FRIED EGGS
If you’re like me, mastering fried eggs was your very first
culinary accomplishment.
Or, I should say, fried eggs were my very first attempt at
accomplishing something in the kitchen, because, truth be
told, the eggs were never the same twice. This is not
necessarily a bad thing. In fact, if I’d been taking notes on
exactly how and why my eggs were never the same way
twice, I’d call that science. I’d also most likely have
developed a good technique years earlier.
Remember that egg whites start setting at around 155°F,
while egg yolks start firming up as low as 145°F (see “Heat
and Eggs,” here). This gives us the rather tricky problem of
trying to cook two different components of one food in the
same cooking medium at completely different rates. It’s not
an easy trick to pull off, but it can be done.
We already know one thing for sure: if you want your
eggs to be picture-perfect, the yolks standing tall, ready to
be pierced by a fork so that their golden treasure cascades
slowly across a plane of tight, clean whites, their edges
showing just a bare hint of crispness, you have to start with
the freshest-possible eggs. Draining the eggs in a fine-mesh
strainer just like you did for poached eggs (see here) aids in
achieving this result, though personally, I kinda like the
bubbly, thin whites that spread around the pan and become
extra crisp as they cook. Picture-perfect fried eggs are for
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A tight, tall yolk isn’t just about looking good. With fresh