Columnist Ella Quittner never wants to eat another egg again

January 2, 2020 4:11 PM

The Absolute Best Way to Fry an Egg, According to 42 Tests
posted by bq (74 comments total)

The flavor was, of course, excellent (see: butter generally).

I generally do.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:38 PM on January 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

All of those eggs were way overcooked, but I concur with butter and nonstick.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:39 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm intrigued by the idea of "frying" an egg in cream. Has anyone here tried it?
posted by HoraceH at 4:42 PM on January 2, 2020

In the first phase of trials, several tablespoons of each of nine cooking fats was used to coat the bottom of a nonstick pan, heated over a medium-high flame. Three eggs were fried in each cooking fat, over a medium flame, while the whites were spoon-basted with the hot fat until they set.

Hmm. Nothing for us over-easy types here, is there?

Cream: Speaking of textural wonders! Have you ever wished your fried eggs were essentially the best pudding you've ever had? If so, cook them in cream, and do not share them with anyone. This certified-Genius technique has you add said heavy cream to a cold pan along with the eggs—nuts, right?—before turning the flame to medium-high. The cream caramelizes, you lose track of where its butterfats end and the egg whites begin, and everything is so delicious it makes you forget all deep existential concerns.

Oooh. Forget that over-easy business. Take me now.

But yeah, I'd concur that, as a person who's fried eggs in everything from bacon fat to canola oil, the eggs on display were over-fried on the bottom. Like, with the canola, if you want a little more done-ness, then just gently flip and take them off after a moment. OTOH, I'm an over-easy person, so...

Obligatory: eggy weggs.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:46 PM on January 2, 2020

I guess some people like crispy eggs? I like over easy, so everything but the butter ones look weirdly brown.
posted by tavella at 4:47 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

I greatly dislike what she calls "crispy" fried eggs. Crispy implies crunchy, flavorful and nice. To me the brown stuff has no flavor, no crunch and the texture is just... disruptive. I like a firm, silky white and a rich runny yolk. To this end I cook my eggs in a non-stick skillet on medium heat. I put the eggs in when the pan is just warm, not too hot, so as not to scorch the outside of the egg as it goes in. If it makes a sizzling sound when the egg goes in, that's too hot. I don't usually use fat as the non-stick doesn't need it, but I might add a bit of butter if I'm feeling fancy.

The cream-cooked eggs in the article sound like my kind of thing.

I didn't see if she said over what time period these tests took place. I could easily eat 42 eggs in a typical two week period and I never get sick of them.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 4:49 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

I had a housemate that would fry the bejesus out of an egg until it looked like the most overdone one in those pictures. You could smell the scorched protein for hours afterward. :P
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:50 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Disclaimer: I do not generally eat fried eggs and, to the best of my recollection, have never fried an egg in my life.

It seems like the most important factor in frying something would be the heat, which in this article is just kind of glossed over with "heated over a medium-high flame".
Depending on your pan, that could be anything from scorching hot to barely warming.

Also, again as a non-fried egg eater, some of those look pretty close to burnt, especially the non-stick ones that were proclaimed the best.

That said, I sympathize with someone who ate 52 eggs for science and I really hope it was spread out over a series of weekends!
posted by madajb at 5:07 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

I like crispy fried eggs, but yeah, those definitely look overdone.

Butter is nice, but I like grapeseed (high smoking point), get it shimmery-hot, sprinkle some salt (I like chunks from my grinder to be a little larger than table salt with some surface area to it), then crack an egg or two over it.

If it's hot enough and the eggs fresh enough, the edges of the white will bubble and make molecular-thin crispy bubbles and darkens the bottom a little bit - but leaves the white soft and fluffy and the yolk is just starting to polymerize. Baste the top of the yolk with hot oil once to finish, plate.
posted by porpoise at 5:12 PM on January 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

The “nonstick with a fitted lid” method is the one I learned from my mother, and it is absolutely the best if you (like me but unlike the author) prefer a tender fully cooked white with a runny yolk.
posted by cali at 5:25 PM on January 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

I have never had an attempt to scramble, let alone fry/preserve yolk, eggs in a stainless steel pan go anywhere near well. No, I don't want to hear you talk about pan temperature, burner temperature, oil type, oil appearance/sheen, or stiring technique (or avoidance of the same): I am done with that shit.

