Date Completed: 2/21/2021

Back in the kitchen! This post features three recipes from the How to Cook Eggs chapter of The America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook. Yes, that’s the third ATK cookbook I’ve brought off the shelf. I still have one more on deck, too.

This cookbook contains a ton of step-by-step photos that guide you through the recipes. I love the visual cues! They answer important questions like “how intense should the bubbles be before I consider this pot boiling?”

The Eggs chapter escalates from simple egg preparation methods to more complicated egg-based dishes. I decided to focus on the simpler methods and chose three that I didn’t previously know how to cook. I’ve already got scrambling down, no question. For the project I selected frying, poaching, and hard-cooking.

My inspiration for this decision stemmed from (of all places) an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. A neighbor comes to the house at breakfast-time, and Mary Tyler Moore’s character offers to fix them eggs in any style. She comically lists out just about every egg preparation you could think of. This entertained me, of course, but also made me realize I’d like to have more options in my toolbelt than just scrambling.

First, a few fun facts I learned about eggs:

(1) ATK says the only time you can really taste the difference between farm fresh, organic, and standard eggs is in egg-only dishes. I splurged on organic eggs for these!

(2) There is a three-digit number ranging from 001 to 365 on every egg carton. This number represents the pack date. You can see it right underneath the sell-by date.

These eggs were packed on February 5th, the 36th day of the year.

In the spirit of the cookbook, I did my best to take step-by-step photos along the way.

Fried Eggs

Key takeaways:

(1) You actually fry eggs on low heat! After preheating the pan on low for 5 minutes, melt the butter and add the eggs. Once seasoned, you cover and cook for about 3 minutes.

(2) Crack the eggs into a small bowl (up to 2 eggs per bowl) first. This allows you to add the eggs to the pan gently and quickly. It also eliminates the risk of cooking shells!

Poached Eggs

Key takeaways:

(1) Poaching eggs in a shallow frying pan makes it easier to gently add them.

(2) You pre-salt the water to season the eggs and add white vinegar to lower the pH of the water. This helps the egg whites set more quickly. Very sciency!

(3) Once the water boils, add the eggs and cover the pan, then remove it from the heat and allow residual heat to cook the eggs for about 3 minutes.

Hard-Cooked Eggs

Key takeaways:

(1) Make sure to cover the egg(s) with an inch of water in the pot.

(2) Once the water boils, remove the pan from heat and cover. This again uses residual heat to cook the eggs.

(3) After 10 minutes, you pour the water off and shake the pan so that the eggs crack. After they cool in the ice bath for a few minutes, these cracks make it easier to peel the eggs.

(4) Try to peel the egg in one strip (I did not succeed at this), starting from the wider end. That end has an air bubble that should help you get started and prevent you from gouging the egg with your fingernails.

Taste Report:

All three eggs turned out great! Although I did not compare any of my organic eggs to standard eggs cooked in the same method, I imagine there wouldn’t be too much of a difference (regardless of ATK’s claims to the contrary).

In reality: nothing about any of these eggs will blow you away or change your life. I am, however, very excited that I now know how to cook three more types of eggs.

The fried and poached eggs I ate on top of toast. The hard-cooked eggs came on top of a salad for lunch. What an egg-cellent day!

Mess Report:

As you might expect for recipes that feature just one star ingredient, none of these created much mess! The fried eggs least of all - you just need the pan/lid and a small bowl to crack the eggs in. I got photo-shoot-fancy with putting my butter and salt/pepper in additional bowls which is certainly not needed.

Poached eggs came in with a few more dishes since you need to measure the salt & vinegar. Hard-cooked you need one additional bowl for the ice bath.

Overall, the mess should not stop you from attempting any egg preparation. It’s an easy clean-up no matter what!