Brad Makes Pickled Fermented Eggs

But don't be pulling that crunchy,

no no no no no no no.

Well then go to the nurse's office.

Alright, Vinny, today on It's Alive

we're gonna be doing some fermented eggs.

Sounds a little weird,

but it's kinda just a riff on pickled eggs.

It's delicious, you make deviled,

make some of the best deviled eggs you ever had,

great on a little sandwich, we'll probably

do a little nice open-faced tomato toast.

But it's relatively simple.

You want more?

Oh, buddy, I'll give you more.

(bright music)

(beeping) I don't know

if you've ever had a pickled egg,

you walk into some weird bar or something

and there's a big jar with some funky eggs floating in it.

(funky music)

They're delicious, I love pickled eggs, always have.

This is just a cool riff on it.

So I took some eggs, Vinny,

and just normal eggs, y'know nice eggs

and I hard boiled 'em.

So what I do is I throw 'em in cold water,

bring it up to a boil, okay?

Soon as the water comes to a boil, I cover it,

turn it off, let these sit for like nine, 10 minutes.

As soon as that timer goes off,

I dump 'em in the ice water,

you wanna shock them with some cold water quick.

Makes for an easier peel, I found.

So just some hard boiled eggs, cook 'em however you want.

Next, I got some garlic, I got three cloves here.

I'm just gonna go crush 'em, let those hang out

for a little bit, let that little allicin goin'.

(bright music) Crush the cells, Let those hang out

it releases this chemical for a little bit,

I think called allicin. let that allicin going,

little bit of that funk going

and then we got a couple hot peppers.

Little Fresno, I'm gonna nip the top off of these

and then that's it, I'll cut this in half

and then we'll leave these whole.

Just got two little tiny sprigs of dill,

it's a balance act with this so you don't want to go crazy

'cause it will start to really take over the flavor.

And then some bay leaves, fresh bay leaves.

In my opinion, one of the most underrated,

what is it, I guess it's just a leaf.

They have so much flavor and so much aroma to 'em,

fantastic if you can find fresh ones, they're great.

These are getting a little dry but they're fresh.

And they're easy to grow, you can buy a plant,

keep it in your house or whatever.

They're super nice to have.

So we have two, we're gonna do a little experiment, alright?

Little It's Alive experiment.

So what we do, basically, is we're gonna make a brine.

I have three cups of water.

Into the water, I'm gonna put two tablespoons of salt.

Right in there, boom.

Alright, you get that shot Vinny?

Look at that.

Oh, buddy.

And then we got a half a teaspoon of sugar, just a little.

And then check this out, Vinny,

you want to get in close for this one, bud.

Look at that, starter culture.

This is just a mixture of bacterias and yeasts

for starting, fermenting vegetables and stuff like that.

Since we don't have a ton of vegetables,

I like to add this just as that little life force.

You can also, you can have a little plug of kombucha,

you can add a little sauerkraut juice,

some whey, any kind of culture bacteria, cultured starter

liquid that you have, you can add to the mix.

So I'm just gonna give that a nice stir.

So this recipe that we're doing, I have 12 eggs

and the amount of water and the spices

and stuff like that is for 12 eggs

but we're gonna split it into two

and I have just whole peeled hard boiled eggs

and then the same thing here but I'm gonna

take the cake tester and I just wanna poke 'em in there.

I want the brine to penetrate in a little bit more

and help get a little more of that ferment-y, lactic

kinda acid into the egg but I haven't done it before.

In theory, it should work but I didn't know

if it was gonna make the egg fall apart.

So instead of doing it to 'em all,

I just wanted to do it to half.

And then into the jar we go.

Some nice crushed up garlic, alright?

About a clove and a half each,

some nice little dill, just a little bit,

you can really do anything but I like the dill.

Kinda like treating it like a classic pickle kinda vibe.

And then some of the fresh bay leaves.

And I just like to bruise 'em a little, get the oils going.

And I got a serrano pepper, just gonna slightly bruise it.

Drop that bad boy in.

Alright, and then a Fresno.

So we have our jars, everything's the same except

for the holes pricked in, the holes pricked in are

in the ones with the edges, alright Vinny, remember that.

Let me write that down 'cause I'll forget.

To the station, we always gotta have tape.

Always label your tape.

Y'know, people love to take my tape.

I got the good stuff, that's why.

Alright, so that's basically it.

Next, we take our master brine that we made there

that we hit with that starter culture

and I'm gonna pour that in, let me give it

a little stirry stir real quick.

Wanna make sure everything's nice and dissolved

so we get a nice, even pour here.

Yeah.

Now this is three cups of water, little over

but we're gonna do about a cup and a half in each.

The eggs should be submerged, that's an important fact.

I don't know if that'd be a, well yeah, it's a fact.

You want your eggs to be submerged.

We let this ferment for about,

I found the sweet spot to be three days.

You can go longer if things start getting a little weird,

they're very good but they start getting a little different.

Lid goes on, we'll give it a little

turn-y turn for good measure.

Huh, look at that, that don't look too bad.

