Actual question: How do you like your eggs? Your scrambled eggs, specifically? Are you a firm-and-folded person? A loose-and-scoopable fan? “There is no such thing as a perfectly scrambled egg,” writes Ella Quittner in her new extremely fun cookbook, Obsessed with the Best. In it, Ella tries out every possible cooking method, to find the best routes to classic dishes: juicy roast chicken, melty cabbage, chewy chocolate chip cookies, or in this case, soft-scrambled eggs. “So custardy that they’re halfway to dessert,” she says.
After dozens of trials, Ella developed her own precise (but very doable) technique for achieving, if not the perfect scrambled egg — because that is, of course, subjective — then certainly the softest and creamiest. “This is one of my favorite solo dinners on a busy night,” says Ella. “I love that it takes such little time and effort, but tastes like something you’d pay an arm and a leg for in a brunch restaurant.” Serve with a cold glass of white wine, she says, “and well-buttered toast — of course.” Well, naturally.
Here’s Ella’s method:
Caramelized Shallot Soft Scramble with Comté
From Obsessed with the Best, by Ella Quittner
Serves 1
3 eggs, cold from the refrigerator
1/2 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt, plus a pinch for the shallots
1 heaping tbsp cold crème fraîche
3 tbsp salted butter
1 large or 2 medium shallots, peeled and finely diced
1/4 cup grated Comté cheese
Flaky salt
Freshly cracked black pepper
Note: While Ella’s recipe calls for shallots, she notes that you can swap them for any allium — like yellow onion or leeks.
Crack the eggs into a small bowl. Add the kosher salt. Use a fork to break the yolks, then forcefully whisk the eggs together for 30 seconds, or until totally homogeneous. Add the crème fraîche to the eggs in 5 or so little portions (so it’s not all in one clump). Refrigerate the bowl while you cook the shallots.
Set a small-to-medium skillet (nonstick, stainless steel, or well-seasoned carbon steel) over a high heat. Drop in 2 tablespoons of the butter. When it melts and foams, adjust the heat to medium-low and add the shallots with a pinch of kosher salt. Sauté, keeping the heat moderate to avoid burning the butter, for 8-10 minutes, until the shallots are translucent and browning around the edges and they taste sweet and concentrated.
Turn the heat to low and push the shallots to the sides of the skillet. After about 1 minute, add the remaining tablespoon of butter. Add the cold eggs. Do not touch them for 90 seconds! Seriously, I’ll know. After 90 seconds, the eggs should have begun to set up around the sides, like the very early stages of a French omelet. Rotate the pan 180 degrees, so its handle is facing the opposite way it was facing before. Use a silicone spatula to draw in the eggs and shallots from the edges, almost to the middle, but off to one side by a few degrees — like the spatula is a pilot taking a plane just off course. As you scrape toward the middle, be sure to scrape under the set eggs you’ve just drawn inward before moving on to the next stroke.
Don’t touch for another 90 seconds! I’ll definitely know. After 90 seconds, repeat this spatula motion. Sprinkle the grated Comté over the middle of the eggs, where the large, set curds are hanging out. Turn the heat up to medium for 20-40 seconds, and finish cooking any runny egg around the edges that has stubbornly refused to firm up. Pull the eggs from the heat while still glossy on top, and slide onto a plate.
Top with flaky salt and black pepper, and serve.
Thank you so much, Ella! We absolutely love your book.
P.S. Two more egg recipes: an easy make-ahead strata and Austin-style breakfast tacos.
(Photos by Michael Graydon and Nikole Herriott. Excerpted from Obsessed with the Best by Ella Quittner, on sale now from HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright © 2026 by Ella Quittner. All rights reserved.)
