You’ve probably guessed by now from my paleo cooking posts that I enjoy playing about with new recipes in the kitchen. Usually, I start out with a recipe that I trust, try it once to be sure it works and then make gradual changes to it with each re-cook. The only thing that stops me inventing from the first attempt is the cost of the ingredients, but I’m sure that will pass with more experience.
Sometimes I know a recipe or meal so well that I decide it’s time to spice it up or make it more nutritious. As a rule, when I do this I like to push the boundaries of what is accepted as normal. This has resulted in some successes. For example, for the last 9 months or so breakfast has contained both eggs and broccoli as standard.
Broccoli for breakfast?
You should see people’s faces when you tell them you have broccoli at breakfast time. They seem to think that there is some unwritten rule that means we can’t eat broccoli before midday. Broccoli is great though. I get a boost of mega-nutrients (and some alkali to offset the protein in the eggs) before I’ve even left the house.
Personally, I’ve found that it is fantastic with boiled, poached or fried eggs, all of which provide you with some runny yolk to dunk your broccoli heads in.
The chocolate scrambled eggs accident
I’ve been getting very excited about cocoa powder recently. It’s got a list of health properties as long as your arm, but the question that has been torturing me has been how to incorporate it into my daily diet. It’s very bitter but should, theoretically, work well as a seasoning. Like any other spice really.
After contemplating Johnny Bowden’s suggestion to use curcumin (also known as turmeric – an anti-inflammatory) as a seasoning sprinkled over scrambled egg, I thought it might be worth trying a combination of curcumin and cocoa powder in the scrambled eggs. How wrong could it go?
Saturday
I decided to not tell Chris what I was going to do. Otherwise he would have flatly refused to eat his breakfast.
I added a sprinkling (I thought it was about a teaspoon) of cocoa and a fraction less of curcumin to the eggs while beating them up. We hardly noticed a thing and you certainly couldn’t taste any difference. In fact it was so unnoticeable that I decided there probably hadn’t been enough of either.
Sunday
Boosted by Saturday’s experience I decided to double my cocoa quantities. In went two measured teaspoons and a teaspoon of curcumin.
With horror, I watched as the 7 eggs in the bowl turned a muddy, clumpy brown. I tried whisking more thoroughly to get rid of the lumps of cocoa but it just got worse as more cocoa powder was pulled in from the edges of the bowl. In desperation I added more water and an eighth egg to the bowl to thin it all down. I didn’t have enough eggs to start again from scratch.
With trepidation I poured the brown muck into the pan, hoping it wouldn’t taste as bad as it looked, and then dished it out as Chris walked into the kitchen expecting a tasty breakfast of scrambled eggs (and broccoli, or course).
Chocolate scrambled eggs?
To his credit, he ate more than half of his plateful (with generous lashings of ketchup to wash it down). Meanwhile I forced myself through mine, just to put a brave face on it. It was possibly the most unpleasant thing I have eaten so far this year.
Learning from my mistakes
I’ve not given up on my quest to find something to pair with cocoa powder (other than the protein shakes). Perhaps sprinkled into the pot roast? I will continue to experiment because it is only through experimentation that we find new recipes and new, tasty and nutritious pairings.
One thing is for sure though. I won’t be adding cocoa to the eggs again!
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