Like me, you have a great deal of trouble frying eggs, but are not currently in the market for egg-frying advice. (I am not in the market for egg-frying advice; I am too contrary by half for it at the moment, probably due to a lack of choline.) They dribble out into enormous white pancakes no matter how hot you make the flame, and no matter how many wee saucers you crack the eggs into first before gently insinuating them onto the pan. Frying eggs is useless and impossible. Here, specifically, is a very particular way not to fry eggs.
Do not turn your stove on over medium-high heat and let a pat of butter come to a sizzle in your skillet. Then, do not crack two medium eggs into the widest coffee cup you own. After this, you are by no means to slam the coffee cup face-down onto the skillet and hold it there for forty-five seconds in an attempt to contain your egg whites-spreading problem without buying an egg ring.
Remember that you are still a worthwhile and a vibrant person.
Finally, do not lift your coffee cup only to find that a ring of half-congealed egg whites have stuck to it and are ripping the sodden remains of your egg yolks (still in the pan, sundered yet unwilling to completely sever themselves from their albumenic counterparts) in half.
If, against my advice, you have done this, all that is left is to use a fork to tear away the useless whites and salvage what is essentially two yolks in a tiny white frame. Put it on bread, or don’t. You will find that somehow you have managed to cook the yolks almost entirely through, rendering them pointless, while bits of the white remain translucent. Why. Why. Why. Why are eggs composed of two diametrically opposed components that require two completely apposite methods of cooking?
While you are doing this, which I do not advise, also do not clean the pork bones from last night’s dinner off the plate you eat breakfast from. You do not deserve a new plate. Go back to bed.
I can usually fry eggs successfully but I can’t cook literally anything else, if that makes you feel any better.
Is it a problem that they go into enormous white pancakes? It has never occurred to me that might be a bad thing. Should I be egg-shamed?
Nope! Extra points of the edges get a bit crispy. Seriously, it’s all the rage in Bon Appetit. “Olive oil fried eggs”.
I like my eggs all willy nilly and in weird shapes. No shame. No shame at all.
Is that not…not how that should be? I don’t like fried eggs myself but I cook them for my husband all the damn time, and they always end up looking like freakshow wiggly eyes with crispy brown edges. Actually, what I usually do is cook bacon on the skillet first, then scrape it so there’s only a tiny sheen of bacon fat on it, then fry the eggs in that.
I didn’t know this was a thing either! Ugly food that tastes great is how I roll pretty much always.
Right? I love the thin pancakey parts. Especially at the edges, when they’re a little lacy as they embrace whatever fat you’re cooking them in…mmmm. It does make it hard to do a good eggy sammich though.
Fold them over! Double eggness and lacy bits.
ohh yeeaaahhh. Or just nom the sticking-out parts from the sammich once it’s made? ::AUMP::
i hate that!!!! it tastes like spider hair!!! I WANT RELATIVELY THICK EGG WHITES IN A NEAT, LACE-LESS SHAPE
I could not disagree more but I am cackling at “spider hair”. A true witchmeal!!
Isn’t that a good description of poached eggs? Maybe you’re barking up the wrong egg style.
…okay, now I’m having patronizing Richard Gere flashbacks from Runaway Bride.
Very Fresh Eggs will give you fried eggs with thick, compact whites. The only way to be sure your eggs are Very Fresh is to buy them from an [inevitably seedy, somehow, I don’t know why, but they always are,] egg farmer in your area.
The only way to get that is to have insanely fresh eggs. It’s not your fault. It’s the eggs.
Seconding builtahouse. I know you didn’t ask for advice on how to make fried eggs, so I will say, make a poached egg that’s still runny then flash fry it in a very hot pan so the bottoms gets cripsy before the yolk hardens. I have never tried this because it’s ludicrous, but it works in theory.
I suspect that actually, the secret to that is to wait until the edges are cooked, then trim off the lacy bits with something sharp.
Yup, this is how I like my fried eggs too, they get all crispy and delicious.
You probably didn’t actually want egg-frying advice, but what you need is fresher eggs, so the whites are less runny. Also, more butter in the pan, and medium-lowish heat, not very high. When you’ve got old eggs, they still taste fine, and there’s no problem with eating them, but nothing’s going to keep the whites from spreading all over the pan.
Does anyone actually know how to get fresher eggs? This is advice I have constantly heard and I have NEVER FOUND A WAY TO RELIABLY AGE CHECK MY EGGS. Should I be handing my cartons of eggs blocks and asking them to sort them by color? Do I need to check their teeth or something?
Do you float them in some water? The fresher the egg the more it sinks, the older the egg, the more it will rise up to the top of a glass or something.
Lukewarm water. Really fresh eggs will lie on the bottom on their sides. Older, but still good, eggs will rest on their pointy end with the fat end pointing up. If the egg floats and no part of it rests on the bottom of the glass, I believe you are not supposed to eat it at all as that means it’s not good anymore.
I don’t know how to get super fresh eggs either, barring getting them from a farmers market. I was more explaining what the issue is, rather than giving helpful advice that could be acted on.
But they are usually pretty fresh when you get them from the supermarket; it’s when they’ve been in your fridge for three weeks that the whites are really runny. Still absolutely fine to eat, but not the same as they were.
How to get fresher eggs.
Find a chicken. (Make sure it is not a rooster.) Locate the bottom half. Wait.
Eggcellent advice!
Well, as long as I’m not henpecking anyone.
[This is NOT FOR MALLORY, who did not want advice. This is me complaining.] The eggs in my local grocery seem to be getting older and older. (And not in the way everything gets older and older. I mean, I understand how the time continuum works in everyday applications.) The stamped dates get closer every time I look at a carton, which I know means they were laid weeks or even months ago. The egg whites are correspondingly loose and watery, and the shells have big air pockets at one end. All the grocery-store eggs I’ve bought lately, cheap or expensive, are old.
I used to be able to get fresh eggs by just looking for the latest date on a carton. Now, I can only find fresh eggs by buying at the farmer’s market. Even that isn’t always a guarantee.
The huge avian flu outbreak has completely screwed up the commercial egg market. So, newer eggs are a problem because the big producers in the midwest had to kill all their chickens about 6 weeks ago. Takes 24 weeks for a chicken to start producing eggs (which I know because I’m one of those obnoxious people with hens in my backyard).