Cast iron can be done with copious amounts of oil.

Nonstick is mostly dummy proof if it's not in awful shape and care is taken.

Why yes, I have an electric coil stove because I have no access to gas hookups, why do you ask?
posted by RolandOfEld at 5:25 PM on January 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

Butter. End of article.
posted by Liquidwolf at 5:27 PM on January 2, 2020

In phase two, I used olive oil for all tests, and fried three eggs each in pans made of:

I pushed through a lot of pictures of ruined eggs thinking this was going somewhere, but this is where I checked out. No wonder you never want to eat another egg if this is how you cook them.
posted by mhoye at 5:31 PM on January 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

Could be a near run thing but a lot DO look overdone.

I want the runny yolk please. 'Round here at least when ya order eggs, sunnyside up and over easy means "don't burn my effing eggs."

And if ya don't want to slather too much bacon fat on yer sunnysides, a lid works too.
posted by Max Power at 5:31 PM on January 2, 2020

First, fry bacon in cast iron. Then fry egg. Perfect every time.
I may have had to fry bacon a fifty to a hundred times before the seasoned pan was actually seasoned enough for no drama eggs, though.
posted by rodlymight at 5:33 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

1. Bacon fat
2. Butter

Fight me
posted by drivingmenuts at 5:37 PM on January 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

i have a soft spot for tests like these

it's right below the stent
posted by lalochezia at 5:41 PM on January 2, 2020 [26 favorites]

low heat, butter or olive oil, until sputter test
crack egg into medium, await congealment (NO BROWNED EDGES, USE CARE)
sploosh of water with vinegar or lemon juice, cover closely
(we are cheating here, and poaching to finish)
peek at until done
repeat until no more eggs, toast, bacon, or english muffins
posted by mwhybark at 5:42 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

The best way to fry an egg is to crawl out of your tent at 5:00 AM on a freezing morning, heat up some SPAM in an iron skillet and cook the egg in what's left over from the SPAM.
posted by SPrintF at 5:43 PM on January 2, 2020 [10 favorites]

The overwhelming sentiment here is against crispy fried eggs and I'm on that team too. The article seemed more than OK with that nonsense. On the other hand, I really want to try the cream trick, but I can't realistically imagine keeping cream on hand just for that.
posted by sjswitzer at 5:46 PM on January 2, 2020

The only fried eggs I ever like is from the hawker stalls because the way it's done here is basically deep frying in a pool of very hot oil in a wok. The whites fluffs up and crinkles/crisps nicely and the yellow is still barely set. I just can't justify the amount of oil for home cooking and cleanup so at home I do half poaching method tho no vinegar. I'm going to try that!
posted by cendawanita at 6:03 PM on January 2, 2020 [3 favorites]

As a relatively recent convert to actually frying my own fried egg sandwiches, I pretty much go with what I have which is always sunflower oil and generic "spread". They're definitely not quite crispy enough for me though, so going by figure e. for eggs I will absolutely be attempting both the coconut oil and butter techniques after my next food shop. Also just realised that I somehow haven't touched a single crumpet all winter so I know exactly where any spare butter is going (clue: down my filthy gullet!)
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 6:07 PM on January 2, 2020

(we are cheating here, and poaching to finish)

This is not cheating. The Froached Egg is in all ways superior to the fried egg.

