Speaker 1: Have you had breakfast yet today? Did you maybe quickly
Speaker 1: throw something together that left you not feeling particularly fulfilled
Speaker 1: about what you just put down your throat?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: If the answer is yes, then you need to listen
Speaker 1: to what top Melbourne chef and restaurant owner Ben Shuri
Speaker 1: has to say about breakfast. Ben owns and works at
Speaker 1: the Three Handed restaurant Attica and says it takes just
Speaker 1: as long to make a bad breakfast as it does
Speaker 1: to make a good one. So what are Ben's top
Speaker 1: tips for making a great breakfast. My name is doctor
Speaker 1: Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of
Speaker 1: behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work
Speaker 1: a show about how to help you do your best work.
Speaker 1: On today is my favorite Tip episode? Will you go
Speaker 1: back to an interview from the past and I pick
Speaker 1: out my favorite tip for the interview In today's show,
Speaker 1: I've selected an extract from my chat with Ben Shuri,
Speaker 1: who took me through how to make the perfect egg breakfast,
Speaker 1: and I promise you you will never think about cooking
Speaker 1: eggs in the same way again.
Speaker 2: I would say, though, that it takes just as long
Speaker 2: to make a bad breakfast as it does to make
Speaker 2: a good breakfast if not longer, especially if you factor
Speaker 2: in the lack of productivity that you're going to have
Speaker 2: from eating that terrible breakfast and how it's going to
Speaker 2: make you feel afterwards. So probably the first and foremost
Speaker 2: thing about making a really good breakfast. Let's just say eggs,
Speaker 2: for example, eggs are not as easy, you know, as
Speaker 2: they might seem. To give you a little tip on
Speaker 2: poaching eggs, something that I've learned to poach eggs successfully
Speaker 2: is to have a pot of water. It's a bit
Speaker 2: deeper than you think it should be, and to have
Speaker 2: a bit more volume of water than you think you need.
Speaker 2: So I would probably be poaching eggs and about twenty
Speaker 2: centimeters of water. I would have it just below boiling,
Speaker 2: just a gentle simmer at the start. I always put
Speaker 2: in a cap full of white vinegar, not white wine vinegar.
Speaker 2: White vinegar, the cheap stuff that helps the eggs cook
Speaker 2: and helps the protein set nicely. And now some people
Speaker 2: will swear by cooking eggs room temperature, others from the fridge.
Speaker 2: I'm take from the fridge and cook egg egg guy,
Speaker 2: no salt in the water.
Speaker 3: What I would do. They will take a spoon and I.
Speaker 2: Will swirl that water a little bit like a little
Speaker 2: bit like a whirlpool, and then that will spin. That
Speaker 2: water will spin in the saucepan. And then I'll take
Speaker 2: my egg and I'll crack it directly into that gently
Speaker 2: swirling the water slowing as I'm adding the eggs. And
Speaker 2: what that does is it helps the egg whites that
Speaker 2: wrap around the yolk, and you get a nicer shape.
Speaker 2: I would then turn the water down a little bit.
Speaker 2: I don't want it to summer or boil at all
Speaker 2: as I'm poaching them, and then just very simply drain
Speaker 2: the eggs, take the egg from the saucepan with a
Speaker 2: slotted spoon. I might just touch the bottom of the
Speaker 2: egg on a paper towel. So my toast is not
Speaker 2: soggy and proper bread, something with structure and really good butter.
Speaker 3: Now you might be thinking, well.
Speaker 2: Really good butter is expensive. I always say it is expensive,
Speaker 2: but use less. You know, that's kind of I guess,
Speaker 2: probably part of my cooking philosophy to buy the best
Speaker 2: ingredients you can afford, and if you can't afford a
Speaker 2: lot of them, just buy a small amount of them
Speaker 2: eat more vegetables, less meat.
Speaker 3: That's the way to go.
Speaker 2: What is the best butter?
Speaker 1: What should we be buying?
Speaker 2: Well, if you're in Victoria, the best butter I think,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm going to sound terribly arrogant.
Speaker 3: Here is the butter that we make by hand at Attica.
Speaker 2: But if you're just looking to buy butter, Ghipsland, Jersey
Speaker 2: make an exceptionally good cultured butter from Jersey cows.
Speaker 1: And selfishly, I want to know how do you make
Speaker 1: a good omelet because I feel like that's my.
Speaker 2: Go to egg dish.
Speaker 3: Sure, give me some tips for that.
Speaker 2: The best eggs, you must start with the best eggs fresh.
Speaker 1: And how do I know what are the best egs?
Speaker 3: Well, the best way to know.
Speaker 2: If you're lucky enough to be able to afford to
Speaker 2: go to a farmer's market or to have a farmer's
Speaker 2: market close to you, the best thing to do is
Speaker 2: to make friends with the free range egg farmer at
Speaker 2: the farmer's market, and then you would be able to
Speaker 2: determine how old the eggs are, and what the conditions
Speaker 2: on the farm are like, and how many hens per
Speaker 2: squimeter and these types of things I would say avoid
Speaker 2: eggs from supermarkets would be my definite advice if you can,
Speaker 2: because you just don't know how long they've been hanging around,
Speaker 2: how long they've been in the distribution center before they
Speaker 2: got to the supermarket, and how long they've even been
Speaker 2: at the supermarket before you brought them. So, if not
Speaker 2: from a farmer's market, definitely from a small or a
Speaker 2: local independent grosser.
