Test Kitchen - Huevos con Verdolagas

When we posted earlier about our Test Kitchen ingredient of verdolaga last week, it seemed to confuse many or just lead to being stumped. We certainly don't see this green often by this name BUT know that you may know it as purslane! Yes, some may call it a weed but at least this weed is loaded with beta-carotene, magnesium, potassium, calcium, iron, Vitamin A, Vitamin B, Vitamin C, and omega-3 fatty acids. Super green anyone? Verdolaga is the Mexican name which is why it may be confusing but I'm sure you've seen it in dishes before. Since it's got a tad bit of a crunch to it and a sliminess akin to okra (it's mucilaginous - what a fun word!), I opted to make the recipe easy to stomach and made some scrambled eggs. Some people use both the leaves and stems but we did leaves only to keep it nice and soft. A lot of people have it raw but since it resembled baby spinach to me, it made sense to stick it with eggs!

Step 1: Ingredients (yields 2 servings)

• 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
• 2 oz. pancetta
• 1 bunch purslane/verdolaga, leaves only
• 3 eggs, beaten
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Step 2: Cooking the ingredients
Easy peasy - I didn't even use oil in this recipe because of the natural fat that leaks from pancetta upon cooking. On a medium skillet on medium high heat, cook pancetta and red onions. When they are just barely starting to brown, toss in purslane leaves. As they start to wilt, beat together three eggs in a bowl. Reduce heat to medium and pour in beaten eggs. Start to gently scramble.


Step 3: Finishing
Continue scrambling gently and just before all bits of the egg are cooked, turn off the heat to let residual heat cook the egg. This leaves your eggs nice and soft instead of overcooked and rubbery! I then cracked fresh black pepper on top and dug in. The purslane was a more herbaceous variation of baby spinach in taste, and the pancetta just naturally salted everything beautifully.


This week's Test Kitchen ingredient: coffee beans
I'm not sure how but we've found ourselves in quite a hefty possession of coffee beans and grounds so need to do something with them (other than brew coffee). So I didn't specify the exact types we have just so it's more general but we sure do have quite a bit. What do y'all think we should do with it? Comment on the picture on Facebook!


Photography by Duc Duong.