Gourmet soft-scrambled eggs with stridolo/collejas & stinging nettle

If you’re searching for the ultimate gourmet soft-scrambled egg recipe, you’re in the right place! Use Chef David Porras’s tips and tricks to make the best soft-scrambled eggs you’ve ever tasted. Add unusual greens like stridolo and stinging nettle to take the recipe to the next level. 

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Soft-scrambled eggs can be gourmet food.

The goal of our Chef’s Choice series is to educate and inspire your inner home chef while introducing you to amazing, unusual ingredients. 

For this month’s recipe, Chef David Porras selected two of our favorite early spring greens from a list of potential ingredient options we offered: stridolo and stinging nettle. (More on these ingredients below.) 

After tasting the recipe he created, we immediately realized this recipe article should focus as much on the soft-scrambled eggs he made as the two greens used. Why? 

We raise egg-laying ducks, so eggs are the staple protein in our diet. Suffice it to say, we know a thing or two about how to cook eggs, including scrambled eggs. Or at least we thought we did. 

However, we’ve never thought about scrambled eggs as gourmet food or something we’d excitedly serve to dinner guests. All that changed after tasting Chef David’s soft scrambled eggs.

They were utterly delicious with a silky smooth texture and intense umami flavors beyond what we thought possible. 

As Chef David says, “Eggs are such a delicate, under-appreciated protein. They can be every bit as good as more highly esteemed proteins like steak or scallops if you know how to use them.” 

And if you want to make soft-scrambled eggs into a gourmet meal, then it helps to also have access to ingredients like stridolo and stinging nettle to accompany them…

What is stridolo, aka colleja?  

Stridolo is the Italian name for one of our favorite early spring greens; botanical name: Silene vulgaris. The tender young growth tips of this native-Mediterranean plant taste like a cross between pee greens and asparagus.

Other common names include sculpit, maiden’s tears, cowbell, bladder campion, and rattleweed. Chef David trained at the Basque Culinary Center in San Sebastian, Spain. In Spain, stridolo is also a popular wild green, but there it’s known as “colleja.”  

Substitution: If you don’t have stridolo, you can substitute pea greens. 

Related: Learn more about how to grow and use stridolo here. 

Stinging nettle 

Stinging nettle may well be the most nutritious veggie on earth, and it’s quite delicious when you know how to use it. Yes, it can sting you when raw but various cooking and preparation methods deactivate its sting. 

For this recipe, we brought Chef David the tender young growth tips of the stinging nettle plant, which are the very best part. 

Substitution: If you don’t have young stinging nettle leaves or growth tips, you can substitute baby kale.

Related: Learn more about how to grow and use stinging nettle here.

How to make gourmet soft-scrambled eggs, the Chef Porras way

Below are process photos and recipe tips to show you how to make the best soft-scrambled eggs you’ve ever eaten topped with sumptuous greens. (Note: This recipe produces about two appetizer servings or one large entrée, so scale up as needed.)    

Step 1: Make fresh, uncooked veggie topping/garnish. 

You’ll make this part first, but it’s intended to go on the dish as a bright, colorful garnish at the very end right before serving. 

Ingredients you’ll need:

• 1/4 cup stridolo/collejas leaves (substitution: pea greens) 
• 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• splash of fresh lemon juice or quality white vinegar
• pinch of salt

Instructions:

• Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together. Set aside.

Step 2. Make wilted veggie topping. 

Next, you’re going to make your wilted veggies then set them aside while you cook your soft-scrambled eggs.

Ingredients you’ll need: 

• 3 strips bacon, cut into small 1/2″ bits
• 1 small shallot (or about 1/3 cup thinly sliced)
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 cup loosely packed stinging nettle tips or young leaves
• 1/2 cup stridolo/collejas growth tips with stems on

Instructions: 

• Put cut bacon into pan over medium heat and cook for 2 minutes.
• Add shallots and olive oil. Stir to mix ingredients together in pan. Cook for another 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Place stinging nettle over top of bacon-shallot mixture, but do not stir nettle in yet; let it steam instead. After another minute, add stridolo/colleja, then stir all ingredients together. Cook for one minute, then remove from heat and set pan aside.

