I’ve been trying to master the over easy egg. It’s the flipping part, of course, that is causing me great anguish. Over easy eggs should sport an intact yolk, and the over easy eater deserves nothing less.
Most of the online instructions I’ve read lean toward flipping the egg(s) with the frying pan - doing an alley-oop, if you will - rather than using a spatula.
Here is my trouble: I can do one, usually even two eggs without damaging the yolk more often than not. I eat three eggs at a sitting, though, and I am unable to flip the trinity.
I imagine that restaurant cooks, when serving up a three-egg order, cook and flip them separately (what with that large grill surface available)?
Is it even possible to flip the threesome? Should I not even bother trying?
I ask this as I just finished today’s breakfast consisting of three dinged yolks.
mmm
Spent some time during the '70’s short-order cooking. The spatula has no role to play in cooking fried eggs. It’s all about the flip. Hence, the size of the grill is irrelevant, since you can’t pick that up and jerk it.
Please describe the shape and size of the pan you cook your eggs in. Can’t be a skillet; got to have smoothly sloping curved sides. And lubrication is key, so you must make sure you have plenty of fat. Put the eggs into the pan, and let the bottoms cook adequately. Pick up the pan and swirl the eggs around to make sure they slide freely. Add more fat as necessary to keep them mobile. Pick up speed, then do the old “clean and jerk.”
Caution: if you don’t give the eggs sufficient momentum. the whole thing will fold in half.
Best fried eggs I have ever had in my life were cooked by a friend’s wife.
She cooked them in what seemed way too much oil on a really high heat. For the people that didn’t want really runny eggs she tipped up the frying pan and spooned hot oil over the eggs.
After I saw it I adopted the technique and it is perfection. You can create whatever eggs you want, and all at the same time, with no turning; but you waste a bit of oil.
Stainless steel pan, get it good and hot before adding the oil (just a thin covering)
Nice fresh egg popped in, let it cook until you can see it crisping a bit round the edges.
Now use a FORK and see if the egg loosens from the pan bottom. If not, leave to cook a little longer.
When you feel it coming away, get the prongs of the fork through the white (the crispiness of the base gives it some tensile strength) and lift the egg up and lay it onto the yolky side (gently). Thirty seconds should nicely cook the top of the yolk, then use the fork again to lift it out (it shouldn’t stick at all this time).
There is a bit of a black art to this, never try to unstick the egg until it is ready to come loose but once you get used to your pan and practice your forkwork, it does give good results.
I appreciate all the advice. I have everything down, though, except the flip.
As mentioned, I can do one or even two, but three eggs seems too unwieldy.
Prior attempts resulted in the folded egg (not enough oomph in the flip), but today’s attempt went too far wrong in the other direction. I wanted to be sure I got enough air under the eggs, which I did, but they landed with a splat, fracturing all three yolks.
I guess I have to shoot for something in between.
but I need to know: is it possible to to a clean and graceful flip with three eggs?
mmm
Yes, totally possible. I’ve probably done it several thousand times. A little practice and its all muscle memory from there. Like pretty much anything…if you dont give up on it, you will eventually get it.
I flip mine using the pan, but you can also do it with a spatula without actually picking up the egg. You just turn the spatula upside down, insert it under the facing edge of the egg, and give it a quick roll away from you. The action is sort of like scraping ice of a window and flipping it away from you.
Use a pan that is slightly too small so the white will be thicker. That helps stabilize the yolks for flipping.
Also, some eggs just have a thinner membrane around the yolk than others. Per my egg supplier, it very much depends on the laying hen. Best talk to the chickens about it.
Slight hijack, but I like it when the yolks break. In fact before they set too much I like to break give them a tiny bit of a scramble, let them set a little more, a little more scramble, and they’re done. This gives them a nice marbling of white and yolk.
Y’all getting what I’m saying? I had a hell of a time explaining this to both a cook and a sandwich shop owner one morning. And they were just. Not. Getting it. I explained it three times and they still didn’t get it. It finally dawned on the owner, and he said “Ah, sunny side up.” NO! What I got was not only pretty much the opposite of what I wanted, they were quite possibly the most disgusting eggs I’ve ever had.
Apparently this method of cooking them has no name, no description, and I’m the only person in the universe who can make them that way.
Tdn had for breakfast, an egg with no name; it felt better than some quiche lorraine.
In the diner, you can eat up your eggs, 'cause there ain’t no one for to give an explain.
My technique - use a 7 or 8 inch frying pan, butter or margarine to lubricate. When cracking the eggs into the pan, manipulate them so the 3 yolks are clustered close together. Flip with the yolk cluster closest to the pivot point, so they don’t come down splat but rather roll over gently. This method also has the advantage if the white folds from not enough flipping power, it can be easily fixed with a fork and no harm comes to the precious yolks.
I suppose, but that name wouldn’t have gotten me what I wanted. And don’t scrambled eggs usually have a little milk or water mixed in? And in that establishment, scrambled eggs don’t come from a shell, they come from The Bowl.
Awesome post, Rhythmdvl. Can you do it again with, maybe, Seals and Crofts?
