Separation Anxiety

Recipes to the rescue when the yolk's on you...

I once wrote a proposal for a cookbook called “Separation Anxiety,” the premise of which was what to do with an excess of egg whites (meringues, consommé, salt-crusted fish, financiers…) or egg yolks (crème brûlée, mac & cheese, short crust, Hollandaise sauce…). In the end, I never bothered showing the proposal to a publisher and I have no idea what became of it, which is perhaps no great loss because my favourite thing about it at the time was the title. Since then, however, I’ve found myself in need of exactly that book on many occasions.

We all have those fretful moments when we make a recipe that leaves us with a stray egg yolk or egg white (or two or three) to contend with. I put unused whites in a glass covered in plastic, or a lone yolk covered in cold water in a dish in the fridge and hope for inspiration to strike before they turn putrid. Sometimes the muses appear and sometimes they don’t, but I do frown on food waste, and on myself when I’m guilty of it, so for the most part I’m determined to think creatively when I find myself saddled with half an egg, no matter which half.