(Actually, I sort of do like over-done crunchy bits, but I'm still froach all the way).
posted by pompomtom at 6:09 PM on January 2, 2020

Deep fried, in a wok, then covered in sweet-salty dark soy sauce.
posted by destrius at 6:10 PM on January 2, 2020 [6 favorites]

cendawanita, I wish I had hawker stalls like that nearby because that sounds fantastic!
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:11 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: Froached
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:11 PM on January 2, 2020 [8 favorites]

I much prefer baked eggs. Grease a ramekin (I use butter), break the egg in, add a splash of cream, and, if desired a sprinkling of cheese (Asiago is a favorite). Bake at 400 for 10-11 minutes, until the whites are set and the yolk is still runny.

It's kind of like a fried egg, only more confined.
posted by dancing_angel at 6:23 PM on January 2, 2020 [5 favorites]

then covered in sweet-salty dark soy sauce.

Maggi is also good.
posted by porpoise at 6:34 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

One time I got a burger with a fried egg on it (which is not unusual for me) and I was convinced the egg had accidentally been cooked with like, some plastic wrap stuck to it, because what the fuck is wrong with this egg? And the answer was they fried the shit out of it and it was awful and the texture of the white was like brittle burnt plastic.

Over easy please, thanks.
posted by tocts at 6:37 PM on January 2, 2020

Hawker-style fried egg with soy sauce is especially delicious with hot plain white rice (the food of choice if you're on budget here instead of beans and rice). Though personally when I first learned to cook at home, other than the instant noodles with egg drop, it's fried egg with chilli sauce sandwich.
posted by cendawanita at 6:44 PM on January 2, 2020 [5 favorites]

a sprinkling of cheese (Asiago is a favorite)

paper-thin slices of Manchego are nice too. I'm an over-medium-easy guy, so after I've flipped the eggs I lay the cheese on top to soften during the last bit of cooking.

The hardest part of cooking eggs for me is remembering to make the toast first! Half the time I forget until the eggs are almost done, leaving me to decide whether to let the eggs get cold while I toast the bread or go without anything to sop up the leftover yolk. Neither is a happy option.

And don't even get me started on steeping the tea first
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:47 PM on January 2, 2020 [6 favorites]

It is absolutely possible to have a fried egg with lacy, crispy edges while retaining a tender underside, and like the article notes, olive oil is the choice fat to achieve that, assuming you baste enough to avoid a snotty white. It looks like they happened to cook it well past the point of proper balance, but if you don't do that the textural variety you get is very worth it.
posted by invitapriore at 6:50 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Team Crispy Fried Eggs here (on cast iron with literally any fat available). I've found on Metafilter in the past that users have had strong opinions on egg preparation, but to me most of these look fine and would happily gulp them down on some rice.
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:56 PM on January 2, 2020 [3 favorites]

paper-thin slices of Manchego

If the cheese is hard enough, a good vegetable peeler does the same thing as a cheese slicer.

Sometimes a better job, esp. if you have one with a nice sharp narrow carbon steel blade.
posted by porpoise at 6:58 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

What I've never been able to understand is runny eggs. Runny? Run away!
But cool to read about the use of cream, will try that with scrambled eggs next time.
posted by storybored at 7:11 PM on January 2, 2020

I happen to have cream which I was going to use for some kind of recipe over the holidays but then I forgot about it. I will attempt cream eggs!
posted by amanda at 7:20 PM on January 2, 2020

I use cast iron with a light coating of canola oil. My results look nothing at all like the nasty burnt eggs shown in the pictures for canola and cast iron. I do imagine the bacon fat version would be good though.
posted by DarkForest at 7:22 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Team Crispy Fried Eggs

I wonder if there's a cultural/ experiential aspect to this? #TeamCFE seems to be heavy on users who have previously identified/ read as Asian of some kind? Myself included (former HKer).

cendawanita

Absolutely - white rice with a fried egg, Maggi, and black pepper was a treat during lean times and a step up from rice and a half a teaspoon of fermented bean curd. Or rice with a little butter/ lard/ drippings and black pepper.

