eggs and bacon, warm full pipe, my garden at twilight, cakes

[jazzfish]

Some years ago I learned of basted eggs, sort of halfway between fried and poached. The general idea is, you make a sunny-side-up fried egg, but put a little water in the skillet and put a lid on it, and it cooks itself in the steam. Result: over-medium eggs (per Lewis Grizzard, "the yolk doesn't run out. It oozes") with light and non-rubbery whites. Yum.

I mentioned this to Erin at one point. She said that she expected a basted egg to be one where you spoon liquid over it to infuse the flavour.

Turns out she was at least partly right. I went poking around this evening and the internet sez that you can baste eggs in water, as above, or in butter, where you fry them in butter and just keep spooning the boiling butter over them until the tops cook properly.

And, well. I had a skillet full of bacon grease left over from the weekend. Is there any actual reason you can't baste eggs in bacon grease instead of butter?

Reader, there is not. Yum.

"Always remember, Bilbo: when your heart wants lifting, think of pleasant things."

Comments

[reedrover]

Sounds delightful!

I'm assuming that the "garden at twilight" and "Cakes" are pleasant things? Your post ends with the Tolkien quote.

[jazzfish]

:)

It's specifically from the Rankin-Bass animated Hobbit. Gandalf says the "when your heart wants lifting" line to Bilbo in the middle of a downpour when he's miserable, and he starts saying to himself "eggs and bacon, warm full pipe" etc. Definitely pleasant things: I don't smoke or garden, but I can appreciate the sentiment.

[culfinriel]

Interesting! I have always heard of basted as the melted butter over the top of them thing, but I do a sort of diner version of over easy for myself. Which means I just cover the sunny side up briefly to completely cook the whites and leave the yolk awesomely runny. It's probably kind of steaming them in their own moisture, but I love it.

[jazzfish]

Yeah, that is basically 'steam basted' but not as cooked through as I prefer. Nice!

[vvalkyri]

That is indeed how my grandmother would make fried eggs after making bacon and I introduced quarantine buddy to the process.

Left to my own devices, since I will eat bacon other people make but do not make my own, I will use the little bit of water and lid trick anytime I have a good lid for it, especially if there's a clear lid.

[jazzfish]

Eggs, growing up, were always scrambled, including "in the leftover bacon fat." It somehow never occurred to me before to fry them in it.

I am a little amazed that it's not a better known trick! It is SO MUCH BETTER than standard fried eggs. Although, yeah, a clear lid makes it much much easier.

(I have a One Lid To Rule Them All thing that fits on my nonstick skillet and all my castiron. Clear glass in the centre, maybe six inches across, and several concentric shallow steps of aluminium outside that. Works well enough for me.)

[vvalkyri]

I really like that concept of a one lid!

[silmaril]

oooooooh,

[kaelikat]

Yum! Thank you for the reference to basted eggs! I love soft poached eggs and though microwave gadgets produced edible results, they just weren't as delicious as the poached eggs I couldn't quite get right myself. I tried the method as described in the NPR link and OMG YUM. I did two eggs in a small covered pan, that creeping color change thing was cool and quite fast! I found that with two eggs I needed to leave it a wee bit longer. But so delicious and made at home, so thank you!!

..and I am looking forward to trying the bacon grease method. I took a bacon class at Sur la Table awhile back and the chef who taught us had a different term (which I can't recall exactly though I think it was pronounced pwah-lay - so another google search revealed 'Arroser' and 'Poêler' and now I will refrain from jumping down that rabbit hole) for this particular basting method - he demonstrated on shrimp but said he normally did that with scallop, but basically after searing the scallops on both sides, he'd tilt the pan with the bacon grease at the bottom and the scallops off the direct heat and spoon the hot oil over the scallop until it was done thereby not overcooking the scallop. :9

[jazzfish]

Most welcome, I'm glad it worked out!

I am not much of one for scallops but that sounds like an amazing way to cook shrimp. Hmm.

[kaelikat]

we did get to try the shrimps and they were amazing that way :9