Properly fried eggs should have set whites, shiny but not blistered or browned. They should be compact in shape and the yolk cooked as desired. Eggs can be cooked sunny-side-up, country style, or over easy, medium, or hard. Here’s how.
Steps for cooking fried eggs:
- Use very fresh eggs. Fresh eggs have firm yolks with a higher profile and will cook more attractive eggs with less yolk breakage.
- Place butter or grease in the frying pan. You should have about 1/8 inch melted grease. Too much will make the eggs greasy. Too little and the eggs will stick. (If you use a nonstick pan, you can reduce the grease.)
- Heat the pan over medium heat. A drop of water will sizzle when dropped in the hot pan. If the pan is not hot enough, the eggs will spread too much.
- Break the eggs into a dish or a shallow bowl then slip them one at a time into the pan. There is less chance of breaking the yolk than if you break the eggs directly into the pan.
- Once the eggs are in the pan, reduce the heat to low (very low for sunny-side-up) and cook the eggs.
Over easy: Fry until the whites are nearly set and flip over. Cook for one more minute. When done, the whites should be set and the yolks runny.
Over medium: Fry until the whites are nearly set and flip over. Cook for about two more minutes. When done, the whites should be set and the yolks should be partially set.
Over hard: Fry until the whites are nearly set and flip over. Cook until both the whites and yolks are set.
Country style: Add a few drops of water to the pan. Cover with a lid and let the steam cook the top of the eggs.
Sunny-side-up: Turn the heat to very low and cook slowly. The whites should be set and the yolks soft and runny. If the heat is set too high, the bottoms will be over-cooked and tough before the tops are cooked.
