Eggs can get real boring, real fast if you don't know many ways to prepare them. In the name of making breakfast fun again, here are all the basic ways to serve eggs, and a few approaches you may have never heard of.
Scrambled is easy, but you'd be surprised how many people are doing it all wrong. Here's the trick to great, fluffy scrambled eggs: beat the eggs in a bowl with some skim milk or lite sour cream. Salt them to taste, and then toss them in a non-stick pan, fluffing and turning with the spatula as they fry.
With fried eggs, you've got any number of options. Over easy, over hard, sunny side up, over medium, overcook or just plain fried, where you fry an unscrambled egg on both sides. For some, a runny yolk really makes breakfast, while others can't stand an egg that isn't fully cooked. Fried and scrambled eggs aren't as bad for your health as you might think, especially when using a non-stick pan or a single spray of oil.
Hard boiled eggs are a staple, of course. Boil'em until hard and add a little salt and you've got a great, easy, healthy source of protein. Soft boiled is something of an acquired taste, but some people won't have their eggs any other way.
Poaching an egg involves a careful process of cooking an egg in a spinning whirlpool of boiling water and malt vinegar. This is as tricky as it sounds and can ruin an egg when done poorly (think: watered down egg), but a real delight to throw on a piece of hot toast in the morning.
Now here's an interesting one: think of a basted egg like a fried egg, but you also pour or brush a little lite olive oil on top of the egg while it's cooking. You can also steam-baste an egg by adding just enough water to the pan to create some steam in which to cook the egg.
No, not a vegan alternative to eggs, but boiled eggs with the salty flavor of soy sauce. Soft or hard boil your eggs to your taste, cool the eggs under cold water, peel them and then heat up some plain soy sauce in a pan large enough for all of your eggs. Get the soy sauce foaming up a bit, reduce to medium, and roll your eggs around in the pan until they all have a nice chestnut brown color to them. Let them cool in the fridge and you have a boiled egg that you don't need to salt.
People commonly associate preparing eggs with pans and pots, however you can also bake the in your oven. Baking eggs on their own might not make much sense, however they make a great combination with some other ingredients like: mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables.
The cooking times depend on the oven temperature: 177C/350F (Warm oven) - 10 to 15 minutes or 204C/400F (Hot oven) - 8 to 10 minutes.
For those of us who like a light breakfast there is nothing better than a delicious omelet (or omelette as some would call it). By mixing the eggs with skimmed milk and beating them up before pouring onto a pan you achieve the fluffy texture. You can also make omeletes from just the egg whites for an even healthier option.
The great thing about tofu is that it really can substitute for just about anything. Using some fat free cottage cheese, tofu and a little garlic powder, curry or other flavoring of your choice can result in an omelet every bit as delicious as you'll find in a greasy spoon diner but without all the grease.
One of my childhood favourites was fresh bread with home-made egg paste. It's a really quick recipe that can easily be made Dukan Diet friendly and served with the oat bran galette. It could also work as a base for salads...
Can't decide how you want your egg? Split the difference by hard boiling a few, cutting them into slices, and pan-frying them in a non-stick pan or with a spray of oil.
In terms of health, fried eggs, including scrambled, contain about 90 calories, while boiled contain about 77. You get 6g of protein regardless of how you prepare the egg, but fried eggs are a little more fatty, at 7g, rather than 5g, and both methods result in 2g of saturated fat.
Being mainly protein and fat, eggs aren't the easiest food to digest, but if you have an oat bran pancake with your morning egg, you should be just fine. With this in mind when eating eggs in the evening hard boiled ones are easiest to digest while soft boiled should probably be avoided at that time of the day.
These preparation methods will get you started, and by no means are a complete list. It's a lot more fun to explore various recipes and try to develop your own way of preparing eggs. And if you do come up with your own creative egg recipes we would love to add them to our collection!
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