How do you like your fried eggs? Sunny-side up, over easy, hard and crispy? If they never seem to come out quite how you like them, then follow this simple guide, and your breakfasts will be happier events from now on.
As always, I hope that you will use very good eggs. There really is no point using bottom-of-the-range, battery-produced eggs that, if they taste of anything at all, taste of the cheap and nasty feeds given to the poor chickens. Use free-range or even organic eggs: you will taste the difference. And do get yourself a good pan, if you don't already have one. A fairly heavy-based non-stick pan is ideal: thin pans don't transfer the heat evenly, and they can dent and buckle.
Once you've got good eggs and a good pan, the next thing to face is that you probably need to use more fat than you usually do. I know many people have a horror of fat, but attempting to cook your eggs with the merest trace of oil in the pan is asking for trouble. Don't worry, the eggs will not absorb any of the extra fat, it will just help them to cook easily and more evenly, giving you much more control over the finished result.
A traditional French recipe for frying eggs tells you to gently poach them, no more than two at a time, in two ounces/55 grams or more of butter. Now, this may be too extravagant for many, even if you're not running scared of cholesterol, but there are two important truths in this method that we should adopt.
First, the eggs are gently poached in the fat. Unless you really enjoy a crispy, lace doily-like layer on the underside of the egg, in which case a higher temperature is required, cook it slowly, in plenty of fat. How much? Well, there should be enough depth that by tilting the pan a little you will be able to easily scoop up a spoonful of the fat to drizzle over the top of the egg to help set the white. A soup spoon is particularly good for this. You can baste the yolk too, but this will cause a "bloom" or veil to form over it: personally, I don't mind this at all, but if you want pure sunny-side, then just baste the white.
Secondly, the use of butter is important. The reason is flavor; eggs fried in butter simply taste better. However, it is better to use a mixture of oil and butter; the oil makes the butter go further and prevents it from burning. You can use any oil you enjoy, but plain, bland oil allows the taste of the butter to shine through.
If you follow those two points, you should have no problem making fried eggs exactly the way you like them, every time. By cooking slowly (unless you like 'em crispy) you get plenty of time to control the result, flipping them if you like well-done or over easy, or just letting them gently heat through until ready.
