Now THAT’S what I thought a “basted” egg was.
Now, I wouldn’t codone dropping a glass of water into a bubbling deep-fat fryer, but I tend to fry my eggs using no more than a tablespoon or so of fat. I haven’t exploded anything yet with the teaspoon-of-water method.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound all that crazy with that little bit of fat. I call what I do basting as well. Also, if you don’t want to flip it with a spatula you can also use a spoon and just dump spoonfuls of hot grease on top of the egg for the same effect.
mmmm…fried eggs!
This is the method I use also. I think it results in prettier egs: the tops of the eggs are lily-white, with a pinkish-orange yolk, instead of the spattery, pockmarked surface of an over-easy egg.
Daniel
Sounds more like poaching to me.
I thought poaching involved submersing the eggs in water. This method just steam-cooks the top of the egg: there’s never enough liquid water to do much of anything.
Daniel
No not poached.
Poached eggs Cooked in a pan of simmering water.
Basted and Steamed eggs* Basted eggs = hot grease spooned over the egg. Steamed eggs 1-2 teaspoons of water added to pan and cover put on so that the steam cooks the top of the egg.
The difference between steamed and basted is the amount of water. If the egg cooks in water it’s poached. If a small amount of water is added to create steam it’s a steamed egg.
*Until I went searching just now, I always heard steamed eggs referred to as basted.
Ditto.
Usually I use a bit of water, and a small dot of butter.
Sunny Side Up: Fried on one side only without flipping.
Over Easy: Fried on both sides. Yolk runny, whites runny.
Over Medium: Fried on both sides. Yolk mostly runny, whites hard.
Over Well: Fried on both sides. Yolk hard, whites hard. (Your egg is going to be kinda brown, because this takes a while.)
Over Hard: As Over Well, but yolk broken This cooks faster than Over Well, with less browning.
Basted: As Sunny Side Up, but covered and steamed.
Poached: Eggs cracked into boiling water and boiled until firm but still runny.
It occured to me that I neglected to mention my egg flipping technique earlier. I wish I could videotape myself in action so it would be easier to explain. But I’ll try.
Ideally, find yourself a restaurant supply store and ask them for a 7-inch egg pan. They’ll know what you mean. This will be a small aluminum sautee pan with a non-stick coating, and with a metal handle with a rubber grip. They can also sell you some “grill oil”, though they might not have a small enough container for home use (I usually see this stuff in either 5-gallon jugs or in cases of three 1-gallon jugs.) They might be able to sell you a single gallon, though. “Grill Oil” (there are several brands - Whirl is common) is a vegetable oil, usually with a buttery flavor. It’s heavier than Wesson or Mazola. It’s much better than butter for frying, because it’s already “clarified”, it doesn’t burn as easily (higher flash point) and doesn’t snap, crackle and pop nearly as much as butter or margarine. And it’s slicker.
Now, you want your pan to start out cool. If the pan starts out hot, you’re going to scorch the eggs before they’re cooked. When it gets really busy in a restaurant, I’ll run cold water over the bottom of my egg pan to cool it down between orders.
I use the following steps:
1 - Oil the pan. In a restaurant, this entails ladling a small amount of oil into the pan. Use as little as you can get away with - start with just enough to cover half of the pan, then swirl the pan around to spread it evenly.
2 - Crack two eggs into the pan, taking care to not break the yolks (unless you want them broken.)
3 - Place the pan on the burner, over medium heat.
4 - Leave it alone while the whites set. For Over Easy eggs, this means mostly white, but you should still be able to see the black or gray color of the non-stick coating slightly tinting the whites. In other words, the whites are evenly set, but still thin enough for the pan to show through. For Over Medium, the whites should show an even white all over.
5 - When the whites are set, gently swirl the pan with a circular motion until the yolks have moved to the side closest to the handle. You may need to use a rubber spatula to gently unstick the eggs.
