by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: December 28, 2008

There are a great many tips for cooking eggs on this site and on a thousand other sites and forums around the web. These tips - many of them very valid and very good - range from always using free range and if possible organic eggs, bringing eggs out of the refrigerator to room temperature before cooking with them, to tips for boiling eggs, tips for poaching eggs and tips for scrambling eggs.

I thought here that I would share a couple of egg cooking tips which, while I am sure are not entirely unique, are at least a little bit different and considerably less common.

The first tip is for frying an egg in spices, to give it a lot of extra flavour and make it in to something a little bit special. This is ideal to serve with the likes of chorizo or some other type of spicy sausage or meat.

First of all, take a very small bowl or cup and add one tablespoon of sunflower oil. Then add a very small pinch of each of the following spices: ground cumin seed, ground coriander seed, ground turmeric and ground chilli. Mix all of this very thoroughly together until a lump-free consistency is obtained.

Pour this oil mix in to a non-stick frying pan and gently bring it up to a medium heat. Break the egg in to another small cup or bowl, then carefully deposit it in to the pan. Resist the temptation to be moving the egg around until you can see that the albumin (egg white) appears cooked. If desired, the egg can be turned at this time or simply left for another minute as is for "sunny side up."

The second tip I am going to share with you is for cooking an egg in a standard oven. Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit/150 degrees Celsius. Take a small oven proof dish and grease it lightly with a little butter. Break an egg in to the dish (taking care not to break the yolk,) season with a little salt and freshly ground black or white pepper and place the dish in to the oven. After about twenty-five minutes, the egg should be cooked, so remove it from the oven and scatter a little torn basil or sage leaves over the top, followed by a thick layer of grated hard cheese. Melt the cheese under the grill and serve as a delicious light lunch.

I hope that you have found these egg cooking methods to be just a little bit different from the norm and worthy of your sampling. I can assure you that I have enjoyed both on many occasions over a period of years and that both are absolutely delicious!

Learn more about this author, Gordon Hamilton.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.