Cooking a perfect looking egg 煎一粒漂亮的荷包蛋

Last week I shared my dinner shots (below) on Facebook, some of my friends asked how I manage to cook it this way.

The egg white is soft, has no hard and brown bits, not rubbery and not oily. The egg yolk is runny like soft-boiled egg. ;)

My kids hate eating sunny side up (fried egg) that is hard at the bottom and the egg yolk dry. You won't get that with the eggs I do. ;)

I got to admit that I learned this little trick from a tv program many years ago and have since never fry an egg the usual way. What you need is just an extra tablespoon of water!

Interested to do it too? You don't have to wait further. Today, I'm going to share with you what I have learned; and with a video too!

The video is at the end of this post but first, here are the details and instructions:

Items needed:

• a non-stick pan with cover or lid
• 1/2 tablespoon (or lesser) Cooking Oil
• a piece Paper Towel
• 1 Egg (I'm using 60g refrigerated egg)
• 1 tablespoon Water

How to do it:

1. Use low heat. The pan should not be smoking at any time. *1
2. Add the cooking oil and swirl to coat pan.
3. Use a paper towel to remove excess oil and at the same time coat pan well with oil. *2
4. Crack egg onto the middle of the pan.
5. Let the egg cook for 40 seconds, still on low heat. *3
6. Tilt the pan a little. If more egg white spread out, let it cook a few seconds more. The thicker part of the egg white around the egg yolk will still remain raw. *4
7. Add water and cover the pan.
8. Let it cook for 45 seconds. *5
9. Remove cover.
10. Dish out and serve.

Note:

1. I'm using the highest heat on the inner small ring on my stove.
2. The idea is to coat the pan well with oil so the egg doesn't stick. We are not using the oil to fry the egg.
3. The timing used is according to the egg used. If you are using smaller or unrefrigerated egg, please shorten the time.
4. This is a little test to check if you are ready to add water. If the outer egg white (not the thick part near the egg yolk) is half cooked, it will spread when water in added and it will look ugly. Imagine egg drop soup :P
5. If you want the egg yolk more cooked, cook a few seconds longer.

And here's the video ...