6 - Flip! I do this by quickly pushing the pan forward (away from myself) and then giving it a quick jerk upward. This should actually be all one motion. Let me try to describe this. Your grip on the pan handle is important. Your thumb should be on top of the handle, and your fingers on the bottom. To practice, hold out your hand as if you were going to shake somebody’s hand. Relax your wrist and close your fingers. Your grip on the pan handle should be relaxed but firm (if that makes any sense).
The flip is very quick. The reason I mentioned the position of the yolks has to do with the weight of the egg. The whites and the yolks are approximately equal in weight. So here’s what should happen when you flip the eggs: With the yolks closest to the handle, you give the pan a quick push forward. At the instant the front edge of the whites meets the front lip of the pan, you want to lift the front edge of the pan. This motion should be entirely in the wrist! Don’t use your whole arm, or you’ll get way too much height on the flip. Returning to my handshake example, hold your arm out and raise your wrist while keeping your arm in the same position. That’s what your flipping motion should look like.
If you do this correctly, the whites should curve back toward you, and their weight will roll the yolks over. Ideally, the yolks should never lose contact with the pan - they should just roll over as the whites go over. It would probably be easiest to start with a set of Over Hard eggs until you’re comfortable with the flipping motion.
The reason I mentioned buying a pan from a restaurant supply store has to do with the curvature of the pan. The professional pan is curved just right for this technique. Similar pans sold in grocery/department stores for home use just never seem to have the right shape to them. The non-stick coating is also more durable on a professional pan.
A couple things to keep in mind:
1 - The non-stick surface of your egg pan should be cleaned with a dry paper towel only! Wipe it clean and put it away (though you can use soap and water and a scrubber on the aluminum bottom and sides of the pan.) Never put your non-stick pan in the dishwasher! Automatic dishwasher detergent contains a corrosive that will destroy the non-stick coating. If you keep the inside of the pan wiped out after every use, the coating will last for a long time.
2 - Designate your egg pan and only use it for eggs. Frying/sauteeing other foods in it will eventually cause a buildup that will make the pan useless for eggs.
Somebody else mentioned starting with just one egg, but I disagree with that. Flipping a single egg is actually more difficult than flipping two. This comes back to the weight ratio between the whites and the yolks. The white of a single egg doesn’t spread as much in the pan, and so the weight doesn’t get distributed properly.
Also, be careful about your rubber spatula. I mean one of those white, soft-rubber spatulas, not the hard plastic spatulas, which are more properly called turners, though we still call them spatulas in restaurants. Even though the supply catalogs call them turners. Ahem. Anyway… I recommed the Rubbermaid brand, though there are some other good ones out there. I specify Rubbermaid because their rubber will stand up to the heat of an egg pan. There are some cheaper brands out there that will melt when you slide them under an egg. Just use the spatula to loosen the egg in the pan, if necessary. Don’t use it to flip the eggs.
And for better buttery goodness, stop by an Indian grocery store and pick up a jar or two of ghee (clarified butter). In my experience, once you’re well and used to the real thing, artificial buttery anything is absolutely horrid. Ghee has the milk solids removed, and all the water boiled out, so nothing remains but pure buttery fatty goodness, absolutely perfect for frying.
My stepfather liked his eggs cooked “German style”: crack the egg in the pan, break the yolk up and stir it around a little as it cooks. The end result is somewhere between scrambled and fried; there are identifiable patches of yolk and white all throughout. I dunno if “German style” is the right phrase, that’s just what he called it. In any case it’s pretty easy to do.
That’s how I do (and have always done) my scrambled eggs. I don’t like the homogenous mass that’s formed when you whisk them together in a bowl. They may as well be an omelet at that point.
I’m tardy, so I’ll just second or third the ‘practice with flipping a piece of bread’ advice. I’ve never been able to master the spatula flip, but give me a little non-stick pan and whatever grease is available, I can do over medium without breaking yolks almost every time. One of the cooks showed me way back in my waitressing days and once you can control the flip on a piece of bread, eggs are no problem.