And then we'll throw these bad boys

in the fermentation station.

(train whistle blowing)

Huh?

(suspenseful sound)

Oh, we never got the spices.

Maybe just a little mustard seed,

maybe a little black pepper.

Let's go see what we have in the spice cabinet

and we'll shop together, Vince, come on.

Hey, Claire.

Alright, imagine a pickled egg

or a fermented egg in this case,

alright we got dill, we got garlic and hot peppers,

what kinda spices should I add?

Maybe a little coriander?

Little coriander. Yeah.

I'm into that, what about sumac?

I don't want cumin, I don't know, are you gonna get--

Anything, is it gonna do anything?

Sumac is just like, like acid, you know?

But we want that. And some floral.

Sumac, Vince, Claire, good meeting.

I was gonna say no, but.

Thanks, Claire.

That's how inspiration comes,

stems from our, whoa, Gaby, hey.

Alright, Vinny, what are we doing? Oh yeah, I like sumac.

Adds a nice little acid kinda, y'know,

it has a tart taste to it.

And then we'll do coriander, y'know?

Everyone's happy.

Good?

(whistling)

Back to the table, Vincenzo.

Stop gossiping.

[Gaby] We're talking about you, just so you know.

Carry on.

Oh yeah, smell that, this is gonna be,

this is a great idea, Vince.

I think.

So sumac, let's think here.

This is a half a teaspoon,

I'm gonna go a little shy of half a teaspoon.

Like that, that's nice right?

And then we got some fresh coriander.

Ooh, maybe we toast it, huh?

Alright, when toasting your spices,

it's gonna help bring out some of the oils

and the flavors and just make it real (puckering lips).

Oh yeah, it's like one of those

videos you see if you're high.

Or you ever see like when they put something over a speaker

and then they'll put sand on the speaker,

on the glass and then the bass goes

and it makes these crazy, vibrations are fascinating.

Vibrations are life, Vince.

Alright, back to the seeds.

If you guys have gardens or windowsills or anything

that is exposed to sunlight,

grow your own herbs, especially cilantro.

When it wants to flower, let it go into flower,

it makes all these beautiful seeds, coriander seeds.

The ones you get from a plant are just,

they're unbelievable, I wish we had some.

It's almost like a complete different spice.

Grow your own herbs.

Alright, we're good.

Then I'm just gonna give these a, I took the,

alright so you have the mortar and pestle,

this is the pestle?

Claire, mortar and pestle.

Yeah? Pestle?

Yeah.

Knew it. (electronic beeping)

Alright, we're just gonna give 'em a little crush.

That's just gonna really open things up.

Nothing crazy but just a nice little cracking.

And then we'll do,

(humming)

yeah, like a 7/8 of a teaspoon.

Oh, this is beautiful.

It's amazing when you toast your spices,

how much they open up from just being dried.

Boom, just like that. And then we're just gonna give it

a nice little shaky shake again.

We're gonna get into the snow globe world, Vinny, you ready?

Oh, my hands are blocking it.

I'll just put it down, okay?

Yeah.

(bell ringing)

So, you want to mix 'em and you can do this

once a day, just give 'em a little mix or something

but you wanna do it gentle,

you don't want to go busting up the egg.

So we'll pop this into the fermentation station.

We'll pop these into the fermentation station.

(train whistle blowing)

And yeah, three days Vinny.

So, today's Monday?

Thursday, fermented eggs,

I'll make you a little tomato toast, alright?

It's gonna be wonderful.

(bright music)

I know I told you to check back by, what was it Thursday?

Today's Tuesday but here, let me pull these over.

We're gonna just do a quick little check,

a little fermentation check-in.

I've been messing with 'em a little.

But you can see lots of little bubbles coming up,

things are happening, there's a lot of pressure here.

You see, it's pushing back on the thing.

Here, Vince, if you wanna zoom in on this one,

you can get a little crack snap.

Alright, didn't do anything.

(bright music)

It's been, it's been.

(beeping)

You can make money off of that.

Right, that's what I was thinking.

So, I'm gonna open this up, maybe we get a little tss.

I'm gonna wait for you this time.

(crowd cheering)

That's it, that's how you know it's working.

Look at all the bubbles now coming up,

everything's moving around, all that depressurization.

These are the ones we did the little prick holes in.

And these are the ones that we kept whole.

Nice, like a little pickled egg, right?

Let me taste the brine.

Salty, little tangy, it's got a nice little garlic-y smell

to it, it doesn't smell bad at all.

You would think, oh we're trying to pickley ferment

some eggs, they're gonna be pretty stinky

but it doesn't really smell egg-y at all.

Let's get in there and look.

Excuse me.

I just need this, I just need this.

We're trying to make some quality programming, here.

I'm gonna cut one in half lengthwise.

This is one of the pricks.

Alright, looks like a hard boiled egg.

I don't really see any briny penetration,

not that there was much color to the brine.

A good experiment, I guess we should try next time, Vince,

do it with like one with some turmeric in it

or some beet juice, they would dye it red or yellow

and that you would see maybe little stains going in,

it might look like a weird eyeball.

