Two Eggs, Any Style?

December 29, 2008 12:05 AM

When the breakfast menu says, "Two Eggs (Any Style)", realistically, what are the different styles available?

Personally, I've tried fried (sunny side up), scrambled, boiled, and half-boiled (soft-boiled). Any other styles that I should try?

posted by applesurf to food & drink (37 answers total)

poached and coddled.
posted by violetk at 12:09 AM on December 29, 2008

Over-easy, over-hard, poached.
posted by timeistight at 12:09 AM on December 29, 2008

... Over easy, over hard ...
posted by zippy at 12:10 AM on December 29, 2008

Shirred eggs.
posted by melorama at 12:12 AM on December 29, 2008

Try a fried egg with the yolk broken and mixed through the white (leaving distinct patches of white and yolk, not completely mixed as with an omelette) before cooking. It's delicious, especially with toast.
posted by fearthehat at 12:13 AM on December 29, 2008

raw egg and rice.
posted by dydecker at 12:20 AM on December 29, 2008

scrambled with cheese, the only real way to go.
posted by esmerelda_jenkins at 12:29 AM on December 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

Basted eggs. Like sunny side up on a partly cloudy day.
posted by megamanwich at 12:35 AM on December 29, 2008

My favorite is steam-basted fried eggs.
posted by grouse at 12:35 AM on December 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

"made into a mini omelet"

sous-vide (ok, maybe not realistic)

also: peanut butter milkshakes.
posted by trevyn at 12:36 AM on December 29, 2008

Over-medium.
posted by Nattie at 12:50 AM on December 29, 2008

I like scrambled or over-easy. Sometimes I'll ask for over-medium if I expect the cook doesn't really how to properly cook an over-easy egg... because runny whites are disgusting.
posted by maniactown at 12:50 AM on December 29, 2008

you can also ask for egg over hard with the yolks broken.
posted by smalls at 1:04 AM on December 29, 2008

I wonder if you can get them raw, old-school bodybuilder style?
posted by smalls at 1:06 AM on December 29, 2008

I always order them poached at restaurants. Poaching an egg is a lot more difficult than scrambling, frying, or hard-boiling, so I like to take advantage of restaurant cooks' well-practiced skill.
posted by scose at 1:21 AM on December 29, 2008

raw egg and rice.

A raw egg broken into your bowl of hot hot rice just out of the cooker. With a tiny dash of soy sauce, then stirred with your chopsticks ... Yes. Yes!
posted by woodblock100 at 1:47 AM on December 29, 2008 [4 favorites]

Poached, but not so much that the yolk is hard. Just poached enough to set the whites, so that the yolk can split and run over the toast. (Specific, but important.)
posted by impluvium at 1:50 AM on December 29, 2008

Eggs benedict.
posted by pompomtom at 2:11 AM on December 29, 2008

I used to make a dish called "over my dead body," which was basically a hamburger omelette.
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:24 AM on December 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

This thread inspired me to make myself eggs for a midnight snack,
posted by Jacqueline at 3:21 AM on December 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Scotch Eggs!
posted by dunkadunc at 3:41 AM on December 29, 2008

Poaching an egg is a lot more difficult than...[insert method]

Really? It's actually quite easy:

1) Boil water in shallow pan, then turn off heat.
2) Add tablespoon of vinegar, then crack the eggs into the water and cover the pan
3) Remove eggs with slotted spoon after exactly 3 minutes for medium firm, less time for softer, more time for harder

I find it much harder to fry eggs perfectly, which means the whites are cooked completely without being burned on the underside, with the yolks are still fairly runny.

