Steps
- Use the eggs. Because eggs can be prepared so many different ways, cooking eggs for breakfast can be a very personal choice. A fried egg cooked "over easy" can be terrific for one person, it can be considered awful to another. Preparing eggs is about learning several different styles of cooking the same main ingredient.
- Boil the egg. The simplest is a boiled egg in the shell. Simply cover a few eggs in a pot with water, bring to a boil, cover, remove from heat, and let the leftover heat in the water cook the eggs to desired wellness. 3 minutes for a soft-cooked egg, 5 minutes for a hard cooked egg. For more eggs, just add more water. You can even pull some out early for diners of differing desires! Try several and see how you like eggs cooked.
- Make scrambled eggs.The next level in difficulty may be scrambled eggs. Cooking fried eggs (next section) means that you want to keep the yolk intact, some thing most easily done after some practice. Scrambled eggs however, let you not worry about that. Just crack the eggs into a bowl (2-3 is good number for a single eater) and mix with a fork. For seasoning, many people use salt with their eggs, but you can do what you like, it's your egg!
- To cook, pour into a pre-heated skillet that has a small amount of fat. If left alone, the mixed-up eggs will become a single disc of cooked egg. What you want to do is move the firm, cooked egg around the pan a little to move it away from the heat and give the uncooked liquid egg access to the hot skillet. Each time you move the cooked curd around, break it up a little.
- How do you know when it's done? Julia Child remarked about scrambled eggs, "Done in the pan means overdone on the plate." They will keep cooking a little after you take them out of the pan. Practice! Find out what you like. Also, try out other degrees of wellness and curd size for when you have other eaters around you.
- Make fried eggs. There are three main factors: 1) Cooking to desired wellness, 2) Keeping the yolk intact when desired, and 3) Seasoning. Seasoning could be accomplished by leftover bacon fat, butter, simple salt and pepper, or anything you find in your spice rack. Wellness, however, can be a little trickier. A cooler pan can give you more wiggle room when getting started, but a hotter pan can give you crisp edges (if desired) and can shorten cooking time.
- For "easy" eggs, where the yolk is still liquid, you want to get the egg up to temperature to kill any bacteria, but not to solidify the yolk. When adding the eggs to the pan, try to separate them early to keep from getting a mutant "three yolk" platter that's impossible to maneuver. To turn over, gently slide a spatula under a single egg and give it a gentle flip. Gentleness is the key to an intact yolk. Slowly count to 10, and turn it back over. Serve with toast, perhaps.
- Make omelets. Omelets are really just scrambled eggs that you don't break up. Like scrambled eggs, go ahead and move the curd around with a spatula a little to let the liquid egg get to the hot pan, but don't break up the curd like you would with scrambled eggs. A "shirred" omelet is one that you shake the pan back and forth to make very small curds. And when you're close to running out of liquid egg to cook, top with cheese and pop it under the broiler of your oven to finish cooking and melt the cheese. Fold in half and plate. You can also start with cooking some vegetables or meats in the pan before you add the eggs. Onion, ham, green peppers, olives, hot peppers, tomatoes, even broccoli make great omelet additions. Other variations include adding a small amount of milk, water or cream to the eggs before cooking, something in the order of 1 teaspoon of added liquid for each egg.
- Make poached eggs. A poached egg, done correctly, can be very tasty. The trick to good poached eggs is freshness. A fresh egg with hold together better in the water than an old egg. The water should be hot, just under a boil. Gently slide the egg into (salted, if desired) water, and let thermodynamics take over. Like boiled eggs, about 3 minutes for a soft-cooked egg.
- Cook the bacon. Bacon is something that perhaps we all enjoy but don't like to cook because of the mess, can be cooked in the oven with little involvement. Place a single layer of bacon on a cookie sheet and cook for 20 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. This will give you medium wellness. But a hotter oven, like 400 degrees Fahrenheit, for the same amount of time, can give you a very crisp product. Like your bacon on the soft or chewy side? Cool the oven down to 325 degrees.
- Make pancakes. There are two keys for good pancakes, and both of them relate to you not doing too much of something. First: don't over-mix the batter, it will make the cakes rubbery. Second, don't over-turn the pancakes on the griddle, once over is all you want. Wait until the edges of the pancake look dry before trying to turn over, then peek underneath to see how done it is. If the bottom is dark, but it falls apart when turning, you have the heat up too high. If the bottom is very light and the cake is nearly cooked through, you may have the heat too low. Practice!
- Use up leftovers. What else? Leftovers from the night before can be great breakfast goodies. Last night's baked potato, when cubed and pan-fried becomes fried potatoes! Steak and eggs are good together. Chicken-flavored rice pilaf is a great egg compliment, as well as any kind of cut-up fruit. Melons, grapes, pineapple, mangoes, oranges can all be prepped the night before.
- Practice and experiment!
- Pouring an ounce or two of water into a skillet of eggs, then covering quickly, is a good way to steam the tops of the eggs, similar to cooking over-easy, without the hassle of turning the eggs and possibly breaking the yolks.
- When cooking fried or poached eggs, crack the egg into a small cup first. This allows you to slide the egg into the pan whole and with less splashing.
- For consistently sized pancakes, use a measuring cup to pour the batter onto the griddle. It's got a nice handle, and there are so many to choose from. A 1/3 cup measure will give you about a 4" pancake.
- A 12" non-stick skillet is about the right size to omelets up to about 8 eggs. More than that, and you're crowding the pan.
- If you want to salt your eggs, do so before you cook them. For fried eggs, add the seasoning right after placing them in the pan.
- Keep pancakes or waffles hot by layering them on a plate between paper towels and placing in an warm oven (170 degrees F)
- Eating undercooked or raw animal/egg products may expose the diner to harmful bacteria.
- Be careful working with a hot stove. You may want to keep a fire extinguisher nearby and know how to handle grease fires.
- Patience
- Willingness
- Griddle, pan, stove/oven, utensils, measuring cup, etc etc.
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