How do you like your eggs cooked? Do you have any secret recipes or tips for getting them just right?

Question

How do you like your eggs cooked? Do you have any secret recipes or tips for getting them just right?

5 Answers

Answer Question

Answer 1

I personally love a good poached egg but know people often find it hard to get these right. I think the biggest problem is the white not holding together and believe this is to do with the egg hitting the bottom of the pan before being cooked enough to hold its form. I've come across 3 methods to combat this:

1. The Swirl

The first method is to bring a pan of water to the boil. Once boiling take a spoon and swirl the water. Be careful not to burn yourself. With the water still spinning crack the egg in. The spinning motion should hold the egg white together in the centre of the pan.

2. Deep Pan

Bring a deep pan of water to the boil. Don't worry about spinning it, just drop the egg in. The motion of the egg dropping into the pan should cause the white to close round the egg yolk before it hits the bottom. The deeper the pan, the better.

3. Shallow Pan

Using a frying pan, for example, bring a couple of centimetres of water to the boil. Gently crack the egg into the pan and in a similar way to how you might cook a fried egg, spoon the boiling water over the white and yolk.

I've also found that adding a drop of vinegar to the water seems to help too.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

I use this easy method to make poached eggs which I learnt watching Jamie Oliver.

You need: A pan of boiling water; cling film; olive oil; eggs.

Instructions:

1. Prepare a pan of boiling water.

2. Spread out a square of cling film in a wide cup making a bag for the egg.

3. Sprinkle a few drops of olive oil into the middle of the cling film and make sure the inside has thin layer of olive oil where the egg will sit.

4. Break an egg into the middle of the cling film.

5. Wrap up the top of the cling film to make a bundle.

6. Add the bundle into the boiling water and cook for a few minutes until the egg is cooked to your liking.

7. Unwrap the cooked egg and you have a perfect shaped poached egg!

Answer 3

I was planning to test out the method of poaching eggs in a bag this weekend (see Tim's answer above), but instead I decided to try out an egg recipe inspired by my favorite TV chef of all time: Rachel Khoo.

The recipe in question is entitled ouefs en cocotte (French for "eggs in pots"). It's really simple, and is one of my favorite ways to cook eggs:

How to make my version of 'Eggs in Pots"

You'll need:

A tub of creme fraiche
2 eggs per person
Salt, pepper, paprika
Cress
Sliced chorizo

The method for this dish is pretty simple:

You take a ramekin (I used tea mugs), and put a layer of creme fraiche in the bottom.

Season the creme fraiche with salt, pepper and paprika - and then throw in some cress and slithers of chorizo.

Stir the ingredients together, and crack two eggs on top of this layer.

On top of the eggs, you add a second dollop of creme fraiche, and add seasoning again.

Place your mugs in an oven pot, and fill to a level half-way up the mugs with boiling water (creating a bain marie)

Put your oven pot into a preheated oven at 180C.

Cook until the eggs are how you like them (I left mine in for around 15 minutes).

Your own take on 'oeufs en cocotte'

In my recipe - the paprika, chorizo and cress was my own personal choice. As long as you float the eggs between two layers of creme fraiche, you can use whatever condiments you like.

In Rachel Khoo's show The Little Paris Kitchen, she uses a combination of nutmeg and dill - with a heap of lumpfish roe as garnish.

Unfortunately, the corner shop next to my house was all out of fresh lumpfish roe - so I had to improvise.

(My culinary muse, Rachel Khoo)

Answer 4

To be honest, I'm not too fussy about how my eggs are cooked. I like fried, scrambled, poached and boiled egg, but I would probably say that scrambled eggs are my favourite!

Scrambled eggs

Although this is not exactly a secret tip (I stole it from Jamie Oliver), as a rule I never use milk when making scrambled eggs! Whisk the eggs especially well and use more butter or margarine than perhaps you would normally. Not using milk makes the eggs taste far richer and in my opinion far superior! Pucker.

Answer 5

Fried Egg

During my first year at university, the only cooking pan I had was a tiny frying-pan, just big enough to fry one egg. The eggs always made a perfect circle, and I thought that was really cute and convenient, so I ate a lot of fried egg on toast that year!

I used that one-calorie spray stuff rather than oil, as I don't like greasy food very much. I used crushed black pepper and sea salt to season it, and that was about as adventurous as it got.

Poached Eggs

These are my favourites, but I can't cook them to save my life! Poached eggs are really tricky to make if you're not good in the kitchen (I'm dreadful) as you have to be careful not to accidentally capsize them and get water into the egg. My mum makes really nice poached eggs. Mine always end up upside-down, somehow. I'm sure there's a method to it...

Egg and Soldiers

There's something really comforting about a soft-boiled egg with strips of buttered toast. I've not had this for years, but i still have fond memories of eating eggs like this when I was growing up!