As a kid, one of the first things I had mastered was fried egg sandwiches too! But a 'Britishism' that stuck with me are fried egg (well, scrambled first, but still fried, but blotted), (streaky) bacon (but they had to be perfectly rectangular and perfectly flat and delicately crisp), and tomato (perfectly ripe, ultra-thinly sliced, and dry) sandwiches with white bread toasted with butter.

Crusts off, of course. Triangle cut. The excess egg and bacon were discarded.

I had a wealthy granduncle (well, his wife was wealthy and helped him get wealthy too) and this was his wife's favourite thing and she's always make a point of getting it and complaining whenever it didn't meet her exacting standards.

Despite all the luggage, it's still one of my "top 5" comfort foods that I make - but I eat the crusts (esp. because I butter the bread to the edges before toasting). Uncut, to maximize bacon in optimal package delivery format.

runny eggs

storybored - do you have access to fresh high quality eggs? What the hens eat directly impacts the flavour of their eggs. Good eggs taste so much better than cheap eggs. I basically stopped eating eggs when I was in the US in the late '90s unless I got them from a farm.

If there's a good ramen place accessible to you, I highly recommend trying Ajitsuke Tamago - soft boiled marinated eggs with yolks bordering between runny and hard.

Almost-cooked egg yolks in fried eggs are also a magnificent "sauce" for white rice - it adds moisture, fats, and a little protein to it.

Similar deal with cooked but runny egg yolks on hash browns.

Big difference between a raw egg yolk and a perfectly poached one.
posted by porpoise at 7:22 PM on January 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

Oh, and there's a nice article over on the BBC about whether eggs are healthy eating or not.
posted by DarkForest at 7:33 PM on January 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

oof porpoise you're making me sad i'm nowhere close to a hawker stall right now T_T ok, will hunt for one later.
posted by cendawanita at 7:38 PM on January 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm on team over-easy, cast iron with butter (or bacon fat, but I don't usually have any of that). When I was young I hated runny eggs and would cook them extra hard. These days my tastes have evolved and I enjoy the runny, especially on fried potatoes.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:59 PM on January 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I couldn’t stand it. As soon as I saw that cream recipe, I had to try! My son and I followed the recipe and fried four eggs. Delicious!!! Super creamy and smooth. Served on wheat toast. One tip, if you want runny yolks, limit the time that you put the lid on at the end. It set them up pretty fast. I like my yolks firmer and thought they were perfection but my son is a runny yolk man. Next time, I’ll only cover his for 30 seconds or so.
posted by pearlybob at 8:07 PM on January 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

What I served 14 people at brunch on New Year's Day: Fry bacon and reserve rendered fat. Sauté scallions briefly in bacon fat, then add day-old sticky rice and some sesame oil and fry that. Chop bacon and add to fried rice. Fry egg easy over in bacon fat, then serve over bacon-scallion fried rice, with a dollop of ssamjang (Korean red-pepper and soybean sauce).
posted by nicwolff at 9:01 PM on January 2, 2020 [6 favorites]

I’ve worked hard on perfectly my fried egg cooking, it’s been a several years long process, hampered (made more complete?) by Mrs. Ghidorah’s intense dislike of runny yolks, which means eggs cooked one (hers) then the other (mine). Personally, I loathe crispy bits on eggs, which is weird, because I love crispiness in nearly every other circumstance. The ideal egg (for me) is a completely set white, and, depending on the way it’s being served, a yolk so uncooked it is a orange glistening jewel ready to add its saucy wonderful was to what every dish it tops (I have a photo of a burger I made topped with such an egg, so glistening and full of the promise of needing paper towels, not napkins with which to wipe your hands that it’s honestly nearly on this side of obscene food porn), or over-so-easy-that-the-yolk-is-almost-entirely-uncooked.

Both eggs, the hard cooked Mrs. G egg, and the glorious perfection of my own egg are essentially the same. Pan, on the lowest heat possible, melt butter, let foam, add egg gently. Cover pan with lid until the white is set. Flip, if absolutely necessary, and let sit for no more than fifteen seconds, long enough for the yolk to set enough that it won’t pop when you scoop it up. For hardcooked, you just let it sit a lot longer, but keep the heat low. As a cheat, you can spear the yolk with a corner of the spatula after a couple minutes. The yolk will cook through faster that way, but it will have been largely set by the time you break it, so not much ooze.

