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Scrambled Eggs
2 tablespoons Mazola 1/2 cup milk 1/2 tablespoon Argo or Kings. ford's Cornstarch 1 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 6 eggs Dissolve the cornstarch in the milk, add the seasonings and put in a frying pan with the Mazola. Stir until it nearly boils, then add the eggs, beaten, and scramble slowly, allowing the mixture to coagulate a little before scraping it from the bottom of the pan. The cornstarch will make a very velvety texture and the eggs will go further this way.
A cornstarch-thickened scramble from a corn products advertising booklet. The technique is sound, and the only real difficulty is heat control.
- The hinge: low heatThe milk-and-starch base is brought almost to a boil, then the eggs go in and must set gently. Keep the pan at medium-low or lower once the eggs are added; if the starch gel gets too hot the eggs squeeze out water and the whole thing turns grainy and weeping.
- MazolaCorn oil, then and now. Any neutral oil works, and butter works better for flavour, though it browns sooner.
- Argo or Kingsford's cornstarchPlain cornstarch, both brands of the booklet's publisher. Half a tablespoon in half a cup of milk is a thin slurry; whisk it cold and smooth before it meets heat or you get lumps that never disperse.
- SaltA full teaspoon for six eggs is on the heavy side for current taste. Half a teaspoon may suit better, and you can correct at the table.
- DonenessPull the pan while the curds still look slightly wet and loose; residual heat finishes them.
- YieldServes four generously, three if eggs are the main event. The milk and starch add about half a cup of volume, which is the point the original makes about the eggs going further.
This comes from a promotional cookbook issued by the Corn Products Refining Company, which is why three of the six lines name a brand: Mazola corn oil, Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch were all house products, and booklets like this one existed to put them into daily American cooking rather than into occasional baking. The stretching trick is older than the brands, though, and it does real work: the gelatinised starch holds water that would otherwise be driven out of the egg proteins, so the curds stay soft even when a cook overshoots.