"I didn't even know I was hungry" (The Food Appreciation Thread)

'Cause it's pro if you don't break it.

Yolk and white have different chemical compositions so they'll cook slightly differently and should thus be kept discretely so you can have your different egg-bits how you want them? Alternatively, it's for a sense of perfectionism that says "if you wanted yolk in your white you should've scrambled them in the first place".

Eggs "over easy" or "sunny side down" or "over hard" are all options (which are commonly used enough in the breakfast industry to require names!) which entail cooking the yolk to some extent. "over hard" entails breaking the yolk, presumably leaving a cooked flat yolk in the middle of cooked egg white.

So yeah, it's only a crime if someone wanted to break their own yolk, or if you're trying to uphold unrealistic standards of beauty for fried eggs.

Extremely fresh eggs will "spread" less than older eggs; you're likelier to get a crispy egg if it's an older one and it's spread itself out further across the pan.

If you want it properly cooked without having the hassle of trying to flip it, "over easy" entails putting a lid over the frying pan and letting the trapped heat cook them from the top down as well. This pretty reliably ensures the egg yolk's cooked right through without the base of the fried egg burning (provided your element's not on ridicu-hot).

Also! The yolk is the most nutritious part of the egg, but also the "meatiest" in flavour (I had an inkling you were a vegetarian, but I could be mistaken?). Scrambled eggs might be a good option if full on yolk flavour is too much in one go. Don't forget to season it with pepper and salt!

It has been ten minutes. We can only assume the worst.

Hahaha, I have the exact same problem. I have yet to produce a fried egg that doesn't disintegrate upon flipping and/or taste vaguely like petroleum. Like you, I'm a willing but pretty amateurish cook.

how do eggs

help


edit: also not tryna sound mocking or anything but how is it even possible to burn soup

There are many ways to prepare eggs, and while I was raised with them, I learned very early on I just don’t like them runny. Now my brother, he preferred them poached or in an omelet (at least for several years in grade school. don’t right know what he does on his own now). Me, I much prefer the hard side of things, but I also value a little bit of a “surprise me” factor. I also like things a bit on the plain side, so salt and pepper are right out.

That’s only even talking about plain eggs. They can taste quite different in other contexts, such as when we drop them into Shin Ramyun, or add them into a nice bowl of bibimbap. They can be “deviled”, sauced/spiced/herbed in a number of ways (my mother is a pretty big fan of chopped leek/scallion), hard-boiled and soaked in a tea-spice-soy concoction...

As far as the rubbery whites goes, a little less hard heat can make them a little less rubbery (more moisture + less structure), but that is fundamentally what cooked egg white does, so any effect desired otherwise is about working around this. A slow heat is used for a great many techniques. For instance, a lot of scrambled egg recipes call for you to mix in cream or the like, and to take it off the heat often so that the pan does the cooking.

Also, a great many recipes fry the egg in something or other, even though this is not strictly necessary. Butter is a common choice, but it is not my personal preference, except with scrambled eggs where it is a flavor/brownness contributor. I’ve gotten some crispy results frying in oil (plenty of oil).

You can probably tell I’ve done some experiments with this. It’s one of like four culinary tasks I’m trusted to do in this house (fair or not, it’s not my kitchen). I value the experimentation as much as I value a good cookbook; it builds an intuition. Fortunately for the aspiring basic cook, eggs are fairly forgiving, and visually indicative of results.

i talk too much about things i don’t actually know while half-asleep

summary: For typical cooked proteins, the desired goal is an even heat distribution and limited moisture loss, although the requisite form of heat varies depending on what is cooked. From the sound of things, this egg was done on higher heat than desirable. Lower heat and more time would fare better in this case, even for the same level of doneness.

Scrambled eggs are not remotely crunchy, but cooked right they shouldn't be rubbery either. Either add a splash of milk and push the resultant mix around the frying pan until it's all cooked through (sautee/fry other vegetables like onion or mushrooms beforehand and add them just as it finishes cooking), or:

go pure egg (well-mixed) with seasoning, then pour that very thin onto a medium-sized frying pan so you have a sheet of egg. Roll that up into something approximating a pillow, then slice into manageable chunks and eat with soy sauce and mayo.

