Foodie tip: The best eggs, Jerry

Off-topic Chatter
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I love eggs. I can’t imagine living without eating them. They are relatively inexpensive and also, can be made to be one of the most satisfyingly tasteful things to eat. The baking industry (especially breads, desserts, etc.) would essentially suffer without them (there are egg substitutes, but… “meh”).

There are as many opinions and preferences about eggs as there are ways to make them. I think a great many of them are terrific, but being an “eggologist” by hobby, I’ve made my own observations on what’s the best way to prepare an egg. I won’t go into a super long spiel about it, as one could reference hours of material. But the upshot is this: the yolk.

The yolk is where it’s at. That’s the essential flavor of the egg. And thus, how it is cooked means everything. Of course, one can blend it up into the egg white and create some tasteful things, but by itself…the yolk is really a jewel. So it needs to be cooked properly. Undercooked, and it’s a runny, sticky mess. Overcooked, and it’s like eating sulfur cake. What you want, ideally, is to cook them just enough such that they’re barely runny. Almost like a gel. A touch less, and you’ll have a more gooey experience. A little more, and you’ll have this orangey “nougat” that’s soft & delicious.

My technique is to essentially “steam” eggs rather than boil them. You can get these “spacers” made of heat proof silicone that cradle the eggs and help them stand up straight in a pot. You pour in the water so that the spacers are almost covered, just a bit of the egg tip (situated fat side up) in the water. If you’re starting with hot water, steam for about 6 to 7 minutes depending upon the size of the eggs and the number of them in the pot. After that time, turn off the heat and let them sit for another 3 ~ 4 minutes. Finally, immerse in a cold bath. After stirring around for about 30 seconds, dump the water and pour in more cold water. Let sit for a couple minutes. If the water still feels more than lukewarm, dump and refill with cold water again. Feel free to take out an egg at any point during this to eat.

Experiment on your timing. It took me a while to get these numbers. I generally cook extra large to jumbo sized eggs and do 4 to 6 at a time. I DO find that in terms of timing based on number of eggs, there’s not a geometric progression in time needed. Thus, 4 extra large eggs will require 6 minutes, but 6 jumbo shouldn’t need more than 7 minutes. Also… you will find timing differences depending upon whether or not the eggs have been taken directly from the refrigerator or were nearing room temperature sitting on the kitchen counter.

One other tip: if you cook a bunch more eggs than you plan to eat in one sitting, do not— repeat , do not peel all of them. While peeling is easier while the egg is very warm, once peeled the egg will shed water while sitting in the fridge. You don’t want it to lose moisture.

Once cooked, I eat the eggs in several ways. One, if I’m a bit rushed, I just eat it as-is. I dash a little salt on, take a bite, then repeat until all eaten. My favorite thing is to toast some nice multi-grain bread or an English muffin, apply some butter (option: add on some cheese, microwave for 12 seconds), then mash on some avocado, layer on a piece of bacon, then take the egg, cut directly in half length-wise, placing the halves cut side down. Garnish with some fresh ground pepper and maybe a dash of salt. I’ve also taken to cutting the egg up into “medallions” and arranging over one side of toast, then putting on some ham, cheese, and other things. You’d be amazed at how good roasted red peppers can accentuate an egg sandwich.

So for the egg lovers out there in BLF-land, what’s your take on the incredible, edible egg?

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A piece of bread on a plate, smother it with diced onions, pour chili over it all, cover with shredded sharp cheddar cheese, lay two over easy eggs on top of that.

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Good Lord…is cooking/eating eggs this complicated?

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My mom is allergic to eggs.

I'm not, but I don't like food that tastes like eggs.

It's fine if the food has egg in it, but I just don't like the taste of eggs.

When it comes to food, I'm pretty picky.

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If each bite of your egg sandwich doesn’t come with the risk of hot liquid yolk shooting out across your cheek, are you really even eating breakfast?

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Not at all… this is about stepping up your egg game. :wink: :smiley: :sunglasses:

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Eggs are easy to cook but it takes cooking skills to make them perfect.

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Ha!! Will try it. Always up for some experimentation. Variety is the spice of life they say.

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Try Chinese century eggs.
I eat them on the streets of Hangzhou some time ago. Would do it again for sure.
Mike

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If you really have some huevos, try a Balut Egg…… :confounded:

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Eggs are good; duck duck eggs are the best.

Quote: “The yolk is where it’s at”

Yes, and duck eggs have a larger yolk to white ratio. :smiley: The eggs are usually larger too.

FYI, some people who are allergic to eggs are actually allergic to chicken eggs and can eat duck eggs.

