Debate in an Eggshell: Yolks vs. Whites

PHILOSOPHERS may ponder the chicken-egg question. But for cooks, a far more pressing concern is the yolk-white question. Which comes first depends on whom you ask.

For Danny Meyer, the chief executive of the Union Square Hospitality Group, it is undoubtedly the white, at least on weekdays. Two or three mornings a week, Mr. Meyer eats breakfast at one of the group’s restaurants, Maialino. When he does, he invariably gets the frittata bianca, or egg white frittata, made with sautéed leeks and pecorino.

The frittata was born out of necessity: Maialino’s executive chef, Nick Anderer, had a surplus of egg whites.

“I love eggs in general,” Mr. Anderer said. “I don’t love one part more than another. But I favor egg yolks in sauces, like carbonara sauce, and in making pasta dough, like fettuccine or malfatti. When you make dough, you want to add as little moisture as possible and introduce as much fat as possible, which is coming from the egg yolk and which will give it a soft, velvety texture.”

The more pasta and carbonara sauce he made, the more egg whites he had left over. They needed to go somewhere. The answer came during a conversation the chef had with Mr. Meyer.

“I think I once mentioned to Nick that it would be nice to have one egg white option on the menu, and he responded by coming up with something that is so incredibly delicious, you forget you’re actually eating something so healthy,” Mr. Meyer said. The frittata is light and pretty, with a salad of baby arugula and mizuna fluttering on top.

Mr. Anderer estimates that 75 percent of the egg dishes Maialino serves at breakfast include the yolks. The frittata accounts for the other 25 percent, but that makes all the difference to the kitchen’s egg inventory.

About 60 blocks north, Eli Zabar has his own system for the yolk-white problem, but it tilts in the other direction.

Mr. Zabar, the owner of E.A.T., Eli’s and the Vinegar Factory, likes the natural ratio of white to yolk in a poached egg, for example. But over all he is a yolk advocate, especially when it comes to egg salad sandwiches.

In 1975, he invented what he calls the platonic ideal of an egg salad sandwich. He did it by eliminating half the egg whites. During this period he was into simplicity, he said, and he wanted to get to the essential “egginess” of egg salad. The recipe remains unchanged, 36 years later.

But what of all the leftover hard-cooked egg whites?

E.A.T. sells them as chopped egg white salad in two versions: plain, or dressed with mayonnaise and dill. Waste not, want not.