These are the Best Eggs You’ve Never Tried

Omelet you in on a little secret: If you’ve got access to an espresso machine, the steam wand is one of the best egg-cooking tools in your kitchen. 

This is not one of those hacks that gets by on its hackiness alone. The eggs are legitimately good. Fantastic, even. And fantastic in a way that you cannot achieve through any other cooking method that I know of. Uniquely delicious. Enough to give your non-stick pan an eggs-istential crisis.

What makes them so good? The main thing is their texture. They come out somehow more tender and custardy than any eggs cooked in a pan, with an almost magical lightness to them, thanks to the extra air and moisture that the steam wand adds to them as they cook.

Moreover, the method is fast. I’ve timed it. Provided you’ve got your espresso machine’s steam wand ready to fire up, two eggs will cook in 37 seconds flat. It also requires virtually no clean-up, since the eggs cook right in the cup you serve them out of. All it takes is giving the steam wand a good wipe-down with a damp towel, the same as you’d do if steaming milk for your morning latte.

So what’s the catch? Honestly, if you already own an espresso machine, there is no catch that I can think of.

Espresso machine? More like eggs-presto machine, am I right?

“But wait!,” I hear you say. “Won’t this void the warranty on my espresso machine? Will I still be able to steam milk after I’ve cooked my breakfast? Why do you keep trying to make espresso machine eggs happen?”

If you’re reading this, unless you’re James Hoffman (or Martha Stewart), chances are you haven’t tried steam wand eggs. Even if you’ve seen the method demonstrated, it probably seems so bizarre and so likely to gum up the steam wand on your fancy espresso machine that you’ve declined to actually try it yourself at home.

I’m here to convince you to do it, warranties be damned.

The Precedent: Cafe el Polo in Salamina, Colombia 

Let me walk back my previous statement a little bit. If you’re one of gossipy old folks who park themselves at Cafe el Polo in Salamina, a small town in the coffee-growing Caldas region of the Colombian Andes, then your chances of having tried these eggs are much, much higher. 

That’s where I first tried steam wand eggs in the summer of 2019, when my daughter Alicia was a little over two years old. Adri and I took her on a three month road trip around Colombia. We started and ended at Adri’s home in Bogotá, taking a circuitous route through the hugely varying landscapes that the country has to offer: the snow-capped peaks and rolling green coffee fields of the Andes, the muggy marshlands of the north where the Magdalena and Cauca rivers meet and empty into the Caribbean, the mangrove forests and tropical islands on the Caribbean coast, the moonscapes of both the high and low deserts. Everywhere we went, we stayed and ate in the small towns that define Colombia and its culture.

It was towards the end of this trip that we stopped in Salamina. It has an elevation of around 6,000 feet (pretty low, compared to many of the cities in the Andes) and a population of 20,000. We stayed at a small finca outside of town. While Colombian cuisine in general and the cuisine of the Andes in particular tends to be simple and hearty, every town has its specialty or two, so as usual, we asked our host where and what we should eat.

There was no hesitation: try the macana and the huevos al vapor at Cafe el Polo. We immediately walked into town, sat down at the cafe, and ordered one of each. It turns out both are made with the assistance of the steam wand of the ancient espresso machine on their counter. Macana is a cup of biscuits soaked in steamed milk until they get an almost porridge-like consistency, served sweet with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. But it’s the latter, the steamed eggs, that I was more interested in.

I watched as the man behind the counter cracked a couple of eggs into a coffee cup, added a generous knob of butter and a sprinkle of salt, raised the cup directly up to the steam wand, and turned on the steam. Within moments, the eggs, which started out taking up less than half the volume of the cup, started to set and rise well above the rim, like a soufflé rising in the oven.

As I dug into the cup with a spoon, I was a little skeptical at first. The eggs looked well-done. This is common for all types of eggs in Colombia (whether fried, scrambled, or hard boiled), but I was hoping to have my eggs a bit runnier and worried that they’d be dry.

My worries dissipated with the very first bite. Despite being hard-cooked, these eggs were extraordinarily tender and light, with a richness that bordered on custardy. I knew I had to start eggs-perimenting as soon as I got home.

What Makes Espresso Wand Eggs So Unique?

There are two things that contribute to the unique texture of steam wand eggs. The first is extra moisture. When you scramble eggs in a pan, you lose moisture as some of the water from the eggs steams away. With steam wand eggs, you add moisture. How much exactly?

To figure this out, I cracked and weighed a bunch of eggs out of a single carton of large eggs. They ranged in weight from 48 grams to 53 grams (this makes sense–large eggs in the US should weigh between 54.3 and 61.4 grams with their shells still-on). I cooked these eggs in batches of two, scrambling half of them in a non-stick pan and steam-wanding the others. In all cases, I added the same amount of butter to each pan or cup.

