This morning, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt posted about having Maggi for breakfast. He shared a photo of a bowl of Maggi topped with soft-boiled eggs and cilantro on his Instagram page, @kenjilopezalt. The caption read, “Our friend brought Indian Maggi instant noodles for breakfast which we ate with soft boiled eggs and cilantro and it was a fabulous breakfast. We should normalize breakfast noodles in the west.”
From the caption, it’s clear that Lopez-Alt discovered Maggi for the first time. In India, Maggi gives sustenance during long nights of cramming before a school exam; it is the most eaten snack in college canteens; and it continues to be the go-to food in kitchens of those who live as paying guests. In other words, Maggi is an emotion. It can be made soupy or dry; creamy with a chunk of Amul cheese and jazzed up with sausages or paneer and fried onions. Maggi with eggs is an old trick; wait till Lopez finds out about stuffing the noodles in an omellete and having it with tomato ketchup with a side of bhujia.
The American-Japanese Lopez-Alt is one of the most influential modern food writers in the United States. In 2016, he received the prestigious James Beard Foundation Award for the best General Cooking cookbook for the book, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science. It details methods to improve simple recipes and cooking techniques, like boiling an egg. The author polished his cooking chops by working in restaurants before publishing the book. He used to write a column, The Food Lab, for the food publication Serious Eats. Later, the immensely popular column evolved into the book. Now, he posts recipes regularly on his Instagram page and his YouTube account, @JKenjiLopezAlt. He has a detailed video on how to boil eggs—from soft to hard. Take a look at the video, and learn how to make ‘perfect boiled eggs’.