I knew about the avian flu, but I’ve noticed this for well more than a year (though possibly the ramp-up to the widespread outbreak was having an effect before it made the news).
My sister used to have chickens, and she’d bring me the loveliest eggs. The minute I have a backyard in a zone that allows it, I’ll have chickens there, too.
They’re so much fun. I mean, they shit everywhere, but other than that …
The only way I have ever had access to fresh eggs was getting them from my aunt who lives on a farm and has chickens. Actually, now that I think of it, I believe the only reason they actually bother with chickens is because she hates buying old nasty store bought eggs.
also I appreciate your enthusiasm but “I am not in the market for egg-frying advice” is literally the second sentence in the piece
I’m good with minor culinary tasks. Literacy, on the other hand, isn’t a strong point.
Eggsplainers can’t be expected to fight the urge to help.
So much eggsplaining to do, so little time.
Well done on “eggsplainers,” bonus points for you!
Of course, then my mind went straight to “eggspreaders” and, er, ugh. I may need to take up drinking at this point.
Not all eggs.
ALSO IN THE TAGS
except an egg ring!
Which is also excellent for making crumpets and english muffins. An extra puffy pancakes. And biscuits for gravy. http://www.amazon.com/Fox-Run-English-Muffin-Ring…
I also just use a metal circular cookie cutter (which I already had, so no need to buy another thing).
Eeeh, I don’t know about this one. I am another obnoxious backyard-chicken owner and all of our eggs are usually a maximum of a week old, generally less since we give a lot away and eat them pretty regularly, and ALL of these issues are issues I have constantly.
This is (among the many reasons) why scrambled eggs are the only eggs for me. Well, scrambled, or baked into a cake/cookies. That’s all.
This makes me feel so boring! I’ve never even tried to fry an egg!!!
If we’re talking about how to cook eggs then I wanna fight someone about poached eggs. Runny yolks are nice but you can get that with fried eggs, with the added bonus of not being soggy and looking like pond scum. I look up how to poach eggs on the internet and every single one is like “1) select an egg that was laid between 64 and 73 hours ago. 2) allow the loose egg whites to drain through a pinprick in the broad side of the egg (approx. 2 hours) 3) heat water with your sous vide (if you do not have a sous vide: see steps 34-39 for alternatives) to 198 degrees Fahrenheit….”
Screw you, “chefs.” Here’s my recipe for runny yolked eggs: “1) crack egg into hot pan. 2) take egg off pan when it’s done.”
This is 5000% accurate. And if for some reason you feel strongly that you need to make your runny-yolked egg using water instead of fat, friend, there is this thing called a soft-boiled egg that’s gonna blow your mind.
YAS.
Ugh dumb poached eggs they are so stupid and also gross.
Here’s how you make poached eggs:
You buy a specialty poached egg pan.
There are no other viable alternatives. And I don’t want to hear your nonsense bullshit about “Add vinegar to the water, then with a slotted wooden spoon–” NO. YOU BUY A POACHED EGG PAN. IT’S THE ONLY WAY.
This one’s mine, because my Dad bought about 20 of them and distributed them to the family one Christmas: http://www.amazon.com/Excelsteel-Stainless-Non-St…
Tip: You WILL burn your fingers using it.
Yeah, “stay cool handle” my sweet patootie.
On the other hand, maybe you have a spare fork you can bend the tines on to make a little tool to slide onto the handle of lies from the side? That’s how we get ours out.
Oh sure, a “stay cool handle” made of metal, that’s physically possible. (I bought a pot with a “stay cool handle” for Girl Scout camp when I was about 11, i.e. young enough to be fooled by it. Now that I am nearly 30 you can no longer see the burn scar on my thumb, at least.)
Disagree!!!! I follow all of that nonsense (which actually takes very little time), and I have never, ever gotten a result I wasn’t happy with. Boil a few inches of water with a little vinegar, crack egg into bowl, make a vortex in the water, drop egg in for two minutes, remove with slotted spoon, eat perfect delicious poached egg, done.
My success rate with poached eggs is so, so much better than fried eggs, no special equipment needed! I am not a very accomplished cook in general, I promise if I can do this you guys can too.
I think poached egg advice is some of the most divisive in the world. For instance, it has taken me years to get to the point where I can get DECENT poached results on a regular basis, and the vortex has never, ever given me anything other than a giant whirlpool of stringy whites.
Orrrrr if you are me and very lazy, you take a glass measuring cup (or any other microwaveable roundish vessel), melt some butter in it and swish it up the sides to the approximate depth of one egg, crack said egg into the bottom, and microwave for 15 seconds at a time, poking it with a fork once it starts to firm up. If you pay attention, voila – a perfectly passable poached egg that will do just fine on an English muffin with cheese, mustard, and the breakfast pork product of one’s choice.
I have a super-cheap version of that (I bought a cheap lidded pan for roasting coffee, and was surprised by the bonus poaching thing), and I love it because I can put sun-dried tomatoes and herbs in the things before I put the eggs in.
I’ve got little heat-safe silicone cups, each big enough to fit one egg. Dab of oil in the bottom, break an egg into it, lower the cup with the egg in it into simmering water. Take out the cup after the egg is done, run a knife around the edge, pop the egg out. The white is set, the yolk is runny, the cleanup is minimal, and the eggs are not waterlogged.
Bonus: the cups look like little chickens.
Yeah, if one wants LOTS of eggs with runny yolks all done at the same time AND one happens to already own a sous vide….. fine, I guess poached eggs are an okay plan. Short of that, WHYYYYYYYYYYY.
My college dining hall used to serve “poached eggs” as eggs each cracked into their own little monkey bowl type thing and then steam cooked somehow, and there was nothing I hated more, because I did breakfast dishes 5 days a week my first year, and they were impossible to clean. If one tried scrubbing them all before they went through, it took way too long and got water and egg everywhere, but by running them through the industrial washer a couple of times, you’d get most of them clean, but then the last couple with super baked on egg bits were terrible, and one tray’s worth of little egg bowls would take AT LEAST five times more work than a tray’s worth of ANYTHING else, even silverware, which went through the washer at least twice and also needed to be sorted.
