A couple of years ago, my friend Alex fell in love with a sexy, motorcycle riding chef. (Side note: the story of how they met is really interesting—proof that when you are honest about what you want, and you take courageous action to “put yourself out there,” amazing things can happen!)
Alex and her sweetheart, Brandon, recently opened a brunch restaurant together called HunnyMilk, which I am dying to visit the next time I go to Portland, Oregon. (Any place that sells buttermilk biscuits with honey-vanilla butter and homemade strawberry jam is obviously a big MUST. As a Savannah native, I know my biscuits!!)
For today’s FUEL post, Brandon offered to share his tips on how to cook a perfect sunny-side up egg.
(FYI: “sunny-side” means that the outer edge of the egg is crispy and brown, the white part is nicely set, and the golden yolk is slightly runny. Yumm.)
Follow these steps, and you’ll wind up with an egg that practically begs to be displayed on Instagram. #EggGoals #BossLadyBrunch
Step 1. Temper your eggs.
About an hour before you intend to sit down and eat your delicious egg, take your carton of eggs out of the fridge and set them on the kitchen counter. Let them sit there for a half hour to an hour, so that they gradually come closer to room temperature. This is called “tempering.” Don’t worry: it’s totally safe. Using a room-temp egg (instead of a chilly, frosty egg) will allow those whites to spread nicely once they hit the pan. Think of this like… egg foreplay. Not to be skipped.
Step 2. Heat up your pan.
Heat up your skillet until it is really hot but not smoking. If it’s smoking? Then it’s too hot—just like Bruno Mars in Susan Hyatt’s all-time favorite song, Uptown Funk. (If you’re in the market for a new pan, check out the De Buyer Nonstick Crepe Pan, which is perfect for frying eggs.)
Step 3. Add some fat.
Fat is not evil! Once your skillet is hot (but not smoking-hot), coat the surface of your skillet with a neutral flavored oil, like Canola oil, or something decadent like bacon grease if you want to go bacon-cray like that. You don’t want a big puddle of oil on your pan. Just a thin coating. Once you’ve added your fat, then allow the pan to heat up again, which takes about fifteen seconds or so.
Step 4. Slide on your egg.
It’s showtime! Crack your egg, hold it close to your skillet, and gently slide it out of its shell and onto the pan. Gennnnntly. (You do NOT want to hold your egg two feet above the skillet so that it lands with a big splat.)
Step 5. Wait, adjust, wait, adjust, then back away.
Your egg is on the skillet, sizzling away. It’s going to cook there for about 3 to 4 minutes. For the first minute that it’s cooking, your job is to turn the heat down, very slightly, every fifteen seconds. So, after fifteen seconds, turn down the heat a teensy bit. After another fifteen seconds, turn it down a bit more. Repeat this for one minute. After one minute, your heat level should be “medium low.” Then: step away. Stop touching that skillet. No more fiddling. Let your egg sizzle there at medium-low heat for another few minutes. You’ll know it’s “done” with the outer edges are crispy, crackling and brown, the white is nicely set, and the yolk looks partially set.
Step 6. Season & serve!
At the very last moment, season your egg with some salt and pepper. (Invest in some high quality salt, like Maldon sea salt flakes. Do it. You’re a grown up.)
You can eat your egg all by itself, put it on top of a nice piece of toast, serve it next to some wilted greens or roasted tomatoes, or make a delicious breakfast sandwich with bacon and cheese (or spinach and cheese, or avocado and a dash of hot sauce, or whatever sounds good to you!)
Obviously, you’re going to need a beverage to accompany that sexy egg! Coffee, tea, juice, or maybe a mimosa? At HunnyMilk, our most popular drink is the Guava Mimosa Float which is guava juice plus chilled Prosecco topped with a small scoop of homemade Triple Sec ice cream. To make this at home, you can use store-bought vanilla ice cream and a dash of Triple Sec liqueuor. Or skip the ice cream all together. It’s totally delicious with just guava juice and bubbly wine.
Thanks for the cooking tips, Brandon! This sounds perfect for a quick Saturday breakfast at home with the Hyatt fam—or for the next time I host an epic LadyBrunch. #HotSauceInMyBag #Swag