Mmm. Eggs.

ETA I don’t usually like to use the fat from bacon to cook eggs, because I want that fat for the bacon grease jar. That’s for making chili, or frying potatoes, and I want to keep egg essence out of there.
posted by Ghidorah at 9:19 PM on January 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

Agreed! Eggs have flavour, don't need to drown it in bacon grease flavour.
posted by porpoise at 9:24 PM on January 2, 2020 [3 favorites]

I loathe crispy bits on eggs, which is weird, because I love crispiness in nearly every other circumstance.

That's an interesting point - I'm the same way, but I have no idea why that's so. We contain multitudes, eh?
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:52 PM on January 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I do like fried eggs (bacon fat) with a crispy lace. Reminds me of my grandfather’s Saturday morning breakfasts (on Sunday we usually ate at the Officers Club - a whole different heaven).
posted by drivingmenuts at 11:09 PM on January 2, 2020 [3 favorites]

Thanks everyone! I love learning the vocabulary of others;

'Hawkers'' anything!

Crispy lace! Perfect description.
posted by porpoise at 11:22 PM on January 2, 2020

I'm at my parents' for Christmas and my mom has been doing that cream-cooked egg thing, and it really is good. I'm gonna keep doing it at home!
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:24 AM on January 3, 2020

I am definitely team crispy fried eggs, and I am heavily influenced by the fact that I usually eat them in an egg butty (also called an egg banjo by my dad). Ideally a tiger roll, mmmm. Of course, the roll is not toasted, but soft, so some crunchy bits add a pleasant texture. The real trick is bursting the egg yolk with a knife before you close, so that they it doesn't explode and go everywhere when you bite into it.

The best eggs are the ones my dad makes, in a pan with a mix of loads of butter and olive oil, crispy on the bottom and the edges, whites 100% set and yolks still runny. When fried eggs have no crispy bits I always find them a bit... flaccid. If I wanted a poached egg I would get a poached egg.
posted by stillnocturnal at 2:29 AM on January 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Olive oil in a pan, the edges slightly crisp with a slightly runny yolk. That's the team I am on.
I love places like Cafe Walvis in Brussels where they just bring the pan to your table.
posted by vacapinta at 2:56 AM on January 3, 2020

I don't like crispy edges on fried eggs so I wait 20 seconds after the eggs are in the pan and then go around the egg with a spatula, flipping a quarter- or half-inch of semi-set white towards the center and creating a nice round egg that's, well, easy to flip over for a few seconds to get over-easy deliciousness without that unpleasant burnt edge.
posted by mediareport at 4:37 AM on January 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

I do like crispy-edged fried eggs.

I stick my cast iron pan on my crappy electric stove with the element turned to blazing hot. While it's heating, I crack two or three eggs into a coffee mug. When the almost imperceptible residual oil film from the previous day's cookery just begins to smoke, I take the olive oil bottle in my left hand, the coffee mug in my right; throw in a skoosh of olive oil, then immediately dump the cup of eggs on top before the oil has a chance to heat up and thin out and run away from their underneaths.

Cap the oil and put it away. Hold a tomato over the pan and slice it (carefully! tomato knives are sharp!) into segments, dumping the bits wherever the egg has left a gap through to the cast iron.

Tomato knife into the dishwasher, a sprinkle of salt over the eggs and tomatoes, then a goodly grind of coarse black pepper over all as well.

Once the edges have started to crisp up and a bubble or two appears in the yolks, pan comes off the burner and onto a trivet on the table. Turn off element, wipe down stove with a damp cloth while it's still hot (this is absolutely the easiest way to keep a stovetop clean). Make a cup of coffee while the sizzling settles down in the pan.

