Those pesky egg whites

"Any time I am using egg yolks for a recipe, I keep the egg whites in a cup and put them in the fridge for later. Later never comes and I just throw them away." njeshko/reddit

A recent Guardian newsletter had an article on what to do with leftover egg whites, that wasn't a meringue. This struck a chord with me because I'm hopeless at making meringue. I can remember just one success with meringue - not a pavlova, but a kind of roulade that I made for Christmas once.

Before I get on to what is probably just going to be a list of ideas of what you can do gleaned from here and there - if you are interested that is - I want to say a few things about the healthy eating world and egg whites.

First off I discovered that in the UK, it seems that egg whites are so popular amongst the health food nuts - egg white omelettes and the like - that there is a shortage of egg whites. Apparently you can buy egg whites which I did not know so I looked on the Coles website and indeed you can - either frozen or chilled - in a carton. I have no idea whether that craze has really hit here and there is a shortage here as well, but it was interesting.

And my opening picture headlines an article with the headline 'Is it safe to drink egg whites?' Honestly why on earth would you want to do that? I think the craze with the egg whites is that they have protein and no calories, whereas the same people who go for them think the yolk is high in cholesterol - and it is - but unless you are going to gorge yourself on egg yolks there is no harm.

And there are plenty of chefs out there who say rude things about egg white omelettes - and scrambled egg whites, which sounds even worse to me.

Apart from the meringue thing when you're looking for what to do with egg whites, you also get the message about how easy it is to freeze them. Well I did that once - and (a) had enormous difficulty getting them out of the ice cube tray and (b) forgot about them anyway. Indeed I am exactly like the reddit commenter at the top of the page. If I have leftover egg whites, when I'm feeling hopeful or virtuous, I put them in a gladwrap covered mug in the fridge and leave them there, where they lie forgotten and unused until discovered and thrown out for fear of food poisoning. When I am not feeling hopeful I just pour them down the sink and then feel enormously guilty. In fact, so guilty do I feel about leftover egg whites, that if a recipe has lots of egg yolks in it and no whites, I tend to ignore it.

When I started looking for other ideas than meringues I found many lists, nearly all of which were predominantly full of sweet things, which included a lot of meringues of one kind or another. Macarons were big, as was angel cake, nougat, and a whole heap of other cakes and cookies. However, in this household we do not generally eat such things. Cakes are special occasion things and cookies are not part of our lives. Mine anyway. David just buys chocolate biscuits.

But let's start with the few sweet things to do with egg whites that I thought might be worth a mention. Friands of one kind of another were a big thing, so here is an example from Nigel - Brown butter and chocolate chip friands - well they did look rather tempting; and Delia's Almond tuiles looked rather posh - if you are having a poshish dinner party that includes a dessert which requires fancy biscuits. I saw other recipes for these that rolled them rather like brandy snaps or else just left them flat; Passionfruit marshmallows - Taste - just an example of marshmallows - there are plenty more: M'hencha (almond snake) - Alison Adams/Taste - there are plenty more for this one too; Torrone semifreddo - Martha Stewart/Taste, which I'm guessing is a sort of frozen nougat and Pear, almond and chocolate torte - Danni Venn/Coles/Taste, which looked really impressive.

In my original article I also found this recipe from a chef/baker for a white chocolate mousse. There was no picture, although I imagine it would look much like this one:

“Melt white chocolate in a bain-marie or in bursts in the microwave, and whip some cream to stiff peaks in a separate bowl. Fold the melted chocolate into the cream, then whisk egg whites to stiff peaks and fold those in, too. Chill for three hours, then grab a spoon and dig in, perhaps accompanied by a little poached or baked rhubarb." Oliver Costello/The Guardian

We then move to the inbetweeners - or the can be sweet or savoury - options - pancakes and soufflés. On the pancake front we have Impossibly fluffy Japanese-style pancakes/Kitchn; and the very different Ottolenghi Pillowy pakora pancakes with avocado salsa. For the soufflés we have Matt Preston's Tinned peach soufflé on the delicious. website and although I thought I had found a savoury soufflé with just egg whites - in fact I had not.

After inbetweeners come sort of oddments, also in between but in a different way: Toum with crispy shallots, kalamata olives and honey - Great British Chefs and to tell the truth I don't think Toum generally has any kind of egg in it; Old-fashioned no-knead English muffins - Stella Parks/Serious Eats; Easy homemade granola - Nagi Maehashi/Recipe Tin Eats - paticularly if you want your granola to clump together; Prawn shrimp toast - Not Quite Nigella - lots of other recipes for this as well and Spiced nuts - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and hundreds of others.

Fritters of many kinds are also an option, introduced to me in that very first Guardian article by this generalised recipe:

“Make a batter, add sweetcorn kernels, then fold in whisked egg whites, lots of coriander and some chopped green chilli. Deep-fry in batches until golden and crisp." Rosie Healey/The Guardian

And I later found these rather more ethereal looking Battered and fried sage leaves - Janinda Allende/delicious. - a very elegant looking starter and I guess the batter could be used for all sorts of other things as well. The author is a chef at Pellegrino's in Melbourne.

When it comes to main dishes, however, it was slim pickings other than general things like fritters, batters and pancakes. There is however, an Asian technique called velveting whereby you soak your meat or fish in eggwhites, cornflour and rice wine prior to stir frying. Herewith three examples: General Tso's chicken - J. Kenji López-Alt/Serious Eats; Stir-Fried Velvet Chicken with Snap Peas and Lemon-Ginger Sauce - J. Kenji López-Alt/Serious Eats and most spectacular of all - Ottolenghi of course - Masala hake with coconut milk and crisp onions

So next time you are left with a lot of egg whites and you don't feel like pavlova, even if you are up to making pavlova, have a go at some of those.

YEARS GONE BY

March 26 - a sparse collection here.

2024 - Nothing

2023 - Nothing

2022 - Nothing again!

2021 - Yum - potato salads for your Easter brunch

2020 - Deleted

2019 - The demise of Farmer Joe's

2018 - Hips, haws and rosellas

2017 - Nothing