Egg School: Baked/Shirred

This is the fourth installment of the Egg School Series, and I'll be focusing how to prepare baked/shirred eggs. In case you missed them, definitely check out the entries on over easy eggs, poached eggs and sunny side up eggs. And as always, let me know if you have any questions, or post a comment about how they turn out.

Speaking of baked/shirred eggs, you're probably wondering what in the heck happened to the official egg school order, as voted on by you the readers? (Baked/shirred was voted 9th, not 4th.) Well sometimes life gets in the way of order, and when I decided to make a pseudo-Mediterranean brunch for my visiting-from-out-of-town parents this past weekend, I knew my special baked eggs were the only appropriate style of eggs. So, needless to say, life won out over order, and baked eggs were bumped. And I think everyone was quite pleased with the decision.

It's really a very good thing for you that baked eggs (I'll drop the "shirred" from here forward) were bumped. They are a relatively little known and highly underappreciated delicious and easy style of cooking eggs. They get a nice fluff and flavor in the white and a unique consistency of the yolk that is kind of perfectly halfway between a soft and a hard yolk. You can make them with a base of spinach or bread or even on their own, and they don't need any fat whatsoever to make them delicious. Actually, I think fat might mess them up a little. It allows you to enjoy the pure beauty of the egg nutritionally, texturally and palatably.

The key to my baked eggs is a regular sized muffin tin. Decide how many servings of eggs you would like to make (a single pan can accommodate up to 12). Spray the number of muffin holes you decide upon with some nonfat canola cooking spray. Then, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

The next thing you need to do is decide whether you want plain eggs, spinach eggs or some other variant. You need a light layer of your selected ingredient on the bottom of each muffin spot you're using. I would stick to a single well-flavored ingredient. Obviously, for plain baked eggs, do not put anything on the bottom. My preferred form is sautéing some fresh spinach in a little canola oil, smashed garlic, salt and pepper until the spinach wilts down. Then I put a small amount (like no more than a teaspoon) of the spinach in the bottom. That's all you need to do for the combination. A little round of bread in the bottom or a small spoonful of sautéed onions would definitely be other appropriate options. It's your choice, but since the egg bakes around it, it’s good to make it something with a little bit of constitution (not just a marinara sauce or something).

Now that you have your pan sprayed and lined, simply crack one egg into each spot that you're using. Be sure that the white fully covers whatever you have lining the bottom. Then put the pan in the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. When done, the whites should be completely solid white. Use a soup spoon to carefully slice the edges and remove each egg from its muffin spot. Salt and pepper the eggs and serve with toast and whatever you would normally serve with eggs. Personally loving the spinach baked eggs, I like to emulate the baked eggs from one of my favorite breakfast spots in Ann Arbor, Cafe Zola's, and eat them with toast, tomato slices, feta cheese and kalamata olives. But obviously you can be as creative as you'd like.

No matter what you choose to accompany the baked eggs, you are going to be enjoying one of the lightest egg delicacies that there is. And you'll wonder why this style isn't far more popular. It doesn't matter though – start making them and quickly YOU'LL become popular!

Egg School: Sunny Side Up

I hope you have been practicing your over easy and poached eggs. Working out the intricacies of those styles can be difficult but also rewarding. Just in case you're still working on the other two, the next egg styles – sunny side up and fried egg sandwich – are easier to do well and more difficult to mess up than their overeasy and poached brethren. So this should be a simpler lesson, but still useful for eggists at all levels. Oh, and check out the pictures too.

Sunnies are probably most closely linked to that classic looking breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast. The classically runny yolks and crispy whites make for a good time mopping up your plate with the bacon and toast. But getting that perfect balance between crispy and soft yolk can be tricky, and sometimes just depends on your own eye and desired level of crispiness.

For sunny side up eggs, you need a hot pan. I would recommend heating a pan at medium-high heat until a small drop of water sizzles. One way in which I differ from the classic sunny side up style is in using fat in the pan. I find it completely unnecessary to cook the eggs in butter or oil. I think a generous spray of nonfat cooking spray in the pan once it's hot is perfectly sufficient to keep the eggs from sticking without adding any fat.

Once the pan is adequately hot and sprayed, you are ready to cook your eggs. Crack each egg on a hard surface and drop it carefully over the pan so that the white doesn't splatter and the yolk is fairly centered in the white. It is easiest to do this if you hold the egg a few inches over the pan and just tip out the contents. Repeat this for each egg, making sure there is enough space in your pan for each egg to have its own space to cook. The whites can definitely touch, but if you're looking for crispy whites on each egg, then it's best to keep as much perimeter of each egg white free.

You will notice that pretty quickly, the outer portions of the white will be already set. But there will still be a fairly thick layer of white encircling the yolk that does not cook immediately. This is normally the point where you would flip fried eggs to make them over easy, but with sunny side up you need to leave them alone until that part of the white has fully cooked. This may take another minute or so. Once this happens, the yolks will be cooked as well and have a soft, runny texture, which many associate closely with this egg style. However, many also want crispy whites with their runny yolks and this requires leaving the eggs for a little bit longer until desired crispiness is attained on the outside. Remove the eggs immediately when this happens though, as the longer you leave the eggs in, the harder the yolks will become. I would personally much rather preserve the soft yolk than get really crispy whites, so I remove the eggs after only another 20-30 seconds. At this point, slide your spatula under each egg carefully and place on a plate with toast and any other pairings you enjoy.

OR -- you can leave your eggs in the pan and follow a few more steps to make a classic fried egg sandwich. Now of course, you could put those soft-finished sunny side up eggs between two pieces of bread and it would be a tasty, albeit messy, fried egg sandwich, but the true fried egg sandwich involves really crisping up the whites and losing the super soft yolk by cooking each egg on its other side as well.

SO, instead of removing each egg when it's done, flip it like a pancake with your spatula.
This shouldn't be too difficult, as the egg is already cooked and there are no aesthetic pretenses, quite unlike the flip of the over easy egg. Once you flip it, cook it another minute or so, until it is as golden and crispy as you want. Then put two of your eggs between two spread slices of toast with a little bit of kosher salt and a cracking of pepper to bring out the great flavors of the egg. You have yourself a wonderful fried egg sandwich, a delicacy good at any time of the day. Plus, use whole wheat toast, don’t use butter and have some veggies on the side, and you have yourself a very healthy delicacy. What could be better than that?