Eat directly from the pan. Weapon of choice to assist with that is a favourite narrow wooden spatula. Bamboo works too. Key part is the straight end, for scraping any residual caramelized tomato juice off the surface. Yum.

By the time all the eggs and tomatoes are gone, all the pan needs is a wipe out with paper towel and it can be hung back up on its hook again. The residual oil film will contribute to the cast iron's seasoning when I smoke it up before tomorrow's batch of eggs.

What really makes this recipe worth making, though, is doing it with fresh eggs collected that very morning, or the one before at a pinch, from the happy busy chooks in the back yard. The difference between fresh laid eggs and store bought eggs is so huge that they ought to be considered different ingredients altogether.

If I want that cardboardy store bought flavour that needs butter or bacon fat to make the eggs taste like anything at all, and the associated super-runny egg white, I find I can get it by leaving a batch of fresh eggs unrefrigerated for three to four weeks. Which tells you something about the supply chain logistics of store bought eggs.
posted by flabdablet at 5:37 AM on January 3, 2020 [4 favorites]

Ah, but does one crack the egg on the counter or on the side of the bowl?
posted by pipoquinha at 8:11 AM on January 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Counter, definitely. Side of the bowl gives you unseemly, shelly bits in your eggs.
posted by pearlybob at 9:20 AM on January 3, 2020

Can't believe no one has linked this yet: Every way to cook an egg (some of these are genuinely bizarre tbqh)
posted by epersonae at 9:34 AM on January 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

It's only the past few months I realized people did the burning egg stuff on purpose (actually, the video eprsonae just linked is where I learned there was such a wide range of desirable eggs). I always thought the gnarly brown and crispy bits of a cooked egg were just your punishments for bad egg making.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:43 AM on January 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'll claim my spot on team NO CRISPY EGG WHITE, please. Save that crispy, crunchy, toasted treatment for the hash-browns, where it belongs! :-)
posted by coppertop at 9:47 AM on January 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Counter, definitely. Side of the bowl gives you unseemly, shelly bits in your eggs.

This is a notion commonly espoused by chefs, who one would presume to have considerable knowledge of such things; however in extensive personal testing I have yet to verify that either method is clearly superior to the other.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:07 AM on January 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Pretty hot pan, cast iron because I inherited smooth cast iron that is a pleasure to use, a couple tablespoons corn oil because I like the flavor. Bacon fat if it's in the pan, and it might be. The egg gets puffy, edges crispy, and that's how I like them. Eggs pair well with all sorts of herbs, sometimes I add them, other times I don't.

Poaching an egg in cream sounds rather decadent. I can't eat dairy, so will have to get my decadence on elsewhere.

Science sure is swell.
posted by theora55 at 10:23 AM on January 3, 2020

I've mentioned this before, but I am seriously absolutely unable to comprehend why anybody would not want crispy egg whites. This is clearly the limits of my empathy
posted by destrius at 10:26 AM on January 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Going by the comments and when I can make out where people are from...it seems that people in Asia, Europe, Australia, Latin American like crispy edges on their eggs. Mainly (only?) Americans don't?
posted by vacapinta at 10:32 AM on January 3, 2020

Canadian here... I don't like crispy eggs either.
posted by cirhosis at 11:05 AM on January 3, 2020

American person here. Team No Crispy Eggs. I raise chickens so have eaten quite a few eggs in my day. My method for perfect non crispy eggs, is to heat our cast iron skillet over medium flame for 30 secs to 1 min. Add a capful of olive oil and make sure it coats the bottom of the skillet. Then add the egg, cover with lid from small cook pot that perfectly fits the skillet. Cook for about 2 mins then scoop egg out of skillet with metal spatula. Yolk is runny inside but holds together when scooped up and placed on sourdough toast with guac and cheese and home made salsa. Nummy!
posted by WalkerWestridge at 11:36 AM on January 3, 2020

Ah, but does one crack the egg on the counter or on the side of the bowl?

I crack my eggs on a dedicated cracking ramekin.