The eggs that were cooked in a pan ended up losing around 12% of their weight through evaporation, while the espresso wand eggs gained nearly 20% of their weight in moisture. Moreover, because that moisture is introduced via the violent turbulence of a steam wand, a significant amount of air is also introduced to the eggs, which, depending on how long you cook them, can easily increase their volume by three- or fourfold. This is a huge difference, and one that factors heavily into the rich/light texture they’’

The eggs that were cooked in a pan ended up losing around 12% of their weight through evaporation, while the espresso wand eggs gained nearly 20% of their weight in moisture. Moreover, because that moisture is introduced via the violent turbulence of a steam wand, a significant amount of air is also introduced to the eggs, which, depending on how long you cook them, can easily increase their volume by three- or fourfold. This is a huge difference, and one that factors heavily into the rich/light texture they achieve.

There’s another interesting thing that happens when you cook eggs via steam wand: the transformation from liquid to solid is almost instantaneous, and it happens to the entire cup of eggs at once. This happens because as long as the eggs are under around 160°F (70°C), they remain liquid. Above this temperature, they will rapidly solidify.

In a skillet, there is a large temperature gradient built into the cooking method, with the eggs directly in contact with the pan being much hotter than the eggs on the surface. With traditionally scrambled eggs, you can exploit this fact to adjust the texture of the eggs based on how rapidly you mix them once they enter the pan. A few slow, lazy stirs here and there result in large, well-defined curds. Rapidly stirring with a fork or spatula as the eggs set will give you a more uniform, creamy texture.

With a steam wand, this uniformity is taken to its limit. Because the eggs in a cup are being churned so rapidly by the violent pressure of the steam, there is very little temperature differential between the hottest and coolest parts of the egg mixture. Thus when the eggs set, they set all at once (the only exception being the thin layer of egg directly in contact with the cup, which stays cool enough to keep things a little runny around the edges).

This is what gives steam wand eggs their custard-like uniform appearance, though in reality they are far lighter than any custard, due to the air injected into them as they churn and set.

This violent churning also means that there is no need to pre-mix your eggs before you start cooking them. You can crack them directly into a mug and steam them whole. They will become a uniform scramble through the turbulence of the injected steam alone.

Mix-Ins

The simplest mix-in for the eggs is the default pat of butter. I’ve tried cooking them with and without the addition, and I find that while not strictly necessary, the extra butter is not strictly un-necessary, if you value a little richness and roundness of flavor in your breakfast.

Beyond that, slices of sausage, crumbled bacon, ham are simple and delicious. So are mushrooms that I’ve previously cooked in butter, as are chives, tarragon, scallions, onions, bell peppers. Put simply: anything you’d typically add to an omelet will work in steam wand eggs.

Steam-Want Eggs

Makes 2 steam-scrambled eggs

Notes: You will need an espresso machine with a steam wand to make these eggs. You can add up to a quarter cup or so of mix-ins. Anything you’d add to an omelet would work. Ingredients that need to be pre-cooked, like bacon, mushrooms, or other vegetables should be pre-cooked before adding to the eggs. Things like herbs or shredded cheese can be added aw-is.

Ingredients

Kosher salt

2 teaspoons (10g) butter

2 eggs

A pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper (if desired)

About ¼ cup mix-ins as desired (see note above)

Steps

1. Preheat an espresso machine with a steam wand.

2. Combine butter, eggs, salt, pepper, and mix-ins in a coffee or latte cup.

3. Submerse the head of the steam wand in the eggs and turn on the steam. Let the steam cook the eggs, swirling and agitating the cup as the eggs cook, but keeping the head of the wand submersed at all times. The eggs will very suddenly set after 30 to 40 seconds. Shut off the steam immediately for softer eggs, or let them continue to cook for a further 5 to 10 seconds for firmer eggs.

4. Immediately purge and wipe off the steam wand with a damp towel. Serve the eggs.

Steam-Wand Chawanmushi

A while back, when I was posting a few behind-the-scenes photos and videos of some of this testing on my Instagram page, several commenters suggested that what I made looked a lot like chawanmushi, a very loose Japanese custard made with eggs and dashi stock. (Here’s a great recipe for the traditional dish from my friend Nami at Just one Cookbook.) While I understood the comparison, the dishes are wildly different in texture; Chawanmushi is steamed without agitation, so it sets up as a custard while steam-wand eggs are more fluffy.

But rather than push back on this one, I decided to make it happen.

I knew I couldn’t make a true custard using the steam wand, but there was nothing stopping me from bringing the flavors of chawanmushi to my steam wand eggs. Conveniently, my espresso machine was already fired up and ready to dispense hot water, which made making a single serving-sized batch of dashi a snap. I used the how water dispenser and poured boiling water over a cup with a bit of kombu (dried sea kelp) and katsuobushi (dried smoked shaved bonito flakes) and let it steep for a few minutes like tea while. I then strained and combined this dashi with my eggs and steam-injected them together.

It was a resounding success, with enough flavor to stand up to a range of traditional chawanmushi mix-ins, such as crab meat, ginkgo nuts, sauteed mushrooms, or pulled chicken.

I’ve since tested this with powdered hon-dashi instead of homemade stock, and it works just fine.

To make it, add about ¼ cup of dashi stock per egg and steam them just as you would for regular steam-wand eggs.