Did you know that green eggs are possible with the addition of only one natural ingredient? Try this fun food experiment for St. Patrick’s Day. And do it with kids; they’ll get a kick out of it too!
Hubs always ends his emails with “I do not like them in a car”. So, as huge Dr. Seuss fans (below is our copy of Green Eggs and Ham), we set out to discover if we could indeed make green eggs and ham!
Green Eggs and Ham?
As we were making our way through a few different sauerkraut recipes one morning, I realized we had the exact ingredient we need to pull off green eggs and ham. Although, as it was spur of the moment, we didn’t actually have any ham :).
Extract Juice for Green Eggs
We set aside some of the red cabbage. Then add 1/4 tsp of salt. However, if you’ll be making a lot of eggs, see the recipe below to scale it up. There’s a microwave method you can try too (which you can read more about in this Instructable).
The salt will extract the cabbage juice if you let it sit long enough (20 min to an hour). What you see below is all I used for one egg. Of course, if you’re making more eggs and not just experimenting you’ll need to scale this up. I could’ve stolen some of the liquid from our sauerkraut but you really should use every bit for the fermentation process.
With the yellow separated from the white, mix only the egg white into the cabbage juice.
Give it a mix. Due to some scienc-y stuff I don’t understand, it’ll start to turn a blue-green right before your very eyes!
Cook The Egg
It’s ready to cook.
Heat a pan with an egg ring and pour it in.
Add the egg yolk in the middle.
Now, cook the egg as you normally would.
It’s definitely green! But I think next time we’ll add more cabbage juice to see if we can get it a bit more concentrated. Of course, you could get a more vibrant effect with food colouring. But why buy that when we just happened to have some red cabbage!
I don’t think you can avoid the bubbles and you may notice a slight difference in taste due to the cabbage, but it’s certainly fun to try it out – especially if you make sauerkraut like we do!
One day, the stars will align and we’ll do a full on green eggs and ham. Of course, if you’re a Seuss fan like us, you could eat this year round. But, if not, with St. Patrick’s Day coming up, give it a try!
Pin Green Eggs
Pinning is always welcome and appreciated!
Green Eggs
Equipment
- Microwave
- Cheesecloth
- Mixing bowls
- Fork
Ingredients
- Eggs
- 2 cups red cabbage chopped or shredded
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
There are two methods to capture the cabbage juice.
Method 1
- Transfer cabbage to a bowl and sprinkle salt over. Mix well with your hands. Let sit up to an hour. You can give the cabbage an occasional stir and even squeeze it every once in a while to extract more liquid. Collect the cabbage juice and proceed to step 3.
- If you use method 1, you likely won’t need to add any additional salt on your egg.
Method 2
- Transfer cabbage to a microwave safe bowl and cover. Microwave high 4 - 5 minutes so the cabbage softens and releases juices. Let cool completely.
- Place cabbage in cheesecloth and squeeze over a bowl to capture the cabbage juice.
- Separate the eggs placing yellow in one bowl and white in another.
- Combine egg white with a bit of the cabbage juice and mix together with fork; colour will change to green.
- Heat a pan over medium-high heat and add an egg ring to the pan. Add oil or butter, then pour in the egg white mixture. Place the yolk on top. Cook the egg to your desired doneness. We lower the heat, then place a lid on top to cook the yolk.
