A Few Ways To Cook Eggs

If you've read this blog for longer than a week, you know I eat a lot of eggs, and even have chickens in my backyard. It's a rare day I don't eat at least 2 eggs, 3 is more common, and 6 or more is not unheard of. I have been known to turn out omelets for twenty on a camp stove. I regularly turn leftovers into a new meal by either using them as omelet filling, or warming them up and topping them with fried eggs.

I hope most of you are familiar with basic egg cookery. But I'm aware that many folks grew up without basic kitchen skills, so a quick overview of some egg cooking methods couldn't hurt.

* I love fried eggs, and so does That Nice Boy I Married. We both like them the same way: Whites completely set, but the yolks still runny in the middle, or what restaurants would call "over medium." Sadly, I have never mastered the art of flipping an egg without breaking the yolk. Doesn't matter, though, because I have an easier method. I use a 9" non-stick skillet (well, it was non-stick when I bought it...) and put it over medium heat. I add whatever fat I'm using -- most commonly bacon grease, but I've used everything from butter and olive oil, to the drippings from Creole stuffed peppers -- let it melt, and slosh it around. I crack in my eggs -- three just about covers the bottom of this size skillet. Then -- and this is the important part -- I cover the skillet with a tight lid. This reflects back the heat, and cooks the whites on top before the yolks turn hard all the way through. Takes maybe three or four minutes, but of course that will depend on how hot your burner is, and even on how fresh your eggs are. Just keep peeking. Once you've done this for a while, you'll develop a sense of how long it will take. We get beautiful eggs this way.

* "He can't even boil an egg" has long been the description of someone with zero cooking skills. But hard-boiling an egg is one of those jobs that actually can be a little touchy. We've all had rubbery eggs that adhered to their shells with maddening tenacity. We've all seen the greenish ring that can develop around an over-cooked yolk. Here is my best method for hard-boiling eggs:

First of all, do not use strictly fresh eggs. The fresher they are, the more likely they are to stick to their shells. Heck, even grocery store eggs, which are generally weeks old when you buy them, are still too fresh for proper hard-boiling. If you like to keep hard-boiled eggs in the fridge, or plan to make deviled eggs for a party, buy an extra carton or two and stash them for at least a week first, and ten days isn't too long.

Put your eggs in a saucepan big enough to hold them in no more than two layers, and cover with cold water. Now salt the water heavily. This, too, helps prevent sticking. My littlest saucepan -- maybe 4-5" across -- just holds 7 eggs in one layer, and I add a heaping tablespoon of salt. (This is why I keep cheap generic grocery store salt in the house. For cooking and at the table I use good mined sea salt.) If I'm doing more eggs in a bigger pan, I might use as much as two tablespoons, or more.

Place your pan of eggs and salted water over a medium high burner, and bring it to a boil. Do not leave the kitchen. Unload the dishwasher. Put away groceries. Wipe down the cabinets. But if you leave the kitchen, you may well forget about your eggs and boil them dry, till they explode. The Voice of Experience. You want to be there to notice when the water starts boiling.

When the water just reaches a boil, cover the pan tightly and turn off the burner. Now set a timer for 15-20 minutes, depending on how well-done you like your boiled eggs. Let the retained heat cook them gently; this makes for a tender egg.

When the timer goes off, pour off the hot water, and "shock" your eggs in several changes of cold tap water -- again, the rapid change in temperature helps prevent shell stickage.

That's it. Store 'em in an egg carton in the fridge, preferably one you've clearly labeled, so no one tries to fry them tomorrow morning.

* Diametrically opposed to hard-boiled eggs, poached eggs require the freshest eggs you can lay your hands on. Indeed, since I have chickens in the back yard, I should be poaching eggs regularly. To poach eggs, you want to bring two to three inches of water in a saucepan to a bare simmer -- actual boiling will break up your egg a bit. You can add a little vinegar to help the white hold its shape even better. While the water is heating, break your eggs into individual custard cups; this prevents your breaking a yolk on the way into the water.

When the water is simmering, gently slip the eggs in. Let them simmer gently till the whites are just set, then fish 'em out with a slotted spoon.

If you want to, you can do a particularly tidy job of poaching just one egg by using a spoon to stir your water into a gentle vortex before you slide the egg in. The swirling water wraps any little shreds of white around the main mass.

You can also poach eggs in sauce. One of my favorite breakfasts is three eggs poached in Creole sauce. I saute a crushed clove of garlic in olive oil for just a minute (you want to use a non-reactive skillet for this). Then I add an 8 ounce can of tomato sauce, a good teaspoon or so of basil, and another of Creole seasoning, plus a hearty shot of Tabasco or Frank's hot sauce. I add my eggs, cover the skillet, and let them poach in the sauce till, again, the whites are set, but the yolks are still runny. Scoop 'em out and spoon the extra sauce in the skillet over them. Yum!

To forestall the inevitable questions, no, I'm not worried about eating so many eggs. I am completely unconvinced of the lipid hypothesis of heart disease -- I do not believe that high blood cholesterol is a cause of heart disease, nor do I believe that lowering total cholesterol prevents heart disease. Further, I'm convinced that "normal" cholesterol values have been revised downward repeatedly in this country to sell cholesterol-lowering drugs.

That said, there is little evidence that eating cholesterol does much to raise cholesterol. Cholesterol is vital for every cell in your body, and roughly 2/3 of the cholesterol in your blood is made by your liver. Eat more, your liver makes less. Eat less, your liver makes more.

Cutting carbs drastically lowers triglycerides, and increasing fat raises HDL ("good" cholesterol), leading to vastly improved ratios, which appear to be considerably more predictive.

And don't even think about throwing away the yolks.