I use an instant pot to hard cook eggs. Timing varies with altitude as water boils at a lower temperature as altitude increases, almost a 1 degree F drop per 500 foot increase. So 198 F for me instead of 213 F. 92 C instead of 100 C. Makes a difference with many things.

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I have chickens and quail. I think right now I have 8 dozen chicken eggs sitting on the table. Something like 24 dozen quail eggs but I’m about to pickle a few gallons of those.

We used to raise ducks,geese, and turkeys. Duck eggs are good but rich as crap. If you normally eat 2 chicken eggs then one duck egg will normally do ya. Geese and turkey eggs are rich just like duck just bigger.

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Scrambled, fried, soft-boiled, hard-boiled, devil-eggs, egg-salad, I loooove eggs.

Rare that I have all the ingredients at once, but when I do, I like me some eggwiches. Toasted english-muffin, eggs, slice of murrrcan or cheddar cheese, sausage patty (doubled if they’re the paper-thin kind), butter, salt, pepper.

Can’t do poached to save my life.

Hate runny whites, so when I fry ’em, I’ll separate the yolks, fry the whites as best I can on one side, then when almost done, dump in the yolks, let them gently cook while the whites tighten up the rest of the way. Otherwise it’s too easy to get egg-snot from the whites and have “hard-boiled” egg-yolk.

When I’m lazy and don’t want to make “real” devil-eggs I’ll just halve hard-boiled eggs, sprinkle with salt’n’pepper, then put a dollop of mayo and dot of mustard on each half.

I like gelatinous yolks with s&p. They’re gooooooood eatin’.

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Had my first duck egg a few months ago. Our local LIDL happened to have them on special. It was weird… in the plastic 4-packs they’d been packaged within, many had cracked or were leaking. Started to make me wonder if commercial chicken eggs have harder shells due to specialized breeding. Anyway, I found the flavor a little odd. Just a very slight suggestion of “game.” I found scrambling was more enjoyable. They took a good bit longer to cook as semi-soft boiled. Anyway, will have to give them another try at some point. Unfortunately in regular supermarkets, they’re very expensive. At LIDL, they were on sale, $2 per 4-pack.

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Duck eggs have much thicker shells than chicken eggs. Because of this duck eggs can be stored much longer. We pay a local grower $8 a dozen. Mostly we scramble them or use them in a quiche. Though we also have some hard-cooked in egg salad sandwiches (Veganaise, finely chopped celery, and green onion).

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Variation is there in chicken-eggs, too. The brown ones that come on the clear plastic cases need a good whack to crack ’em. The white ones in the styrene-foam cases practically come pre-cracked, as they’re the proverbial paper-thin shells.

I just get whatever’s not 5-6bux/dozen.

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I had never thought of that, it sounds like a fun idea to play with.

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We had geese growing up, the egg shells were really strong. Had one roll off a chest freezer onto a concrete floor and it didn’t even crack.

Fried eggs with Montreal steak seasoning on top. That’s the way to go.

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Forgot to mention that once done on one side, I’ll flip the whites, then plop the yolks on top of them, so they don’t end up in direct contact with the pan.

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This post will address the joy and bliss of perfectly cooked microwave scrambled eggs.

Too many people don’t know that you can perfectly cook scrambled eggs via microwave. Here’s the simple trick: microwaves cook from the outside -in. Thus, you cannot flip the on switch and walk away. That causes the eggs to overcook on the outside and still be cold from the fridge on the inner part of the bowl. The trick is to put a pat of butter and cook it by itself just enough to melt. Crack your eggs in the bowl, add a tad of whip cram or half and half if you want extra smooth, then whip them or beat them with a fork. I put the eggs, with the fork still in it, right in the microwave and set the timer for 2 min.

At 15 seconds take them out and whip them up, then back in again.
At 12 seconds take them out and whip them up, then back in again.
At 10 seconds take them out and whip them up, then back in again.
At 8 seconds take them out and whip them up, then back in again.
At 6 seconds take them out and whip them up, then back in again.

At this point, you shouldn’t have any, or little, cooked eggs. It’s a very hot liquid egg mixture that is now ready to cook. Put it in for @10-12 seconds. Pull it out, flip them over and get the solids in the middle if needed, sprinkle salt and pepper, add cheese if you wish (I do). In for 5 more seconds and let them rest. They’ll continue to cook for a bit, if you note that the outside seems hard, then scrape it off the bowl. As microwaves come in various powers, you may need to adjust plus or minus times for yours, let the eggs be your guide.

Good to go, perfect microwave eggs.