The REALLY hard part about poached eggs is making good hollandaise sauce to go with them. In my neighbourhood I only know of ONE restaurant that does it really well.
posted by randomstriker at 3:47 AM on December 29, 2008

i think, realistically, though, you have:
fried - sunny side up, over easy, over medium, over hard (this is how i eat them, so how I know 'em best)
poached (can this be done hard, soft?)
scrambled (with cheese wld be extra i think, like a scrambled omelet - dunno if scrambled with no extras can be done to style)
boiled - hard, soft - dunno about medium?
posted by mdn at 4:38 AM on December 29, 2008

As a former Big Boy cook, I would say: Scrambled, poached, sunny side up, over light, over medium, over hard, soft boiled, hard boiled. At least that's all I ever did short of an omelette.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 5:08 AM on December 29, 2008

Whole - - to go...
posted by fairmettle at 5:35 AM on December 29, 2008

Oh ya... fried!!!! mdn gets an extra point. I made fried egg sammiches all the time at home. Never did at Big Boy, though. It was usually ordered as "over hard, break the yolks."
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 5:39 AM on December 29, 2008

scrambled (with cheese wld be extra i think, like a scrambled omelet - dunno if scrambled with no extras can be done to style)

I swear there's at least two types of scrambled. One where its what i'd call "omelette-style" - one big hunk of yellow/white egg scramble.

The other type is where some fork was used and the scrambled egg is sort of shredded into small pieces.

Another factor too in a scramble is how runny the eggs are.
posted by vacapinta at 6:43 AM on December 29, 2008

Another factor too in a scramble is how runny the eggs are.

Yup. Just ask for eggs either scrambled hard or scrambled soft.

As a former IHOP waitress, I can say that ordering a "fried" egg will just get a blank stare, because you need to be more specific--mostly, up or over, but as you can see from this thread, there are plenty of variations on that as well.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:30 AM on December 29, 2008

I think vacapinta is thinking of what I would call pan-scrambled. Whole eggs put into the frying pan and then scrambled while cooking. (As opposed to beating the eggs before you pour them into the pan.)
posted by hworth at 7:41 AM on December 29, 2008

Just ask for eggs either scrambled hard or scrambled soft.

My sister always ordered them "scrambled dry" which I guess is the same as scrambled hard.

For the former cooks/waitstaff out there, is it possible to order a real egg scrambled? I don't order scrambled eggs at diners/IHOP/etc. because they use the omelette mix stuff (and even then it's usually not even really scrambled, but just a flat piece of egg) and I hate that crap.
posted by cabingirl at 8:00 AM on December 29, 2008

For the former cooks/waitstaff out there, is it possible to order a real egg scrambled? I don't order scrambled eggs at diners/IHOP/etc. because they use the omelette mix stuff (and even then it's usually not even really scrambled, but just a flat piece of egg) and I hate that crap.

Yup. Just ask.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:09 AM on December 29, 2008

Eggs Balboa. That's four broken into a glass.
posted by snofoam at 9:29 AM on December 29, 2008

As a former IHOP/Cracker Barrel server, CB uses freshly cracked eggs for their scrambled eggs an at IHOP it was on request. Scrambled egg vernacular is a little tricky, because "scrambled dry" could mean no oil added to the pan, or scrambled hard with no burn marks. There's also scrambled soft and scrambled burnt. Over hard and over well eggs are both cooked so nothing is runny, the diference is one of them has the yoke broken while cooking (I can never remember which one).
posted by lizjohn at 10:12 AM on December 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

And there's a French omelet, which I finally mastered and is far far far from a regular American omelet. But your basic "any style" diner is unlikely to produce one.
posted by CunningLinguist at 2:12 PM on December 29, 2008

Don't forget white only (usually omelet) for us folks that don't like yolks. (Actually, I don't mind scrambled, but any other format I don't eat the yolk).
posted by birdsquared at 8:07 PM on December 29, 2008

There's also a folded egg, which is beaten, poured on a hot flat griddle and allowed to set up for a moment, then quickly flipped and folded without browning and without fluffing up like an omelet. This works really well in sandwiches, where a regular scrambled egg would fall apart. Plus you can layer cheese on before folding and it makes delicious melty glue.
posted by acorncup at 8:35 PM on December 29, 2008

birdsquared, the yolk is the best part! I prefer duck eggs largely because they have a higher yolk to white ratio.

And I don't think the variant on scrambled eggs should count if it's just pre-beaten eggs cooked into a single flat piece of egg. That's not a different variety of scrambled eggs, that's just an omelette with no filling.
posted by the latin mouse at 10:21 PM on December 31, 2008