That sounds like THE WORST THING. I love eggs but the first step in my “egg-on-it” decision making tree is “will egg make this hard to clean up?”
That’s another benefit to frying vs. poaching. If you screw up your fried egg, you can just let it cook long enough that it separates from the pan, and then you have an imperfect egg but no permanent reminder of your failure, and it’s fine. If you screw up a poached egg, you have a gloopy mess on your hands. Even if you don’t screw up your poached egg, you have a gloopy mess on your hands, with all the egg white wisps that have adhered to your saucepan in some kind of horrifying egg-foam/water alloy.
I think that the internet generally makes poaching eggs sound harder than it is – I don’t think I’ve ever messed up a poached egg whereas I mess up fried eggs very frequently (I don’t have a problem with the whites spreading out, but I constantly break the yokes when flipping them, which as Mallory says completely defeats the purpose.) Poached eggs are easy and delicious! Although to be perfectly honest I also get kind of mesmerized by watching them cook in the little water vortex, and just generally find the whole process aesthetically satisfying, which is probably exactly the pretension you are objecting to.
I LOVE poached eggs. When I was very small, my grandma would make me poached eggs and very buttery toast and cut it all up together in a bowl. The toast would get a little wet and very yolky and it was so, so good.
(Not saying this can’t be accomplished with fried eggs, but I’m definitely Team Poached.)
Poaching eggs is IMPOSSIBLE. A restaurant near my apartment does a crispy poached egg on their pork belly cobb salad (yeah that’s right) and it is a miracle. I don’t know how they do it – maybe they poach it first and then they roll it in panko and deep fry it? I don’t question perfection.
A hilarious thing I have been trying for the last couple of weeks is putting the egg in a strainer before lowering it into the water.
Because, you know, getting rid of the water in the white, or something.
Result is SLIGHTLY better poached eggs and a strainer that is scientifically impossible to clean.
Poached eggs are the only eggs I can make. This is because once I taught my brother how to make the kind of egg that is in a piece of toast. Immediately subsequently I lost my ability to make that kind of egg. I also taught him to fry and scramble eggs. I am now not able to make either of those kinds of eggs.
I stopped teaching my brother how to cook. I can only assume he is a cooking-skills-vampire.
I can’t fry eggs and I don’t care.
I can, however, poach them. I’m willing to trade crispy fried-ness for successfully gooey yolks any time.
When I ate eggs that was also my MO. Even when they turn into a cloud of white particulates that you have to sift out of the water one piece at a time, poached eggs are best eggs.
You can poach eggs in the microwave.
You do need a special microwave thingy that is sold in the supermarket. It looks like, gosh, there are one or two domes that hinge over each other. In a very boring and offensive beige. Costs about a loonie here in Canada (about 8 cents US)
You rinse both insides but do not dry.
Crack the egg(s) into one dome. Close the other dome over it.
Put in microwave at 80% for about one minute.
Let sit because if you open it immediately you will be scalded by steam.
And anyway the toast hasn’t popped up yet.
Butter the toast and decant the eggs.
If, by some miracle, you can fry one egg, you will most definitely not be able to fry more than one egg at a time. Do not try. You will likely give up and just scramble them in the pan and pretend that’s what you were intending to cook.
Yo, fuck eggs. When I was in middle school I tried to make brownies from scratch – the recipe from my mom’s old Betty Crocker cookbook – and somehow managed to COOK THE EGG IN THE BATTER BEFORE IT BAKED IN THE REST OF THE BROWNIE. So there were big gross chunks of cooked egg white in my otherwise beautiful brownies. I threw them out, defeated, and stuck to the Ghirardelli mix from then on.
In my experience, brownies are the only baked good that always comes out better when you use a mix than when you make them from scratch (though full disclosure the only time I actually tried making them from scratch I used a recipe from a Star Wars cookbook).
True, UNLESS you are using the following recipe, which is objectively the best: http://food52.com/recipes/21007-alice-medrich-s-b…
This is a true statement.
I used to think the same thing because my brownies were always horrid, but then I started using the Smitten Kitchen “Best Cocoa Brownies” recipe and it’s almost an exact dupe of Two-Bite Brownies. It’s amazing and dead easy.
It’s a nearly identical recipe to Alice Medrich’s (queen of baked goods!)
I did the exact same thing. Even the freaking high end chocolate was ruined. Stupid eggs.
Empathy fistbump, my friend. That was the worst and I would not wish that upon anyone.
Did you melt the chocolate and butter together then add it to the egg while it was still hot? I’ve done that in the past and had the same problem with gross strings of cooked egg running throughout my brownies. The chocolate and butter cooks bits of the egg while it’s still in the bowl. Stupid eggs!!
I used cocoa powder! I think that is the most likely scenario, because I was cooking them on the stovetop if I remember correctly. Stupid eggs, I don’t like you one bit. >(
Hey, my sister once managed to undermix a cake mix so badly that there were chunks of cooked egg in it, I imagine your problem stemmed from the fact that you had warm butter and/or chocolate you were trying to combine with eggs, so at least you had a reason that was not “laziness”.
I had a roommate that was irrationally afraid of not breaking the yolks in brownies and having hard cooked eggs in the middle of the batter, so she pierced each yolk with an egg as soon as it was in the bowl and then beat the mixture furiously to avoid any egg problems in the batter.
My grandmother was a pastry chef for a rich family during the great depression years. I watched her bake stuff for years and learned a lot of tricks that I did not know were tricks. You could not ask her questions, you could only watch.
She was so awesome that she never even used measuring cups or spoons, no, she KNEW she had the right amount of flour or soda or powder or cinnamon just by looking at the ingredients in the bowl. If you asked “how do you … ” she would cut you off and say, “let me do this now, I have to concentrate” which really meant, “I am a goddess. What I do can only be interpreted, never explained.”
I miss her so much.
Lately I’ve just been boiling seven-minute eggs instead. If nothing else, the cleanup is easier. Downside: when the egg cracks going into the water and then it spits albumen out to congeal in the boiling water and collect along the edges of the pot. Why.
Even better is steaming 11-minute eggs.
