I’ve never beaten my omelet eggs to a froth, just a bit more than I would for scrambled.
Just to complicate things further, there is also “whisked eggs”, which results in a finer, creamier texture than scrambled, which to me means a larger curd.
To me, “fried egg” means an egg fried in a pan, with some fat. Could be oil, could be butter, could be lard or bacon grease. However, as others say, there’s a great spectrum of doneness that needs to be specified. Some people like the eggs with the yolks completely runny, and the whites not fully set. Some prefer to have the yolks completely firm, and I’m in that camp. Problem is, I don’t fry eggs often enough to be really proficient at it any more, I’m far more likely to overcook the whites, which I find nearly as disgusting as liquid yolks. So I hard boil the eggs instead.
But is there any downside?
It means you cooked the egg in a frying pan, duh! (And didn’t do additional things like scramble it or turn it into an omelette).
More to the point it does NOT mean how well it is fried. Sunny side eggs are fried eggs. Over easy eggs are fried eggs. Over medium eggs are fried eggs. Eggs fried as I prefer them, with the yolk completely solidified and not remotely liquid, are fried eggs.
But when you’re cooking eggs sunny-side-up, by the time the whites are done, the yolks are still quite runny. If you keep on cooking, the whites are going to go past done to burnt.
Not if you do it at a moderate temperature. The lid approach works best and easiest, though. But I have definitely overcooked “sunny side up” eggs in my time without the use of a lid and without burning the white. ETA: I should say, though, that I would consider the whites overcooked and rubbery, although not at all burnt, with this approach. If you like firm yolks and a sunny-side up appearance or don’t like flipping eggs for over-medium or over-hard/well, the lid approach works best, especially if you add a tablespoon of water before you cover the pan.
… so does anyone have a name for eggs that are stirred after being added to the pan? Distinct white and yellow, but all mixed together? It has a way different texture than any variety of fried or “traditional-scrambled” egg.
This is what I grew up referring to as “scrambled”, called so by my Dad who grew up in Minnesota during the Depression (in case that’s a regional/era distinction). I’ve never been able to get into the pale yellow texture-less nastiness the rest of the world calls “scrambled eggs”
Hear hear! “Pan scrambled” was offered upthread. That works for me.
Fried egg over here equates to ‘over hard’. But I always expect them to ask me how I want it, too.
[QUOTE=Gary T]
My understanding is “cook” defines an occupation, “chef” defines a position of employment. Thus all restaurants have cooks, some (fancy) restaurants label (some of) their cooks as chefs.
[/QUOTE]
It’s certainly common usage that way, but whenever the topic comes up some blowhard will always pop up and state that “Chef means the person attended a culinary school, otherwise they’re not a chef they’re just a cook”. So for this thread, I guess I’m that blowhard. 
Carry on.
I would tend to agree with the people who claim that it is sort of a restaurant kitchen honorific or point of title. At the restaurant I worked at we had an executive chef, a sous chef, and a pastry chef and it said so right on their double breasted blouses. Regardless of their certification or letters, and many had no degrees, simply years of kitchen/working experience and training, casually, we called all of them “Chef” in address, or “Chef-fill in the name”. As a server and room service attendant, even the so called “cooks or prep people” under the “head chefs”, who were usually in charge of a line in the head chef’s absence assumed the title of chef… just a courtesy and formality, if not a nickname I suppose. It’d often go something like this I suppose, “Hey Chef, on that mid rare New York, they would like a side of hollandaise, and requested the homefries extra crispy, Thanks!”
Oh, FYI… supposedly the 100 creases in a chefs toque represents the 100 arts or ways that a chef knows how to prepare an egg.
It’s funny “Hey, Chef!” was almost as common in the back of the house, as “Hey, Chief!” was in the front of the house… that little quirk of dialect was passed on by an Irish restaurant manager from Chicago who called everybody “Chief”. And well, “El Hefe” is also related.
…usually followed by the chef scowling at me and flipping me off… Heh,
[QUOTE=Sinisterniik]
It’s not a stand, but a sit down diner with about a dozen tables. I think the cook might have spoken better English than the waitress, but she’ the head waitress and he’s one of only two cooks in the place. It calls itself a Spanish/American restaurant, and it’s in a primarily English-speaking, Polish inhabited neighborhood.
[/QUOTE]
When you say, “it calls itself a Spanish/American Restaurant”, are you sure about that? Sure they wouldn’t call themselves a “Mexican/American restaurant”?
Well, nonetheless, according to this handy guide you should try ordering your huevos “fritos volteados”… or “fried gay balls”, I guess. 
Alton Brown on Good Eats did the hard-yolked sunny side up. He said it was cooking on Low for 6 minutes. I tried that, and the whites were barely even white. I’ve tried higher settings, but I haven’t found a place where I can let it go for 6 minutes without getting the cracklins on the bottom. (Although I do love them.)
I do breakfast for the family, so eggs are the thing I work on. I never knew that over easy was supposed to have some of the white not cooked. I always shoot for super runny yolks with completely cooked whites. (I don’t usually get it right, but I’m learning. I used to always just do scrambled).
BTW, how do you guarantee you won’t break the yolk? I seem to be luckier than not from the shell itself, but it almost always breaks when I flip it over. The only way I’ve been able to not break the yolk is if I just turn the whites in a move that only works maybe 10% of the time.
Hmmm… I guess the best tips I can give for flipping eggs without breaking the yolk are:
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Lubrication- use a generous amount of butter or cooking oil to make things easier, it also helps in cooking the egg through heat transfer and a buffering medium that envelopes the eggs.
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Use a nonstick pan for obvious reasons, but still use the aforementioned generous amount of cooking medium- butter or oil.
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Don’t crowd the pan, ideally try to cook two eggs at a time.
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Try to be fluid when flipping with a spatula, sort of ease them over… without “splatting” them
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If you want to get serious and go pro, get yourself a small nonstick frying pan like this one with sloped sides in the 6 inch range, and learn the “no spatula” technique that chefguy mentions above. A well lubed pan, a fluid forward flick of the wrist and backpull, and you should be able to learn to flip without breaking the yolk 99% of the time… of course you might break a few yolks along the way to profciency, but the learning curve isn’t too steep.
Or cheat, like I sometimes do, and baste them by adding a bit of water to the pan and covering it with a sacepan lid till the tops are basted over white… then slide them out of the pan, guaranteed not to break a yolk this way 100% of the time.
Also, if you notice, sometimes, when one gets two eggs over easy from a diner or pro breakfast place the two eggs will be joined or contiguous with the whites as a whole unit. Or in other words, if you do cook them two at a time in a small pan, with the flip method, do not separate the eggs- they will turn very nicely as a whole unit and it might actually lend to a higher degree of and less delicate “structural integrity”.
Perhaps it’s a regional thing that explains all the differences? We should have a poll with location.
Here in Southern Ontario, it is also the case that “fried egg” is logically equivalent to “cooked steak.” If you asked for fried eggs here, you will be asked how you want them fried; sunny side up, over easy, over medium, or over hard. “Scrambled” is different, though they’re still fried eggs.
The OP should move to the UK. A fried egg is always, solid white, runny yolk to the best of the cooks abilities. Never seen anything else.
None of this flipping or whatever shenanigans.
Probably one of those tragic misunderstandings leading up to 1775.