Step 3. Make soft-scrambled eggs. 

Ingredients you’ll need:

• 3 eggs (high quality, fresh duck or chicken eggs)
• 2 tbsp organic grass-fed butter (salted or unsalted butter – if using unsalted, you’ll add salt right at the end of cooking before removing eggs from stove)
• 1 tbsp organic heavy cream (or extra virgin olive oil)

Instructions: 

• Crack one egg at a time into bowl. Then pour each egg into a taller mixing bowl once you know there are no broken shell bits.
• Emulsify eggs with an *immersion blender for about 1 minute. (*If you don’t have an immersion blender, use a whisk or duo whisk for 2 minutes.) The aim here is to perfectly mix the eggs and beat air into them. Then pour through a strainer into a bowl.   
• Pour eggs into an UNHEATED buttered/coated pan over medium high heat and immediately add solid butter to eggs in pan. Begin stirring eggs and scraping pan with silicone spatula. As pan begins to heat, turn heat down to medium. Stir eggs and scrape side of pan continuously with silicone spatula while removing pan from heat in cycles for 45 seconds over heat (or less depending on stovetop) then pulling it off heat for 45 seconds. This is a much slower cooking process than you might be used to for making scrambled eggs since the goal is to achieve a more delicate, custard-like texture that highlights the delicate protein and culinary potential of the eggs. Total cook time for 3 scrambled eggs in this recipe was 7 minutes and you’ll be constantly stirring and scraping the pan the whole time. 
  After 7 minutes, remove eggs from heat and add a splash (about 1 tbsp) cream and *salt to taste. Stir in with spatula.
• Immediately transfer scrambled eggs into serving dishes so they don’t continue to cook in pan.
• Put wilted veggie topping pan back over heat for one minute to warm up prior to plating.

When is the best time to add salt to scrambled eggs? 

This is a seemingly simple question that professionally-trained chefs and foodies will fight to death over. Chef David prefers to add salt to his scrambled eggs right at the end of cooking. 

People who have tested various salting times with the intent of making the creamiest possible scrambled eggs have concluded that when you salt your scrambled eggs is far less important than how you cook them. Ergo making sure not to cook your eggs too fast or on too high of a temperature is the most important factor for making creamy eggs. 

The same taste test concluded that beaten eggs that were salted up to 60 minutes before cooking were perhaps slightly creamier than later-salted eggs, but differences were insignificant. 

Why? “The reason that the salt doesn’t toughen the eggs is that, while acting as a catalyst to make proteins bond at lower temperatures, it simultaneously functions as a buffer, preventing the proteins from getting too close to each other and reducing the risk of water being squeezed out.”

Step 4. Garnish and serve.

Recommended ingredients in addition to the wilted and fresh greens from above include:

• fresh cracked black pepper to taste,
• fresh seasonal flowers (Chef David used wisteria flowers but any other seasonal edible flowers are fine), 
• scoop of sour cream or crème fraîche.

Instructions: 

• Scrambled eggs should now be in serving dishes. Put wilted vegetables in ring around outside of eggs.
• Put fresh veggie topping/leaves over top of wilted veggies, then crack pepper over dish.
• Place seasonal flowers over vegetables. Put scoop of sour cream or crème fraîche on eggs in center of dish. For clean, elegant look, dip spoon in bowl of hot water and scrape out cream similar to an ice cream scoop. Dip spoon back and forth between hot water and cream as you scoop.

Which is the ideal meal to serve this recipe? 

This is a very versatile recipe. It could just as easily make a perfect breakfast, lunch, or dinner.   

Recipe: Gourmet soft-scrambled eggs with stridolo/colleja and stinging nettle

We hope this recipe opens your eyes and taste buds to the gourmet potential of high quality eggs! 

Other related articles & recipes you’ll want to sink your teeth into:

• Chef’s Choice recipe: Calamondin citrus scallop aguachile
• How to grow and use stridolo, aka colleja
• Stracciatella (Italian egg-drop sou) with stridolo
• Stinging nettle frittata
• Stinging nettle quiche
• Stinging nettle duck egg pasta with white whole wheat flour
• Stinging nettle green garlic pesto
• Raw stinging nettle soup (yes, seriously!)