*sits on own hands to avoid giving advice*
*whispers* but try adding a teaspoon of water to the pan before you put the lid on, and then turn the heat down a bit.
KAI DO YOU REALLY THINK I HAVEN’T TRIED THE ADVICE THEY GIVE IN *COOKS ILLUSTRATED*?? OF COURSE I HAVE TRIED THAT
the true secret to perfect eggs, every time: bind Christopher Kimball to you in a ritual held over a well at the old Johnson place, held at the dark of the corn moon.
Holy crap I did not think that “please do not give advice” in literally three different places would be so fucking hard to find.
I don’t know your life, Mallory! You’ve got a technique involving a coffee cup! Who knows what other sorcery you’ve tried and discarded!
I NEED HELP AND YET I BRISTLE AT ITS PROFFERANCE
I think there’s a joke somewhere in combining the AA 12 steps and the bazillion steps required in Cooks Illustrated recipes, but I’m not eggsactly sure where it’s hiding.
Anyone want to take a crack at it?
I dunno, Mallory, maybe you should shell out for an egg ring – I hear they make truly eggceptional fried eggs. No more scrambling to contain those runny whites!
Your pun game is strong and I can’t believe no one else has indicated their appreciation of it yet.
I’m eggstremely grateful!
You just made me remember that I own one of those, even though I always eat my eggs scrambled… Should I donate it?
This post reminded me that I have a heart-shaped egg ring thing that I haven’t used in months because the last time, I ended up with two round blobs of egg despite pouring them directly into the heart shape at the very beginning of the cooking process.
It also reminded me that I once ended up on the Egg Farmers of Ontario website and they have a FAQ which includes “Can I have more than one egg a day?” and “How many eggs can I eat in a week?” Children, the man has not yet been born who could tell me how many eggs I can or cannot eat in a given period of time. I’LL EAT AS MANY AS I WANT, OKAY, EGG FARMERS. You of all people do not have any interest whatsoever in limiting egg consumption.
“WELL, THERE ARE 168 HOURS IN A WEEK. HOW MANY EGGS CAN YOU EAT IN AN HOUR? CAN YOU EAT AS MANY AS ME, DWAYNE ‘THE ROCK’ JOHNSON?”
COD AND EGGS FOR EVERYONE
I cannot believe I had to make it this far into the comments for a Gaston ref.
I can fry a perfectly acceptable egg (spoiler alert, the suggestions other people are NOT MAKING are pretty good), but I do not fry eggs for myself, because I cannot abide egg yolks.
It’s fine if the yolks are all mushed up within the rest of the egg (like in a scramble or an omelet). It’s fine if they’re removed altogether, as long as the white is not boiled. But a hard, gross, dry, pasty egg yolk is only the second worst thing in my culinary world, the very worst thing is a RUNNY egg yolk, because at least if it is solid I can remove it easily from a dish or my mouth, but a runny egg yolk is insidious.
I mean, my affection for overcooked omelets has everything to do with “that’s how my mom made them” (cooked on the stove top until what other people would call “done”, and then topped with provolone, or mozz, and maybe a bit of ham product, and then put under the broiler to be finished). But I have no idea why I am as opposed to egg yolks, on principle, as I am. My other food distastes have mellowed with age– I’m more likely to eat a sandwich, I even enjoy a few types of mustard, etc. But the egg yolk thing only gets worse, to the point where I can’t really comfortably watch OTHER people eating them anymore, which is frankly just embarrassing.
“a runny egg yolk is insidious” yes yes a thousand times yes
I find the same thing has happened to me with seafood as happened to you with egg yolks. Except in this case I can’t stand smelling the seafood other people are eating, ESPECIALLY if I am eating myself.
Remember that time you tried to make Julia Child’s chocolate cake? Is this like, the same thing only with eggs?
MADDIE YOU GET OUT OF MY INTERNET
Quick, someone gift Mallory this tiny egg frying pan: http://www.amazon.com/Joie-Mini-Nonstick-Egg-Fry/…
SO TINY. There’s nowhere for the egg white to go!
But what if you want two eggs!? One is never un oeuf!
Ahhhhh I’m going to poach that from you for future egg punning opportunities.
I stole it from my grandfather, who used it in reverse, about 20 years ago. My mom asked how many eggs we each wanted in the big family scramble and I said two, grandpa said “but one egg is always un oeuf!”
I have one of those, in a different brand. I make a mean omelet in it. Highly recommended.
I got one of those just so I could make a single fried egg to slip on top of stuff for dinner! Have not tried it yet but perhaps tonight should be the night
Despite in general being a pretty good home cook who is quite knowledgeable for a layperson about food science , I cannot get things like fried eggs, crepes, injera, cakes/patties/croquettes of any kind — basically anything cooked in a nonstick pan with a small amount of fat. They always stick to the nonstick pan, they always tear/break/fail spectacularly, and I hate it.
Cast iron. Seriously, I cook all these in various cast iron pans and they work great. Plus, bonus iron in your diet. I actually really hate non stick pans and refuse to use them, I use cast iron or normal steel pans.
<3 cast iron, it is literally all I use
Nope sorry. I’ve tried every single version of seasoning and treating and not using metal utensils and only scrubbing with salt and stinking up my house for days on end doing the flax seed oil seasoning and all I have to say is that the cast iron conspiracy is in league with the egg conspiracy and the crepe conspiracy and they are listening.
Ah well I think the solution is to come to my place and I can make fried eggs and crepes for everyone!
maybe letting it cook just a bit longer so the proteins release from the pan? (like when you try to flip fish or meat too soon and it rips?)
I tried and tried and failed with injera. Batter breads with minimal fat in them hate my guts.
My solution was to move to a place with injera bakers, but I can see as how that will not work for everyone.
I feel your pain. I can fry stuff, but I cannot make cookies or biscuits to save my life. I am all over cakes, but anything cookified just does not work and will not work.
I can’t make omelettes. I tend to panic and over-stir and end up with “scrambled eggs with stuff in”.
I didn’t realize there was any other way to make an omelette at home…
Secret to omelettes is you never, ever stir. You just shake the pan a bit to get it spread evenly, then gently push in the sides to let more egg liquid hit the pan surface.