Speaker 3: So once you've got good eggs, and it's actually not
Speaker 3: a hard thing to buy in Australia, the good eggs,
Speaker 3: we're very lucky. If you go to North America, good
Speaker 3: luck trying to buy good eggs.
Speaker 2: So take the eggs and I like to do a
Speaker 2: two egg onlet. So you need a lovely pan, that's
Speaker 2: really helpful.
Speaker 1: What's a good omelet pan.
Speaker 2: Well, I've got a pan by all Clad, all c
Speaker 2: lad or Clad.
Speaker 3: I like it very much. It's got a copper core.
Speaker 3: It's quite an expensive pan.
Speaker 2: But again that's a relative thing because the pan that
Speaker 2: I've got will last my entire life. And if you
Speaker 2: buy it's not a nonstick pan. If you buy nonstick pans,
Speaker 2: they're not the greatest. They wear out in your life.
Speaker 2: You might have twenty non stick pans, which would be
Speaker 2: more expensive than my expensive all clad pan. So again,
Speaker 2: if you can afford it, the best pan. Like, it's
Speaker 2: just a stainless steel copper core pan. And sometimes Sanmele
Speaker 2: steel pans are really sticky, but this one's not. It's smallish,
Speaker 2: it's not huge. Say, it's probably got a twenty centimeter base.
Speaker 2: And what I do is I have my eggs, I
Speaker 2: crack them into a small bowl and I whisked them
Speaker 2: with a fork a whisk. Why is that Because I
Speaker 2: don't want to break them up too much. I want
Speaker 2: to break them up just enough. You'll still see in
Speaker 2: my almost little bits of white. I don't want to
Speaker 2: break down the texture and the structure of the egg
Speaker 2: too much, and you can almost collapse it, and it becomes,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, tougher, and it's stickier kind of to
Speaker 2: the pan, and it's just not as nice. I like
Speaker 2: to have my pan on a medium heat, not too low,
Speaker 2: not too high.
Speaker 3: I like to put a little bit of olive oil into.
Speaker 2: The pan first, like I would say, a half teaspoon
Speaker 2: and teaspoon, swell that around, whist my eggs. Most of
Speaker 2: the time I don't season my eggs, but you can season,
Speaker 2: but there's definitely skills of thoughts on whether or not
Speaker 2: they should be season.
Speaker 3: At that point, I don't seison them in the bowl.
Speaker 2: I add a knob a good butter again, and I
Speaker 2: watch a foam now and it's not going brown or
Speaker 2: black at this point, it's just fiming.
Speaker 3: So it's got a good temperature.
Speaker 2: But that the butter is not burning, I will pour
Speaker 2: the eggs into it, using us specially to get all
Speaker 2: of the egg out of the bowl.
Speaker 3: That's approach it. You never leave anything in the bowl
Speaker 3: for any preparation in cooking.
Speaker 2: And I like to use a spatula to make my omelets,
Speaker 2: a rubber spatula like some chefs seem to call them Maurice's,
Speaker 2: but it's always just a spacheler for me. And I
Speaker 2: just shake the pan gently above the element.
Speaker 3: A little bit. I then allow the eggs to cover
Speaker 3: the entire base of the pan and cook a little bit,
Speaker 3: and then I quickly use.
Speaker 2: My spatula to stir them just once, and then I'll
Speaker 2: probably take the pan off the heat and just let
Speaker 2: the heat of the pan do the cooking of the omelet.
Speaker 3: Now, sometimes if I'm putting something in it.
Speaker 2: I'd like to put a small amount of gria or
Speaker 2: a parmesan or even a soft cheese, and then I'm
Speaker 2: going to basically take the handle of.
Speaker 3: The pan in my left hand and I'm going to
Speaker 3: lift it a little.
Speaker 2: Bit so that the pan is now on an angle
Speaker 2: sloping down towards the stove, and I'm going to use
Speaker 2: the spatula to roll my omelet into the shape of cigars.
Speaker 2: It's a very classic style of making omelets. What I'm
Speaker 2: looking for is that nice, even round cigar. I'm letting
Speaker 2: the omelet roll on itself. I'm using the gravity because
Speaker 2: I've elevated the pan on an angle in my left hand, and.
Speaker 3: At the end or just give it a little tap
Speaker 3: to help the omelet form into the cigar.
Speaker 2: And then I will use that same angle, the same
Speaker 2: sort of awkward looking angle to put on the plate
Speaker 2: now the key. In my opinion, omelet should have no
Speaker 2: color on it, should be no brown on it at all.
Speaker 2: It should be golden like yellow, the color of the egg.
Speaker 2: And that's how I do it. I always want the
Speaker 2: omelet to be a little bit runny in the middle,
Speaker 2: especially as eggs will continue to cook in the pan.
Speaker 3: And then a little bit when they're on the plate
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: That is it for today's show. If you haven't done
Speaker 1: so already, you might want to connect with me on
Speaker 1: the social channels where I post additional content. You can
Speaker 1: find me on LinkedIn just search Amantha Imber. I'm on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Amantha and on Instagram at Amantha I. How
Speaker 1: I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from
Speaker 1: Dead Set Studios and thank you to Martin Nimba who
Speaker 1: did the audio mix and makes everything sound better than
Speaker 1: it would have otherwise. See you next time.