Eggs are essential food, rich in nutrients, versatile, but still affordable. When we start cooking, eggs are one of the first ingredients whose preparation we master. You can serve them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and part of the afternoon snack.
But, there is an endless number of ways you can cook eggs.
Today’s article talks about seven basic ways to cook eggs and how to do it perfectly every single time!
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How many ways can you cook eggs?
We believe it’s impossible to name every way you can cook eggs. They are so diverse in preparation – you can cook them, bake them, fry them, and mix them with other ingredients—eggs with vegetables, cheese, bacon, ham, even with fruits – avocado, for example.
Still, there are seven basic ways to cook eggs. All other ways are just upgraded versions of these basic recipes:
Soft boiled eggs
Boiling is one of the most popular methods to prepare eggs. You’ll need only two ingredients – egg and water – to get a soft-boiled egg.
Cold eggs and hot water do not go together, so keep it at room temperature when you immerse an egg in water. You can achieve the effect of room temperature if you put an egg from the refrigerator under a stream of hot water for 30 seconds.
For a soft-boiled egg, it is necessary to boil it for four to six minutes, depending on the size of the egg, the strength of your stove, and the cooking dish you are using.
Lighter heat treatment provides a creamier egg and a more balanced yolk softness than egg whites.
Chefs, therefore, recommend that you put the egg in water that has not yet boiled. The best soft-boiled eggs preparation is without cooking.
Put the egg in a small pot and cold water, turn it on, and heat it to the highest temperature. When the water heats up, set the dish aside and let the egg cook for exactly 6 minutes in the egg dish that has kept the heat from the stove.
Hard-boiled eggs
Hard-boiled eggs are dipped in cold water before boiling. Thus, cooking eggs occurs more evenly because both the yolk and the egg white will be gradually heated.
After the water boils, cook the eggs for four to nine minutes before removing them, depending on the taste. As with digging, it is necessary to cool the eggs so that they do not “overcook” from their own heat.
After removing it from the cooking dish, immediately transfer it to water with ice cubes to stop cooking and prevent the formation of an unattractive green layer around the egg yolk of the hard-boiled egg.
Scrambled eggs
Patience is the keyword when preparing scrambled eggs.
Beat the eggs and whisk them with some salt and pepper. Melt butter in a frying pan. Take a small pan and fry eggs at a medium heat temperature. Otherwise, the eggs will dry out. Pour eggs into the pan and reduce heat to medium-low.
When eggs begin to set, stir them gently with a spatula. If you want soft scrambled eggs, remove them from the stove while they’re still creamy and wet. If you’re more into hard scrambled eggs, cook them until they are firm, and you can find no visible liquid eggs.
The mixture should not be homogeneous, but in the end you can clearly see the egg whites and yolks.
Fried eggs
A fried egg can be a wonderful breakfast, and you can make it sunny side up (runny yolks) or over easy.
The beginning is the same – take a nonstick pan and melt some butter or heat some olive oil. Bacon dripping will give an extra taste to fried eggs. Don’t crack an egg directly into the pan. Crack every egg in a separate small bowl, so you can take out any shell or prevent pouring the spoiled egg into the pan.
Add eggs one by one into the greased pan. After a minute, the egg white will be done on the edges. That’s the time you should put the lid on the frying pan. Steam and heat will cook the top of an egg.
After four minutes, you’ll have a perfectly fried egg with a runny yolk (sunny side up egg).
Suppose you want medium firm yolk, fry eggs for 5 minutes. For hard fried yolk, cook eggs for 6 minutes. The longer you fry eggs, the yolk will be firmer.
To get over-easy eggs, follow the same procedure as sunny side-up eggs, but with one difference. You’ll need to flip eggs with a spatula so that the yolk can fry from both sides. Fry egg for a minute on both sides.
Baked eggs
There is more than one way to bake eggs in the oven – you can bake them on a muffin tray or over vegetables, for example.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease the pan you decide to use. Crack eggs into the tray and sprinkle them with seasonings you like – salt, pepper, parsley, or other. Bake eggs for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the firmness of yolk you like.
For over hard eggs you’ll need 15 minutes.
Eggs baked in the oven have a similar texture as boiled eggs.
Omelets
When you prepare an omelet, the size of the pan is crucial. It should not be too small because the omelet will be too thick, but not too big, or it will be too thin. The ideal diameter of an omelette pan for two to three eggs is 15 centimeters.
Let the pan heat well, then add oil or butter. Whisk eggs in a separate bowl. Add eggs to hot oil.
Once you put eggs in the pan, there is no more mixing.
It is important to know when to stop, in this case, while the omelet is not over-fried. The lower part of omelette should be firm, and the upper part should look moist because when you remove the omelet from the fire, it will still crumble.
It doesn’t take you more than a minute or two to prepare eggs this way.
If you decide to add another ingredient to the omelette, keep it at room temperature before adding.
It can be vegetables, cheese, meat or whatever you prefer.
Poached eggs
Poaching eggs is the process of cooking a cracked egg in hot water.
How to poach an egg? To start, use room temperature eggs.
- Heat the water in a deep pot.
- Break the egg and place it on a shallow plate.
- When the water boils, reduce the temperature to a minimum. Stir with a ladle so that you make a whirlpool of water in the pot in the middle.
- Add one to two tablespoons of alcohol or apple cider vinegar to the water.
- Carefully place the beaten egg in the middle of the boiling water.
- Cook the egg for about three minutes, or until it becomes white and hard on the outside, but liquid in the middle.
Citations:
- https://lianaskitchen.co.uk/different-ways-to-cook-eggs/
- https://panlasangpinoy.com/10-ways-to-cook-an-egg/