Go forth and buy yourself a small steel crepe pan, and all you woes shall dissipate!
Steel crepe pan. Pot cover. Magic.
Seriously. Heat a little oil in your crepe pan. Pour in your eggs, add fillings, turn heat down and cover. Egg will cook and puff up, and be perfectly foldable with a spatula. The only thing that isn’t fool-proof is the amount of heat + time.
I think the idea that you are supposed to cook eggs in a skillet is a Conspiracy to make people give up on eggs and eat boxed cereal or something. I cannot successfully fry eggs in a skillet or fry pan either. I eventually started cooking them (in a generous quantity of hot coconut oil) in a small high-sided saucepan that limits their spreading, and put a lid on them, and I get them right maybe three times out of five (often I am distracted by Tea and they overcook). People make fun of me for this, but I like my eggs just so, dammit!
I am masterly at cooking fried eggs, omelettes, and scrambled eggs, but goddamn boiled eggs defeat me. I can boil them perfectly, but have no idea how to get the peel off cleanly without the egg shattering into a thousand pieces of egg shrapnel scattered all over the damn kitchen. Damn you to hell, boiled eggs.
I’m not super great at boiling (timing is hard, y’all) but I am a goddamn genius at getting the shell off in one super awesome looking cracked bit held together by the membrane.
I’d tell you how, but I don’t really get it. There’s a light tap, and then roll, and then peel starting at the thick end? Except for the times I do it differently.
This is basically me. I feel like some kind of freak who has never had the egg-peeling issue? My eggs always peel nicely. I put the eggs in water, put the water onto boil, boil uncovered 3 minutes, then turn off the heat and cover and let them sit about 15 minutes. Then out they come and into a cold water bath if I feel like it, or they just lay on the counter cooling off, then I smack them gently against the counter, peel off the membrane, done.
Last week I boiled eggs and put them in cold water in the fridge to cool down and forgot them until the next day. The shells practically fell off. I don’t know if it will work every time, but I’m going to try and find out.
Not sure how far out the egg advice ban extends, but I had this problem until recently! What I’ve started doing is heating the water to boiling before putting the eggs in, and then boiling for 14 minutes or so. Putting them in once the water is already hot seems to help TREMENDOUSLY for the shells. Otherwise it is a nightmare.
This has been the bane of my kitchen life until recently, and I watched every tutorial ever. But you know what is fool proof?
1. Crack on hard surface.
2. Peel under water. A deep bowl should suffice.
Go forth and prosper.
Agree with the previous suggestions of a) putting the eggs in the water once it’s already boiling, not before, b) putting them in cold water right after you take them out, and c) letting them cool all the way through before even attempting to peel them. Also, apparently older/less fresh eggs peel away from the shell more easily, so maybe save the fresh ones for frying or scrambling and the last few in the carton for boiling?
Kenji has you covered http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/05/the-secrets-to…
Removing eggshells from hard boiled eggs was a part of one of my jobs many years ago, and the trick I learned was to crack the egg all over and then use a coffee spoon to separate from the white. Fast and clean, usually.
What I need tips for is how best to fry up all the commenters who are giving unsolicited egg advice
First catch your Toastie. How you proceed from there is up to you.
Slice them thinly and dip into soft boiled eggs?
I don’t care if the egg whites get all runny when I fry eggs, so that works well for me.
But I love poached eggs and even egg poachers don’t work for me. “Put them in a mug and microwave them” sort of does but then the spinning turns the egg into a doughnut and it is very weird. Soft boiled eggs are different plus they’re a pain to peel.
I’m going to try your method—but I’m going to butter or oil the coffee cup first, because using a cup to corral the whites is BRILLIANT. I crack eggs into a cup anyway because I hate shells and once I got a bad egg (UNBELIEVABLE SMELL) so I have to inspect them before they go in the pan. Thank you!
Mostly I cook eggs in a teeny tiny doll-sized pan of boiling water that has a little saucer on top that you put butter in to melt and then the egg cooks in the butter and you eat it on toast. But I like fried eggs with sausage except they get all thin and too crunchy…
Really bad eggs–like the kind you get when you’re cleaning out the chicken coop in April and find the clutch of eggs that the chicken ran off and hid–explode like a firecracker. Ask me how I know. Scared the hell out of me.
(after that, though, the kids begged me to let them have the bad eggs. They would take them in the woods and throw them at trees like some kind of farm kid firecrackers).
Apparently rotten guavas are really good for pelting each other with, if the “each others” are kids under say 13.
The difference between a perfect fried egg and a grizzled mess is about three milliseconds for me, so once I discovered baked eggs I have never looked back.
Is that using the little china cups with lids?
I just use a muffin pan. Grease it, crack an egg in, top with cheese or whatever, bake at 325 until done (I like set-but-not-dry yolks, so about 17 minutes). Excellent when feeding a crowd, especially when you bake your bacon too. More time for mimosas!
DUDE. To up your baked-egg game, pour a little heavy cream in the bottom of the cups first! Then add the cheese/spices/herbs whatever, crack the egg over it, BAM.
YES TO CREAM
I have got to try this.
Pro-tip: When you cook your bacon in the oven, use those little disposable aluminum broiler pans. Then you don’t have to wash any bacon-y dishes afterwards.
(My family has an annual “Baconfest” on New Year’s Day, and we make industrial quantities of bacon using this method).
1. This was posted AN HOUR AGO and no one has made a Gaston reference? There was a comment FIFTY-TWO MINUTES AGO re: acceptable quantities of eggs to consume and no one even jumped on that. [shakes head in disappointment]
2. I have until very recently been horrible at cooking eggs and I was given a piece of advice that totally worked and I am withholding it and I feel good & smug about that.
Look, it’s a Monday, we’re tired and grumpy and we spent, like, two hours on an email giving unsolicited advice to the friend of a friend regarding grad school, so, whatever, MAKE YOUR OWN GASTON REFERENCE AND I DIDN’T WANT YOUR EGG ADVICE ANYWAY BECAUSE AS SEEN ELSEWHERE IN THIS THREAD I HAVE OPINIONS ON EGGS.
Just me?
… sorry, just me, carry on.
