The Cook’s Corner
By Seth Brilliant
This refreshing old-fashioned drink has nothing to do with eggs or cream. It’s simply a chocolate soda with a very creamy consistency. This is a great thirst quencher on a hot summer day!
Although there are only three simple ingredients in an egg cream, there are endless debates about the correct way to make this concoction. How much syrup should you use? Whole milk or skim milk? Does the syrup or the milk go in the glass first? Or does the syrup go in last, after the milk and seltzer? And when are you supposed to stir it? Here’s my own take on this classic:
Pour about 1 inch of cold skim milk into a 12-ounce glass. Add several squirts of cold chocolate syrup, about 2-3 tablespoons in all, and stir to mix. Now fill the glass with cold seltzer (no need to stir at this point, let the seltzer do the final mixing). That’s all there is to it. And if you did this properly, there should also be a quarter to a half inch of delicious chocolate foam at the top of the glass.
Variations
To make a mocha egg cream, add half a teaspoon of instant coffee to the milk before adding the seltzer. For another interesting alternative, you could use black-cherry-flavored seltzer instead of regular seltzer.
Many egg cream lovers insist upon using “Fox’s U-Bet” chocolate syrup, a New York-based brand that seems to be traditional. I’ve tried that as well as plain old Hershey’s chocolate syrup, but my taste buds couldn’t tell much of a difference.
Egg cream aficionados suggest buying seltzer in smaller 1-quart bottles and putting them in the refrigerator to chill thoroughly before opening them. I agree with this tip, since you’ll then get the maximum amount of carbonation in each cold bottle. With a smaller bottle, you’ll also probably use up the remaining seltzer before the fizz dissipates. But whatever you do, don’t buy club soda, because it’s not the same thing and doesn’t taste like seltzer, which is just carbonated water.
