The Specific Way Anthony Bourdain Prefers His Scrambled Eggs

Anthony Bourdain was notoriously anti-brunch, yet in a 2017 interview with Insider Business, the chef-slash-writer named eggs as the dish he had cooked the most in his career. So what's the secret to the perfect scrambled eggs in Bourdain's book? Keep it simple — just some salt and pepper, cooked in butter, and finished a little wet (aka "baveuse").

A wet finish doesn't mean your scrambled eggs will be raw; they'll just finish cooking on the plate. Pull them off the heat just before they've finished cooking. To nail that signature fluffy, pleasant scrambled egg texture, don't over-beat or over-stir, retaining a ripple. Bourdain offered home cooks a pro tip: As the eggs cook in the pan, gently stir them in a figure-8 pattern.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for the classically trained chef, Bourdain cited another classic French chef as his inspiration behind the method: "I go with the Jacques Pepin platonic ideal." In an episode of the PBS series "American Masters At Home," Pepin elaborates on this method, which he calls "my way, or the classic way" of making scrambled eggs. In a pinch, to retain a creamy texture, Pepin will add a tablespoon of cream at the end. The seminal French publication "Larousse Gastronomique" of the 1930s suggested the same method. But by Bourdain's estimation, it's best to just nail the technique to begin with.

Per popular lore, legendary post-war French home cook Madame Poularde was revered throughout the country for her omelets — and she followed the same method Anthony Bourdain swore by. In Elizabeth David's "An Omelette and a Glass of Wine," Poularde allegedly explained, "I break some good eggs into a bowl, I beat them well, I put in a good piece of butter in the pan. I throw the eggs into it and I shake it constantly. I am happy, monsieur, if this recipe pleases you," reports The Guardian.

Ironically, as opposed to brunch as Anthony Bourdain was, he credited eggs as his personal formative foray into the industry. In his magnum opus "Kitchen Confidential," he recounted his fresh-out-of-college tenure at the Rainbow Room in New York City. "I made thousands and thousands of baby quiches for parties ... By now, I was going in to work at 7:30 a.m. and working straight through until midnight almost every day." And yet, the sardonic chef later went on to make such remarks as "The way you make an omelet reveals your character" and "What nicer thing can you do for somebody than make them breakfast?" Clearly, the symbolic fortitude of scrambled eggs is a complicated beast — but their literal preparation shouldn't be.