Now I really want fried eggs (on toast) and am stuck in an eggless workplace and won’t be home for HOURS.
ME TOO. It might be “breakfast for dinner” night in a lot of Toastie houses tonight…
I tried to pacify my tummy with an egg and cheese bagel sandwich but it was too high of a bread:egg ratio.
“Make a vortex in the water”? I’m picturing Stargate with breakfast foods flying out. What the ever-loving hell?
It actually more closely resembles a flushing toilet, though the association could be construed as unfortunate.
So, clockwise in the US and counter-clockwise in Australia, then, right. But what sustains the vortex once you’ve plopped a raw egg into it? Is there a wind-up device, possibly made by Dyson? I’ve poached eggs before, badly, but never once was I informed of the need to bring physics into the process. Wiser now, and a little scared.
I was under the impression that we were not to offer any egg cooking advice, but since you ask–
Pan of simmering water just deep enough to cover an unshelled egg. Egg broken into small cup of some sort. Stir the water with implement of your choice (I do not possess a wind up device, Dyson or otherwise, only a large cooking spoon) until you have a vortex that resembles the aforesaid flushing toilet. Remove the implement. Slide the egg from the cup into the eye of the vortex and let physics spin its tangled web. Depending on the egg and your dexterity, the vortex will swirl the eggwhite around the yolk, making the classic clouded yolk poached egg. Lid on the pot and cook to your desired yolk runniness. It does not always keep the strands from forming, but it helps, and when it does work, the satisfaction of a platonic ideal poached egg is achieved.
If you prefer the round unblinking eye poached egg, I fear the purchase of an egg ring device will be required. In that case, you may dispense with the vortex.
Oh the egg goes in the EYE of the vortex? I’ve never seen it in action, have tried this more than once just dropping the damned article in the water any old how. Perhaps this will help with my weird issue of the yolk trying to escape the white and kind of poaching out there on its own?
A bit late, I am just now loping back though The Toast, but yeah, in the eye. The idea is that the vortex will send the errant bits of white swirling around the yolk, and sometimes that is true, and sometimes it is not, but it still works better than plopping it into non-vortex simmering water. Unless you use those egg ring devices.
Nah, you just need the water spinning a little so the egg wraps up in itself until it cooks enough to set. Still easier said than done though, poached eggs are hard.
ok, no advice, got it…
man egg frying is easy though. Like just, so, so easy. there is literally only one thing you are doing “wrong” (as other commenters have noted spider hair is delicious #fixyourtaste). it is causing me physical pain not to just scream that one thing from the top of my lungs.
I get it though, there is like so much shame around cooking shit it can be totally suffocating when you’re trying to master even a little thing.
???? Dude.
I know you don’t want advice BUT ritual sacrifice to the Alkonost (at high tide in the dark of the moon) is enormously helpful.
I once cracked a dozen eggs into a 14 inch skillet and flipped the entire dozen egg sheet with a single deft flick of my wrist and did not break a single yolk.
#not-humble-in-the-slightest-brag
What kind of witch ARE you?
Frying eggs IS impossible. You are COMPLETELY right. I’m not being sarcastic, I really truly have never successfully fried an egg, but I did figure out a mostly solid poaching method (which does not require vortices) and am never going back.
Fried eggs are why short-order cooks exist, and may whatever Entity they sold their souls to for the ability smile kindly upon them.
How to fry eggs.
1. Cook bacon, as much as you need.
2. Fry the eggs in the bacon fat. Tilt the pan and pour the boiling fat over the eggs until the white are done.
3. Eat by dipping the crunchy bacon into the runny yolks, then finish off with the brown, crispy whites.
My uncle does it this way and the smell is revolting but damn do they look good.
Guys I always thought the difference between fried and over-easy eggs was the absence of that lacy edge. Am I … am I wrong? Have I been misidentfying eggs my whole life?
BACON IS STILL REAL ISN’T IT? IT’S NOT SECRETLY HAM OR SOMETHING?
I think over-easy is one kind of fried egg, just like medium-rare is one kind of grilled steak.
this is my understanding as well! over-easy means you flip them, I think? whereas sunny side up is just plopping em in a pan and letting them cook, no flipping. and then you can like also pour some fat on the yolk and/or white to cook it more thoroughly I think. I only just started understanding the joys of fried eggs in the last few years though so I am probably getting some stuff wrong.
This comforts me, thank you.
Girl, England and I need to have WORDS about the gulf between the words “bacon sandwich” and the reality.
Miss Ellabell and I nearly came to blows over this very contentious issue, the struggle is real.
My mum used to send us to school with bacon sandwiches. White bread, well buttered, just short of crispy fried bacon. Wonderful.
But I suspect that immigrating to Canada changed a meaty delight to a fat sandwich, because most bacon here is ‘side bacon’. Which Americans just call bacon. Mostly fat.
Delicious fat.
What you call Canadian bacon is called back bacon or peameal bacon here.
And those thin round slices in the McMuffin are ham.
Over-easy just means the whites were cooked on both sides (flipped over) but the yolk is still runny. Over medium and over hard mean the yolk is more cooked (I learned this from Reading Rainbow I think, the diner episode?)
Yup, I can’t really fry eggs at all but that doesn’t stop me from trying. Lately I’ve taken to cracking two into a smallish pan and then letting the whites of both of them combine to fill the whole bottom of that pan. Then when I think they’re done I literally cut down the middle with a spatula, which results in two half-circle shaped eggs. Sometimes the yolks even end up relatively centered! Of course this still doesn’t solve the problem of completely overcooking the yolk/undercooking the white.
(I find using a lid helps cook the whites without overcooking the yolk)
also flipping for over-easy, which is my usual method, even if it’s kinda cheating
Everybody is having so much trouble frying eggs because I invented frying eggs just last month, of course is hard because it is new for you. although I am amazed how familiar you all seem with the technique seeing as I only invented it last month like I say and had not told anybody about it yet. I bought a tiny useless four-inch nonstick pan and was about to scramble an egg in it when I thought to myself that any scrambling would remove the egg from the tiny pan and set it on fire probably. so I stood in thought a moment and by the time I was finished thinking the egg had become fried. you know it is done when the smoke detector goes off. then you take the tiny pan off the flame, pull the smoke detector out of the ceiling so it quiets, come back to the stove and put salt on the egg.
