Sea urchin and scrambled egg with lobster sauce 雲丹とスクランブルエッグ

Based on Scrambled eggs with sea urchin and  lobster sauce 雲丹のスクランブルエッグ　オーマルロブスターソース (Mark's book p148)

This one is from Mark's book p148. We usually do not want to "cook" good sea urchin, but this recipe looked so interesting we had to try it. Again, I have to start by saying I did not (or could not) follow the recipe precisely. First, we did not want to eat too much egg with uni, second, we did not have a lobster head to make the sauce. I will have to remake the sauce sometime in the future but having a dinner with both lobster and uni coinsiding may not be easy. Maybe I can make the lobster-tomato sauce first and freeze it. So, this time, instead, I used a "gourmet" canned lobster bisque (whenever we have lobster at home, I make lobster bisque from the lobster carcass). Compared to my bisque, this supposedly "gourmet" canned bisque was not really good as a soup but, at least, it had lobster and tomato flavors. I am sure the tomato flavor is from tomato paste. I added a small amount of finely chopped fresh tomato and reduced the bisque a bit, and added a splash of Fino sherry to liven up the taste. I mixed a portion of this with a small amount of smashed anchovy filet off heat until the saltiness was appropriate. I have no idea if this "sauce" is even similar to the original in the recipe.

For the scrambled egg, I used one egg (for two small servigs you see here) and 2-3 tsp of cream with salt and pepper. I melted butter in a small non-stick frying pan on low heat and vigorously stirred using a silicon spatula until a creamy texture was reached but I did not further cook or set the egg as suggested in the recipe since I wanted a soft creamy texture matching that of the sea urchin. I placed this creamy egg in the egg-shaped glass containers and placed uni in the center. I then drizzled the sauce around the perimeter. I did not have chervil so I garnished it with parsley. For one version I browned the uni with a kitchen torch before placing it on the egg as suggested in the recipe (image above on the  right and image below) and, for another, I did not (image above on the left) to compare.

We think browning the uni may add some interesting flavors but, for this dish, it did not make a big difference (although it may give a nice visual effect). The sauce went well (surprisingly), with the lobster flavor and saltiness from the anchovy. But again, we have no idea if this is even close to the original recipe. The egg was very creamy matching the texture of the uni and the proportion of the egg and uni was perfect. So, as a dish, the way I made it, it was a success of sorts. Above all, the containers were perfect!

The egg-shaped glass containers (slightly larger than real eggs) were reportedly used by a Michelin 3 star chef in Virginia, Patrick O'Connell of Inn at Little Washington. He served soft scrambled egg and asparagus tips as a brunch menu to the Queen of England when she was visiting Virginia several years ago. (We do not know if indeed Queen tasted this dish). We saw the recipe and the egg shaped container in a Washington post article. The dish sounded interesting so I ordered the container from Korin and tried to reproduce the recipe. (BTW Korin no longer carries this item).

Last time we were at the Inn at Little Washington, they had this scrambled egg dish as an appetizer and my wife ordered it. It came in the same egg-shaped container you see here but my wife was not too impressed citing that the eggs were bit overcooked. She then observed that the version I made was more creamy!