Fried Eggs, Spanish Style

Photo by House of Sims/Flickr CC

To browse other breakfast dishes, click here.

If everyone's truth is their own then it's pretty safe to say that everyone's fried egg is their own as well. Not growing up as a egg aficionado I'm sort of latecomer to this one. Other people I know are totally adamant about 'em--they pour out their passions for fried egg sandwiches, fried eggs on grits, fried eggs with bacon, fried eggs over-easy, hard, medium or just about any other way you can imagine.

Witness these words from Gauri Thergaonkar, manager of the retail area at the Deli: "I love fried eggs. Fried eggs are about as elemental as an egg preparation technique gets. I like 'em when the yolk is still almost runny. I think the best fried eggs are not swimming in fat but have been basted with fat during the frying. I like em in butter, duck fat, or olive oil.

"The whites in a fried egg should be slightly crispy where they made contact with the frying pan but silky on top. Like the yolks, which must always be silky. Which means I like my fried eggs sunny side up--a truth that is so obvious to me that I forgot to mention. Why would you have them any other way? If you're going to break the yolk," she adds with a passion for purity that I can relate to, "make an omelet."

I haven't really given fried eggs anywhere near that much thought. I just kind of like them. My favorite way to eat them is existentially, essentially Spanish, and they're an underrated addition to the quick-to-make, great-to-eat traditional cooking style that I adhere to. The formula for fried eggs Spanish style is really pretty simple:

Good eggs + good olive oil + a sprinkling of good coarse sea salt + a good grind of good Telicherry black pepper
=
really, really good Spanish-style fried eggs

Stick a couple of these babies on toasted good bread with more good olive oil and...it's a five-minute meal that's hard to beat. Remember it's all in the oil and the eggs so don't try this with low grade versions of either.