The Kruse Report: Shell gameThe Kruse Report: Shell game

Nancy

Pity the poor egg. An early casualty of overzealous and misguided food police, the product languished for years. The good news is that the culinary clouds have parted, and eggs have reasserted their necessity on menus. Protein-rich, versatile and economical, the egg is this year’s “it” ingredient, and it’s making up for lost time by appearing in innovative and unexpected menu applications that stretch far beyond breakfast.


Sandwiches and salads. Adding an egg to a green salad is nothing new. The salade Lyonnaise is a classic with roots in the bistros and bouchons of Lyon, France. Frisée or other bitter greens are topped with bits of bacon and a poached egg, which, when pierced with a fork, bathes the salad in a luscious drizzle of flavor and color. A clever variation on the theme is the Frisée au Lardon Sandwich offered by the Lardon food truck in Los Angeles. In that dish the salad is encased in toasted brioche, adding a layer of texture and making it portable, to boot. First Watch adds an egg embellishment to its The Poacher salad, combining spinach and avocado with bacon and tomato, and topping it all off with a poached egg.


Another popular French import, the croque madame is a ham and cheese sandwich topped with an egg. At Rathbun’s Blue Plate Kitchen in Dallas, the brunch sandwich is topped with sunny-side-up eggs crowned with Mornay sauce. Meanwhile, Shari’s goes Italian with a breakfast panini that includes applewood-smoked bacon, eggs, Cheddar cheese, lettuce and tomato.


Pizzas and pastas. While slow to gain traction, the use of eggs on pizza is picking up a little steam. Popular in Italy and at such independents as Otto Enoteca Pizzeria in New York, egg-topped pizzas are appearing in the mass market, such as in the whimsically named Greens, Egg & Ham at four-unit Pitfire Artisan Pizza in Los Angeles. Ingredients include braised rapini, prosciutto and a farm egg. Atlanta’s Hearth Pizza Tavern generated buzz with its Chorizo Sunrise, a promotional pie that featured chorizo, egg yolk, cilantro and salsa picante. 


Eggs are also being used in pasta dishes, as at MacDaddy’s Macaroni & Cheese Bar, which serves 25 varieties of gourmet mac and cheese. Diners can start their day with Mac A.M., in which the comfort standard is rendered even more comforting with the addition of an over-easy egg and hollandaise sauce. Soup-and-salad-bar operator Sweet Tomatoes features the nicely named Mediterranean Sunrise Pasta, in which feta, spinach, tomatoes and basil combine with scrambled eggs and linguine.


Burgers and dogs. If eggs are the hot ingredients of the moment, it stands to reason that they’d make an appearance in the hot menu items of the moment: hamburgers and hot dogs. They do indeed show up in the signature Brunch Dog at Chicago’s Franks ’n Dawgs, where they are fried over-easy and accompanied by pork-loin sausage, smoked bacon and maple mayonnaise. Hillbilly Hot Dogs, operating in West Virginia and Ohio, offers the somewhat humbler Egg Dog, which consists of ketchup, nacho cheese and scrambled eggs atop the house weenie.


While fried eggs on burgers have grabbed headlines recently, they’re really nothing new. On the chain side, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers has menued the Royal Burger, dubbed the aristocrat of burgers and crowned with a fried egg, since the 1970s. It’s not surprising that the better-burger chains have jumped onboard, too. At Smashburger, for example, a fried egg can be added to any burger for $1.


Menu focal points. Trendy independents are also embracing the egg. At Au Cheval in Chicago, a menu section dedicated to egg specialties boasts a half-dozen options, such as the Foie Gras, Scrambled Eggs & Toast dish. Similarly, at North End Grill in New York, eggs get their own area on the menu and include Coddled Egg with Peekytoe Crab, Bacon and Grits.


Looking ahead, expect more incredible, edible innovations, such as the pickled bacon-and-eggs bar snack at Three Aces in Chicago and the seasonal crème brûlée waffle sandwich from Bruxië in Orange, Calif. 

Nancy Kruse, president of the Kruse Company, is a menu trends analyst based in Atlanta. E-mail her at [email protected].