Sunny Side Up. Yup. I am gonna write about that. A simple, sunny side up egg.
Eggs can come in all colours and sizes, big and small.
They are a simple, beautiful ingredient. But getting them perfect can be tricky. To me, the perfect sunny side up has crispy, brown edges, tender white that is opaque all the way to the edges of the yolk, and a runny, runny yolk. It’s not as easy as it might seem. You can have crispy edges, but the white is overcooked and chewy, and the yolk half set. Or you can end up with runny yolk, but the white around the yolk is translucent. No. I don’t like that.
You should always use the freshest eggs for sunny side up, and these actually make it more difficult. Really fresh eggs have a two zone white – the white around the yolk will be thicker and form a little dome. You can see that clearly in the chicken eggs above. This makes cooking the white just right, without burning the edges, even harder. If you keep your eggs in the fridge (you really should), it gets harder yet.
So, I applied my scientific mind to the problem, and here is my solution :
Give the eggs a warm bath, then fry them. Let them enjoy a last luxury, a nice warm soak for about ten minutes, before you viciously crack them onto the hot fry pan.
So here is how it works :
Ingredients : Some very fresh eggs
Prep : Boil some water. In a container, mix about equal volumes of boiling and room temperature water. If you are precise, the water should be around 65 degrees C. Gently lower the eggs into their luxurious bath. There should be enough water to cover the eggs, and a bit more. Go make toast, coffee, fry the bacon. Leave them for ten minutes. At the end of it, the water should still be a bit warm. The eggs will cool the water significantly.
The eggs are now well warmed up, much of the way through, but still raw.
Cook : Heat up your favourite fry pan (in this case, my IUIGA non-stock wok), and in goes a tablespoon of oil. Wait till the oil simmers. Remove an egg from its bath, tenderly towel it dry (you don’t water splattering in hot oil). Then do it. Crack the egg in. It should immediately sizzle and bubble, it should go, like this :
This is real time, and you can see how fast it happens. The egg in the video is a tad old, and you see it doesn’t have a well defined two-zone.
At the moment the egg hits the pan, it should sizzle.
And let it bubble away while the edges brown:
As the egg is warm, it will done in around a minute. As soon as the white is opaque, it’s done. Slide a spatula under it, and ease onto the plate.
Eat : Immediately. The question is, is it alright to ruthlessly cut up the yolk, or must it be eaten whole? Rule : if you must cut it, there must be something below to soak it up. Yeah.
That’s the way I do it.
And here’s an interesting side note – quail eggs are beautiful fried up. Its a bit of work to crack those tiny guys, but the results are beautiful, with a particularly delicate white and tasty yolk.
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