(those are NOT INSTRUCTIONS, I am just describing my invention, which I forgot to patent so what is the point of keeping it secret any longer)
“you know it is done when the smoke detector goes off”
Man, my roommate has gotten REALLY good at shutting up the smoke detectors during breakfast because of this. (She flaps a jacket at them to disperse the carbon di/mono/whateveroxide, which is a trick I am definitely keeping for future reference.)
We have to do this maybe 50% or the time we cook on our stove because our smoke detector is SUPER SENSITIVE. Like normal cooking sets it off, not even burning anything! We use a kitchen towel to disperse.
All this just reminds me of how scrambled eggs are the only thing anyone cooks on ST(T)NG and they go on as if it’s the be-all and end-all of cooking.
And even that goes horribly wrong! (As I recall).
I am shit at making fried eggs even after making them for my breakfast for YEARS. Only two replacements in supplies helped and there is still no guarantee I won’t break the fucking yolk trying to flip it over: cast iron frying pan and metal flipper/spatula/ WHATEVER. That has made me suck less, but not that much less.
At least I have 13 chickens and mounds of eggs that are always needing eating.
All you have to do is baste it with the butter already in the pan! That is the only trick! I mean, if you want them to look like they’ve been fried by a Top Chef you are out of luck, but if all you want is runny eggs…
Scrambled eggs can GFTO quite frankly.
Omelets. They absorb almost any kind of leftover, except for pancakes, and I’m only saying that because I’ve never tried. Once you get the timing right, you can turn the heat off and let them finish cooking without supervision, which is sort of magical. They singlehandedly vindicate the amount of time I spent stripping and reseasoning the cast iron skillet I cook them in. Kraft has a shredded habanero cheese product that basically means that it doesn’t matter what else you put in there–pencil shavings, leftover screws from your latest flatpack furniture assembly project, something the cat dragged in, whatever, it’s all good.
Omelets are impossible to make. The only kind of egg that it is possible for a regular human to make is scrambled or scrambled with stuff in them. (This might be because I don’t have cast iron.)
The secret is really the right temperature, the right amount of time, and the right amount of oil (even in a quote-endquote nonstick pan). I am not exactly a sophisticated cook–a great deal of my diet consists of simple egg dishes, chili, smoothies, and string cheese–but getting the omelet right was worth it. (And even when I get it wrong, it’s just a “breakfast skillet.”)
DAMN THIS POST I AM SO HUNGRY FOR EGGS RIGHT NOW
scrambled, covered in cheese and hot sauce, on 7 grain bread
It was my work study job to fry eggs at school and I made 37,500 ish of them. I am the deity of fried eggs.
I don’t want to give advice I just want to write an epic poem on how I am the god of fried eggs since I don’t believe this position has been occupied by anyone else. About midway through the poem I will realize that I may be better at frying eggs than anything else I have ever done and the second half will less self congratulatory . My pantheon will include a god of making perfect rice.
(workers at Denny’s have surely made more …..shhhhh don’t ruin my dreams!)
I’m not a fried egg god, but I won’t give eggs advice either… even if I am pretty great at them.
While we’re posting breakfast confessions:
Why do all pancake recipes say to leave the batter lumpy? Is there anyone living who can look at a bowl of batter with big lumps of flour all through it and think “ah, this looks fine. Into the pan with you”? Is it some kind of test to see who learned to cook pancakes from their grandmothers, and who had to look it up in a book?
To avoid overmixing, which leads to irregular holes in the sponge structure and tough/chewy pancakes. The less you mix, the less gluten forms, which makes for lighter and fluffier pancakes.
Team Poached here! I have been poaching eggs from the time I could use the stove (I might have my 10,000 hours), and I find it infinitely easier than frying. No vinegar, no cracking into a separate bowl, no nothing! Just simmering water. I like splashing some of the water over the yolk to cook the thin film of white, but that’s as finicky as it gets.
I have tried those “put a ring of sweet pepper/onion/etc” in the pan, and I have tried eggy in a basket, but somehow nothing ever contains the white. There’s always this bit of egg white that makes a run for it under the edge of its container before the hot pan manages to cook it.
You have to have a level pan AND stove. I was having all kinds of problems with runaway whites until I realized the coil on my stove wasn’t level, now I prop the pan up a bit to make it level.
The coil on my stove is, in fact, not level, no matter how many times I unplug it and jiggle it around to make sure it’s in properly. This is merely one more reason I hate electric stovetops.
NOTHING EVER CONTAINS THE WHITE. NOTHING.
THE EGG WHITE REMAINS
Another way to not make eggs that I learned this weekend:
Buy the fancy fancy, pastured eggs where the people at the farmer’s market have videos of the chickens on their phones and they tell you what herbs and bugs the chickens are eating this week. (If chickens can move around freely, they can hide where they lay their eggs. The eggs are fabulous when fresh, but extra vigilance about freshness is required.)
Do not smell the eggs when breaking them into the little cups for the egg poacher. Somehow. Somehow avoid inhaling in the vicinity of the eggs for the entire cooking time.
Depending on how cooked you like your poached eggs, stop cooking them either 1 minute or 3 minutes too soon. Give the one where the yolk hasn’t thickened and the white is still transparent to your daughter-in-law because she likes her steak rare, and this is the same.
Frown at your much-more cooked egg and say “this is so undercooked, I don’t know if I’ll eat it.” Do this several times.
Remark on the interesting smell at the brunch table. Wonder whether it’s diesel or something. When your daughter-in-law says “It’s sulphur. It’s the eggs.”, describe how there are videos of happy chickens at the farmer’s market stand, so it can’t be the eggs.
Remind your daughter-in-law that eggs are part of the meal because her metabolism means that the traditional family brunch of fruit, juice, sugared tea, bread, and jam results in a migraine, so now there are eggs.
Watch her take a bite of the egg.
When she says “I’m pretty sure it’s spoiled”, tell her about the fucking chickens. Again. Watch her take a second bite. Sulk when she refuses to take a third.
Complain that someone put a piece of perfectly good bread in the compost just because the bread is soaked in spoiled egg.
