The Lost Art of Cooking Eggs

Confession...I'm an egg cooking snob! Whenever, wherever I go to eat eggs I critique what I receive. How they look, how they taste, were they made to order, you name it, I talk...well usually complain about it. Most (98%) of the time I'm disappointed and upset. To me cooking eggs is a no-brainer, it doesn't take a lot of talent to cook an egg to order. I'm not quite sure when we lost the ability to cook an egg but we did and society is no better for it. Ok...I may be exaggerating a tad, but there are A LOT of talents our parents, grandparents and so on had that we no longer do. Cooking an egg correctly is just one of many. Sense of community and neighborhoods is also going by the wayside. Yes, there are cities and neighborhoods where everyone knows each other and you can borrow that proverbial cup of sugar, but in many neighborhoods I've lived over the years it's simply not present. Kids aren't out of their houses playing at the crack of dawn and parents have to yell to get them to come back in. They are not in large packs playing football or Dodge Ball all hours of the day during summer breaks. This is just another symptom of how our society is changing and not necessarily for the better. But let's get back to my first soapbox, cooking eggs.

Eggs are a wonderfully simple form of food with a large egg being only about 70 calories and 6 grams of protein and almost no sugar. Plus they are filled with vitamins and minerals our bodies need: 

And what other food has so many ways to cook it? ~ maybe potatoes. There's a way to cook eggs to almost everyone's liking and herein lies the problem, even cooking the basics are messed up in today's restaurants. The waitress asks me, "How would you like your eggs cooked?" My response is usually, "Over-medium, please." She writes it down, gives the order to the cook, I wait patiently, out comes my order and what I get is over-easy which is NOT over-medium. Depending on how incorrectly cooked the eggs are and how much time I have, I will either send them back or just deal with the mess on my plate staring up at me. My son knows me well and asks, "Well, how'd they do Mom?" which I reply with a look of disgust and a, "What do you think?" We have a chuckle and eat our food. The waitress checks in on us but I rarely say a word. I just ask myself why would I bother? I understand that may be part of the issue too, just accepting sub-par results and not doing anything about it, not trying to make it better. But I have no desire to go on an egg cooking road show, no desire to make cooking eggs better one egg at a time. My apathy grows with each shell that's cracked.

With all this being said, I thought I'd share with you the basic styles of cooking eggs and just maybe you too will realize that as I society, we just can't cook eggs worth a darn anymore.

Sunny Side Up: The egg is cooked on the bottom side only, but long enough where the whites firm up. How they usually come out...with the whites still being clear and the yolks cold OR the backside burned and the whites are still clear. Don't get me wrong, I like to dip my toast sometimes, but if the white isn't white, I should have just cracked a raw egg directly into my mouth. To cook properly use medium heat and cover while cooking.







Over Easy: Very similar to Sunny Side Up except you cook 
both sides of the egg. These eggs are also great for dipping toast and no matter how I order my eggs in a restaurant, this is the preferred method for most of today's cooks. I'm thinking because it's easy, they don't have to pay attention during cooking and no one complains forcing them to actually pay attention in the kitchen. Medium-low heat for a couple minutes each side is best and a delicate flip so you don't break the yolk, gives you the results you want.

Over Medium: This is slightly more complex than the eggs above but it's not rocket science. This is what I attempt to order in restaurants, the words come out of my mouth, but I still get something other than Over Medium. Simply cook both sides a bit longer to allow the yolk to firm up with just a bit of liquid. If I can successfully do this at home, there is no reason a cook can't do it, heck they have a lot more practice that I do.

Over Well: You can also ask for Over Hard, the waitress should respond to both equally. Cook both sides of the egg, yolk will be completely firm, not runny, definitely not for dipping. Cook longer each side, they edges may be a bit crispy. For those of you afraid of salmonella, this is the egg for you. Folks this is NOT a Fried Egg, which is a style unto its own. Frying an egg and a Fried Egg are different.

Fried: Also known as Over Well Break the Yolk or more times than not Oops, My Bad. This is also another great way to eat an egg if you're afraid of dying from consumption of and these eggs are great for sandwiches. When you take a chomp, yolk won't ooze down your face like the Salvatore Brothers out for a midnight snack. The breaking of the yolk during cooking is usually caused by a bad flip, but if you're great at flipping, you'll need to poke open the yolk right before your first flip. Just be careful the yolk doesn't go all over if you're a zealous egg flipper.

Poached: There are multiple ways to poach an egg, but the basic idea is to cook the eggs with hot water out of the shell. This keeps the whites (albumin) in pristine condition. Poached eggs can be used in a variety of dishes, the most commonly known is Eggs Benedict, an unhealthy but yummy dish that takes advantage of hollandaise sauce and English muffins. I can honestly say I've never order this style in a restaurant, I've been too afraid of the results.





There are other ways to cook eggs, Scrambled, Hard Boiled & Soft Boiled (just a couple). Scrambled is a staple with my son mainly because they are hard to mess up and he can cook them himself (the hard to mess up part :-). If you want to ruin any health value of Scrambled eggs, order up cheesy eggs at any Waffle House restaurant and your arteries will clog just looking at the plate, but boy are they good. Darn, I'm getting hungry.

So next time you're out, take a look at your order, did the cook get it eggactly right? Probably not, they didn't bother to think about the request and how it wouldn't take them any longer to cook them to order, they simply cracked two eggs on the grill and a few seconds later, slapped them on your plate. Now your armed and dangerous with your egg knowledge, don't let this become The Forgotten Art of Cooking Eggs, bring that expertise back to the modern world, it'll be a better place because of it. I will now step down from my egg carton. Thank you.