And this is the one that doesn't

have the little prick holes in it.

Looks identical.

Well, yeah, I think it looks the same.

So let's try it by itself here.

No salt, no nothing.

This is the one with the little pricks.

(mechanical whirring)

Mm, ooh actually quite nice.

It tastes like a nice seasoned, salted all the way through,

which means that brine did penetrate.

It's got a nice garlicky dill, it really does pick up

the flavors of what you put in the brine.

So that's good, that was pretty tasty.

Let me try the one without the pricks to see if it's less.

Pretty close, but I think the one with the holes

had a little bit stronger of a seasoning throughout it.

So, Vinny, well maybe we'll make

a little egg salad out of this, huh?

Just gonna halve 'em and then I just like to take

a little fork and just start mashing 'em up a little.

Now they're already seasoned, I'm gonna add

a little bit of salt but it really doesn't,

only because we're gonna add some other ingredients

but it doesn't really need too too much.

And then here I chopped up just some little pickles,

you know those little cornichons, cornichons?

We're gonna add some of that right into there, I like that.

And look, we'll just do a little pinch of salt.

Little bit of black pepper.

Nothing wrong with a little black pepper

in your egg salad, you know what I mean, Vince?

What do I got here?

Some top secret mustard

me and old Vinny been experimenting with.

Whoa.

(whimsical music) Vibrations are life.

Gonna throw a little dab of that in there.

And now we just put a little bit of mayonnaise.

Oh, that's the stuff, huh?

I think that's a pretty good consistency.

Just gonna give it a little taste.

Nice, yeah, no more salt, I think that's really good.

Let's make you a little something to eat, Vinny,

I see you getting a little shaky over there.

$10 we get Chris to take a bite of this.

$10.

Check this out, Vinny, I got this

real nice dark rye bread, alright?

I got a nice little tomater.

Yeah buddy, that's the stuff, nice and thin.

August, New York baby, huh?

Tomatoes.

If you're not eating tomatoes now,

I don't know.

We'll put a little bit of, just a little olive oil.

Little drizzle on that, you gotta put

a little olive oil on your tomato, yeah Vin?

And just a little black pepper

'cause it seems like the right thing to do.

Oh, that looks good, huh?

Alright, we can just eat that

but I'm thinking we can put a little bit of this egg salad

right on top there, nice little open facer.

And then, look Vinny, we'll just do a little chive-y chive.

Oh yeah, I'm gonna take a little cut of this.

Gotta try it out.

Y'know, cut this up in little triangles, put it on

your plate, hehehe, have your friends over (laughing).

Oh yeah.

Mm, hey Amiel. Hey.

Can I get you to try something?

Yeah, I'd do anything for you, Brad.

I oughta pull back the mustard

a little bit on the egg salad.

But delish.

Dumb delish.

I love how mustardy it is.

I feel like I get just like the egg

and the mustard together, you get like the nice

kind of like fermenty, salty, umami-y thing

kind of just working it's way through that.

If I didn't tell you it was fermented, would you know?

I don't think I would know, I think I'd be like

oh this is a nicely seasoned Something's up.

Egg salad, I love when you pickle with vinegar.

They become a little like sproingy, rubbery,

this is actually nice and tender.

This is like three and a half days.

After that, I found it does get like rubbery and weird.

What do you think would happen

if you backed off on the cooking time a bit?

If you had like more like eight minute?

Like a little more jammy?

I don't know if that would be my thing,

I don't like cold jammy. (squeaking)

Again, that's what's fun about cooking.

Do what you like, we're just here to help you.

We are here to help you, do what you like.

Yeah, and have some fun.

Just do it.

Bon appetit.

[Ameil] Baby.

Chop this up, let's feed the gang.

(beeping) Chris ran, what'd I tell ya?

Let me put the knife down, people get nervous.

You know, we gotta, you saw a little fear in his eye

when we started talking about Chris,

you gonna try that fermented egg?

Where'd go go?

Boom, never seen someone run to the office so hard.

Who owes you what?

I don't owe you nothing.

I got to the end of the day, you didn't hear that?

Vinny, what's that?

(beeping)

(roaring)

Is this enough action for ya?

(beeping)

Oh, well then go to the nurse's office.

I need mustard to maybe.

You need, oh here.

You wanna try?

Yeah, it tastes good, that's why.

Alright, now scram.

Oh my god, there's hair for god sakes.

Brad! It came on the spoon.

Come on!

Get out of here, mustard's anti-bacterial.

(beeping) It does,

let's just take a little cool off.

It's been so humid and hot in the tri state area

being, well I guess, what is the tri state area?

So there's New York, New Jersey,

and either Pennsylvania or Connecticut, depends who you ask.

I always thought it was Pennsylvania.

Connecticut, I think it is Connecticut actually.

(beeping)

No, I feel rude.

Let's just wait a minute, y'know?

Consideration and courtesy is a dying thing in this world.

Let's bring it back.

(upbeat music)

(beeping)