Brunch, you guys. Also my husband ran me through the procedure for explaining that his mother has served spoiled food, because OF COURSE there’s a policy for that, there’s a policy for everything.
Goodness, I have a lot of emotions about this. Possibly I am sorry I shared?
I GOT GUILTED INTO EATING TWO BITES OF A SPOILED EGG THOUGH. RAW SPOILED EGG. YESTERDAY. IT WAS SO GROSS.
At first I thought YOU were the one cooking the eggs. Now I understand. So what is the policy?
It has to be someone’s fault who isn’t hers. There has to be a reason she missed detecting their failing. No one can be perceived as blaming her in any way, or be seen as having a more sensitive palate. Only then can she be gracious about it.
It can’t be no-one’s fault, or an expected result of the food production process. I have to throw someone off the troika.
How to tell if eggs are bad before that horrible thing happens to you: (From a 4H chicken raising mom)
Put a lot of water in a bowl. Put your eggs in the bowl. If the are very very fresh, they will sit on the bottom on their side. The older they get, the more upright they will stand. If they start to float, throw them all away. It’s ok to eat the ones that are standing up straight, though. Just not floating ones.
This is such good data!
Thanks! I certainly felt like someone had given me a secret when they showed me! FYI I usually hard-boil the standing-up ones, just because I’m overcautious like that.
Have you heard of The Curate’s Egg? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curate%27s_egg
This is perfect. This is entirely perfect.
I felt something clicking into place when I read this. Thank you.
Now I have this old local (New England) television PSA about eggs stuck in my head. Thanks, Toastrons. <sad face>
I will put the egg jingle lyrics in the comments to avoid infecting others.
Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh!
not to make you feel bad or anything mallory but marigold lesley fried an egg perfectly on her first try at age six
The child is a witch.
True fact I accidentally started a food blog last week because I thought of a punny name and then struggled to post because all I make are eggs. So I wrote about making perfect eggs.
You gotta get that pan really really really hot so that the white cooks right as it hits the pan, lady.
I write down recipes with minimal instruction, because it's just for me and I know the order of things, so I'll list ingredients and then put for instructions something like "muffin method, 350F until golden brown" and a yield (or pan size) which is sufficient for me, but not for anyone I give the recipe to. The methods are so automatic that I have to take a long time to think of all the steps and what order they go in to write them down. I'm sure recipe writers have this same problem.
I worked in a golf club kitchen in England and it was the first time I’d seen a professional fry eggs.
The pan was so deep in oil he could spoon it repeatedly over the top of the eggs, thus nullifying the jelly-oozy white issue but unfortunately also nullifying my desire to ever fry eggs again.
the way my mom showed me was to add some water to the pan and quickly put the lid on. The steam cooks the white on the top of the egg. Then take the lid off and let everything crisp up in the bacon fat. It’s a tricky ratio of water to bacon.
What kind of fried eggs do you want?
Sunny side up ? Easy over? or broken yolk?
While you need a reasonable amount of fat in the pan, you don’t need much if you use a non-stick pan.
It is easy to control the heat if you use an electric skillet/frying pan, rather than a pan on the stovetop.
If you don’t have an electric skillet, a cast iron pan is pretty good but use more fat.
If you cook four or more eggs at once it doesn’t matter if the egg whites spread. But if they do the grocer sold you old eggs.
The reason it doesn’t matter is that all the whites are going to spread into each other anyway, When they set you use the flipper/ fish slice thingy to cut the edges into neat lines.
If you are aiming for easy over and one breaks, feed it to your husband. Or the dog. Neither will care.
Most important.
You need a lid that fits over the eggs. It doesn’t have to fit the pan, I use a steel saucepan lid on my cast iron pan and the skillet lid when I am using the electric skillet. But this steam the top of the eggs so that they are white and cooked and not clear and gooey. Do this even if you are cooking over easy eggs because it’s faster.
If you are making a fried egg sandwich and prefer lightly cooked yolks, before attempting to eat it, take off your blouse.
If it makes you feel better, spouse put mint in the eggs last week. He thought any green thing was good in eggs.
I disobey, Mallory, and provide the only method one should ever ever ever employ for frying eggs: the Crispy Egg.
This miracle of sizzly goodness has converted me from a scrambled/poached-exclusive egg eater to a consumer of high-quality, fluffy egg with dippy/runny yolk on the regular. And it’s so versatile! On pasta! On salad! On toast! On basically everything ever other than dessert but frankly I’m not even ruling that out 100%.
(Sorry, nobody wants this advice, but…egg-in-a-hole? Cut a nice big hole out of the center of a slice of bread, heat some butter in the pan, dip one side of the cut-out bread in butter — and do the same for the hole you cut out, you can fry that up next to the main event — then turn it over and crack your egg into the hole. Salt, pepper, spices, &c. Cook until the whites look fairly set, then turn the whole thing over for just a minute, even less — just enough to get the top side set/bread toasted a bit. And there you have it — egg and toast, in one delicious buttery self-contained unit.)
Someone made me those this Christmas…except they called them bullseyes.
aka Toad-in-the-Hole. English is weird. From Wikipedia: “Toad in the Hole. This article is about the sausage dish. For the egg and toast dish, see Egg in the basket. For the pub game, see Toad in the hole (game). For the Fortean phenomenon, see Entombed animal.”
FAMILY. IT'S GREAT.
I felt something clicking into place when I read this. Thank you.
aka Toad-in-the-Hole. English is weird. From Wikipedia: "Toad in the Hole. This article is about the sausage dish. For the egg and toast dish, see Egg in the basket. For the pub game, see Toad in the hole (game). For the Fortean phenomenon, see Entombed animal."
Dear lady.
Let the pan get hot. Med-high. Let it get actually hot. Be patient. Put a drop of oil in (yes oil, it works better than butter. I know butter is delicious, use oil anyway. You will thank me).
Once the pan is ACTUALLY HOT (cannot stress this enough), crack your eggs into it. They should immediately start turning white. As soon as the whites themselves are cooked almost through, carefully flip them. Try not to break the yokes. Cook them on the other side for only like 30 seconds, and this is key. Remove to a plate. Season with chives, thyme and salt, and consume.