decent replacement for eggs in baking, it will create a denser and stiffer texture in baked goods. Great as a thickener for savory dishes (be leery of using too much though, or you end up with a big gloppy mess.) Not recommended as a replacement for breading or batters for frying.

Gelatin; see the Agar-Agar comments

and last but not least

Chia seeds….

Ground-up chia seeds; 1 Tablespoon to 3 Tablespoons of water for about 5 minutes = one egg.

If you don’t grind them but still soak them, they will look like frog eggs. The seeds will be surrounded by a gelatin-like coating. If using whole, you need about 4 Tablespoons + water to equal one egg.

Chia is a great replacement for eggs, both ground and unground for baking goods. Not a great replacement for breading and “interesting” but not a bad way, ground as a substitute for eggs in batters.

I think I’ve primarily fallen in love with them because they add a great extra added flavor and texture to baked goods (whole chia seeds), and I’ve experimented with putting them in granola bar mixes and chocolate brittle/barks. Cracked black pepper, chia seed (whole), and lime are an amazing combination in chocolate brittle/bark. Hot, tart and crunchy at the same time. And I’ve made a really good energy bar with Chia as well (recipe coming soon).

In savory recipes, I have been adding them to my veggie burgers (not formerly a fan of veggie burgers prior either, but I am now) and it is great for using as part of a breading crust for chicken, the afore mentioned veggie burgers, and fish.

Just be careful if sautéing with it and using it as part of your breading, chia seeds POP when they get really hot. So I either mix with other ingredients for a crust and bake or sauté off on medium heat until the product is lightly browned and then finish in the oven.

Some additional perks of using Chia seeds:

High in fiber, about 5 grams of fiber per Tablespoon.
1 oz of Chia seeds has about 1/2 grams of protein.
Chia has one of the highest sources of Omega-3s of almost any food.
Chia contains calcium, more than skim milk.
Chia is apparently great for weight loss, but that’s a great additional benefit after the taste, texture and versality of it have come first in my book.
You can use it to grow microgreens. They are extremely easy to grow and actually healthier and safer to eat than sprouts. (using chia pet seeds, though for this is not recommended as apparently they have probably been sitting around for awhile).

I’d also recommend checking out an article by the Harvard School of Public Health which has some additional information about chia seeds, and there are literally hundreds of other articles touting the superfood if you do a little browsing on Google.

One thing to note, I’ve read this in several places as a suggestion, and I’ve seen how much Chia expands with moisture; it is very much NOT recommended to just pop handfuls of chia seeds as I’ve seen several articles recommend just chowing them down as a snack.

That is not unless you prefer a visit from the local rescue squad.

One additional thing I’ve found as I’ve researched the history and uses of chia seeds. Cats (and dogs) can eat the greens (same as with humans, please don’t mix directly with food if you are not going to soak it first!), and when planted outside, the flowers are a great nectar source for bees and butterflies!

What more could I ask for? Delicious, Nutritious, and good for pollinators! The perfect top off to my chia obsession would be a Baby Yoda Chia Pet. Oh wait… they have those too! And two different zombie chia pets as well. (I had mentioned the zombie apocalypse did I not?). Not a big fan of zombie movies (although Shaun of the Dead IS awesome), but from a food standpoint, apocalypse food prepping has a strangely fascinating aspect to me.

The pandemic with people hoarding toilet paper always made me chuckle, I’d rather horde Chia seeds, at least they are edible and multiuse. Somehow sautéed toilet paper with a nice garlicky marinara just doesn’t have the same appeal.

****Photo top right has a picture of Better Body Foods Chia seeds, this is not an official endorsement or paid product placement, merely the fact that I’ve tried a bunch of different brands since first falling in love with chia seeds and it’s the best one I’ve found so far out there. Plus from Amazon (sorry but no one local has it that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg) it’s more cost effective. I’ve apparently bought over 20 containers since March so that’s probably saying something, both about the product and the fact that I’m apparently chia crazy.