Dentrala from the old forum once told me that he likes to mix in tomato sauce and nutmeg with scrambled eggs* and holy crap that's become my favorite breakfast food. I like to melt a little bit of mozzarella cheese in it too to make an unhealthy but delicious slurry.

*apparently this is an Israeli thing. who knew?

My brother would eat his eggs with a bit of picante sauce! I’ve yet to try that tomato-nutmeg thing even though I have it written down somewhere to do so.

Not to be stereotypical or anything, but omelet-style eggs go real well with rice. You can stuff the omelet, or just put them side by side on the plate. Or you can go for the gusto and assemble tamago-nigiri.

you guys we are novice cooks we are not going to be able to pull off tamago oh my gosh

Well, your avatar is about burning pizza, and mine a medieval depiction of proper sushi grip.

"In the case of one person, you should always show a little guilt in your eyes" Hahaha where did you even find this? This is like the Japanese Posh Nosh.

The Rahmens are hilarious. Among other things, they’ve done the Japanese versions of the Mac vs. PC campaign.

(also damn you eggthread I just watched like an hour of Good Eats and now I want some serious meringue)

(also damn you eggthread I just watched like an hour of Good Eats and now I want some serious meringue)

I love Good Eats. It's like the Bill Nye of cooking shows. Not only is it informative, but it's genuinely funny.

...yeah

for real though I find Alton Brown kind of endearing in a hokey way

I don't usually watch cooking shows, but Iron Chef looks fun. CHAIRMAN KAGA.

Yeah, I noticed that. It is impossible to dub Chairman Kaga. Any audio placed over his image becomes Japanese.

The English dub is really annoying IMO; I'm gonna try to find subs somewhere if I can.

That's pretty cool. I tried some ghost pepper hot sauce at a farmers' market recently - couldn't get the taste out of my mouth for half an hour, and I barely had any. I don't go for that mace-in-your-mouth shit. I like more mild hot sauces, though. Same place sells an apple bourbon BBQ sauce that's incredible.

Relatedly, my parents discovered Sriracha recently and my dad now slathers it on everything smh

I went to a Firehouse Subs since they recently came to the area and they ranked the selection of hot sauces there 1–10. Frankly, if there’s something there that needs hot sauce, I haven’t found it yet, but I’ll grant that it’d work well for people who go often enough that variety matters (and to that I’d say, please let me know which company produces your generic Lipitor, I’d like to invest). The hottest sauces we’ve ever stocked at home merit an 8 there (also, 1s and 2s were conspicuously absent, and Tabasco did not have a rating sticker, which surely does not help people calibrate).

It is at least neat that somewhere besides BWW has that kind of hot sauce selection just waiting for you to do something everyone’s gonna regret. I fear for whatever agony a 10 has in store.

If you partake often, you build up a tolerance regardless. So in my case, it’s not like I’m a spice freak or anything, but Mom is Korean and that means kimchi.

The best part about building a tolerance to spiciness is that while the pain lessens, the high and the sinus draining never go away. Sometimes I don't even realise a food is supposed to be spicy until my nose is dripping like crazy :L

In the Japanese language, the words karai (spicy as in hot pepper) and tsurai (trying as in a difficult time) are pronounced differently but written with the same Chinese character. Because the two are practically synonymous, this does not lead to widespread confusion and angst. How they are disambiguated in times of dire need is a genuine mystery of the Orient.

SpoilerShow

The former is usually written 辛い, the latter is usually written つらい.

I need to start eating more spicy food again, i think. My mum can't deal with it at all so while i'm living at her house we avoid it, but when i was at Dad's it wasn't a proper meal unless it was full of chili flakes. My stepmum once made a thai green curry that was so spicy we all cried through the entire meal, and my ears started to hurt.

It was one of the best thing i've ever eaten.

Red pepper flakes are my standard spice I use in almost everything instead of like salt or pepper. Even sandwiches and such