Frank Gehry’s Matzah Brei

April 17, 2008, 1:33 pm
Frank Gehry’s Matzah Brei

By Mark Bittman

Last fall, while shooting for the forthcoming public television
series “Spain: On the Road Again” (in which I play the
out-of-character role of a New York Times journalist and cookbook
author who hangs out with Mario Batali, Gwyneth Paltrow and the
lovely Spanish actress Claudia Bassols), I had lunch with Frank Gehry
at his best-known creation, the Bilbao Guggenheim. In the midst of
jaw-dropping architecture and a collection of Serras in a room the
size of a football field, in a town where even the uncelebrated food
is good, we of course wound up talking about matzah brei, even though
Passover was six months away. (Click here to watch.)

O.K.: it’s relevant now. Frank and I, evidently, do it the same way:
Per egg or two (depending on whether you want an eggy or matzah-y
product), you take a sheet of matzah and run it under cold water
until it softens just a bit. Fry it in (plenty of) butter, then you
scramble in the eggs, keeping them soft. Plenty of salt and pepper;
sugar is optional but sometimes irresistible.

Another school has you soaking the matzah until it’s mush before
beginning; I don’t see it. Other notions welcome. What with the
five-pound boxes of matzah flooding New York City supermarkets, there
will be many opportunities to try them out.

http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/frank-gehrys-matzah-brei/index.html?hp