And re: egg whites, why any of us cares how anyone else likes them is beyond me. I like mine firm but tender, not rubbery at all, and not browned or crisped, though of course that happens all the time at diners where frying on a high-heat skillet is the norm. At home I put my six inch non-stick skillet on the simmer burner at half heat, add 1/16 cup of butter and let it melt. Meanwhile I crack two eggs and put them into a large ramekin. When the pan is ready, I pour them into the skillet and let them cook until the whites are mostly opaque. I then flip them in the air, let them cook for maybe 30 more seconds and pour them out onto my plate. The result is My Perfect Egg: tender but unrunny whites, yolk deep orange and viscous but not solid. Then I can slice them open and watch it run slowly onto the plate, where it will serve as dipping sauce for my crispy-ass potatoes.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:27 PM on January 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

I like crispy edges on my fried eggs but I grew up in a border town and can't exactly say my food tastes are very American--so I'm not sure if that disproves the theory or not. I do know that I could go for some fried rice with a crispy egg right now, though.
posted by librarylis at 1:39 PM on January 3, 2020

I crack my eggs on a dedicated cracking ramekin.

RELEASE THE CRACKINGRAMEKIN!!
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:49 PM on January 3, 2020 [7 favorites]

Yolks are by far more critical than whites, though, IMO. I can enjoy a crispy-whited egg that's all brown around the edges as long as 1) there are no runny whites and 2) the yolk isn't hard. That's a standard that travels fairly well across the globe.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:53 PM on January 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

This brings to mind a column by James Gorman in Discover Magazine in the 80s, where he tried to eat the maximum possible amount of cholesterol in a single day.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:30 PM on January 3, 2020

Don't they use sunflower oil in the US ?
posted by Pendragon at 6:57 AM on January 6, 2020

Don't they use sunflower oil in the US ?

For eggs? I dunno, diners often do but I haven't seen it used much in the home. It's a big country.

I use peanut oil, grapeseed oil, sesame oil, two different kinds of olive oil, avocado oil, and canola oil on a regular basis, but for eggs it's the higher flash-point olive oil (not the good stuff) and/or butter. I don't really cook bacon at home any more or I'd use bacon grease.

Also on team crispy is ok within reason, but I want the yolk to be runny.

There are a number of nice ways to do eggs and cream - if you can have dairy and fish eggs, I heartily recommend oeufs en cocotte.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:36 PM on January 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

So given all the remarks about runny yolks in relation to crispy eggs, I suspect most of the people who don't like crispy fried eggs haven't really tried one cooked properly. To get it right, you need immense heat; in a hot wok with a proper wok burner, the whites crisp up way before the yolk even gets the slightest bit thick. If, by "crispy fried egg", you're thinking about an egg cooked on medium heat till it turns brown, then yeah those suck; the brown parts are chewy and plasticky, with a thick layer of overcooked white.
posted by destrius at 6:56 AM on January 7, 2020 [5 favorites]

If, by "crispy fried egg", you're thinking about an egg cooked on medium heat till it turns brown, then yeah those suck; the brown parts are chewy and plasticky, with a thick layer of overcooked white.

I hereby lobby to have this method of preparation be titled "vulcanized eggs."
posted by invitapriore at 11:28 AM on January 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

invitapriore, interesting. Vulcanization involves using Sulfur as a crosslinking/ polymerizing agent between latex monofilaments.

Eggs (especially yolks) are relatively rich in Sulfur (and contributes to the rotten egg smell and the similar smell from over-cooked hardboiled eggs).

I wonder if the low temperature overcooked brown, chewy, plasticky texture involves Sulfur, too? Or just thermolabile degradation and polymerization (and dehydration) with shorter monofilaments leading to the rubbery texture?

But yeah, those are the worst, especially when fried with low quality/ previously-used oil (or residual rancid oil from uncleaned equipment). Ick.
posted by porpoise at 9:03 PM on January 8, 2020 [2 favorites]