The completely objective, not biased at all ranking of ways to cook an egg

The absolutely official, completely objective, not biased at all, definitive ranking of ways to cook and eat eggs Dustin Parkes

A CANADIAN BATTERY HEN CAN LAY UP TO 320 EGGS A YEAR, ACCORDING TO THE HUMANE SOCIETY. AN AVERAGE OF 650 MILLION EGGS ARE PRODUCED EACH YEAR BY REGISTERED EGG FARMERS. ACCORDING TO STATS CANADA, THE AVERAGE CANADIAN EATS 20 DOZEN EGGS PER YEAR.

For every study suggesting its health benefits, there’s another suggesting its dangers. For every five people eagerly slicing open their eggs benedict to unleash a current of golden deliciousness, there’s a weirdo repulsed by the yellow sludge.

However, not a single misanthrope among us would dare criticize the glorious egg for leaving us a lack of options when it comes time to cook. The versatility of the egg is its greatest feature: Therein lies both its beauty and faculty. And yet, for all the different ways to prepare them, no one has ever claimed there is no wrong way to cook an egg. There are, in fact, several – even among the basic methods.

And so, here is our exhaustive guide to and ranking of the basic ways to prepare eggs:

No. 16

Method Poached (hard)

Preparation Crack an egg in boiling liquid for five minutes, or forever (nothing really matters to you, anyway).

Verdict An egg cooked through is never really preferable, but at least with a hard-boiled egg, it comes in its own protective encasing and it can be eaten anytime. Why someone would go to the trouble of poaching an egg – only to cook it dry – is as an unknowable as the motivation behind ordering a welldone steak. It’s a corruption of all that is beautiful, like painting over a masterpiece, or weighing down a ballerina. It should be renamed Eggs Harrison Bergeron.

No. 15

Method Scrambled (soft)

Preparation Crack eggs and mix them in a low-heated pan with butter. Keep stirring, and if they start to form “nuggets” take them off the heat and add some cream to cool. Imagine you’re making a risotto with your eggs (and Gordon Ramsay is yelling at you to keep it all moving).

Verdict It’s not that soft scrambled eggs taste bad. They’re fine. It’s just that the end result comes nowhere near matching the effort it takes to make them. Spending 10-15 minutes to create slightly creamier scrambled eggs is like spending $40 on a copy of A Hard Day’s Night when you can get Revolver for $20.

No. 14

Method Over-hard

Preparation Crack an egg on a heated pan and cook it all the way through, you animal.

Why No. 14 Let It Be is your favourite Beatles album? Seriously, though: Over-hard is to Danny Devito what over-easy is to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

No. 13

Method Quiche

Preparation Mix a bunch of eggs, cream, and savoury ingredients, and dump it into an open tart, then bake it until it’s cooked through.

Verdict I have a pet theory about quiche based around two unquestionable facts: 1) no one actually likes quiche; and 2) no one actually eats quiche except at dinner parties. Therefore, doesn’t it make sense that quiche was actually invented as an experiment by a psychology professor to test the limits of etiquette in social gatherings?

No. 12

Method Frittata

Preparation Pretend as though you’re making a quiche, only instead of pastry, put your egg mixture into ramekins or muffin tins.

Verdict We’ve already established that quiche is terrible, so the best thing that can be said about a frittata is that, at least it didn’t ruin some perfectly good pastry.

No. 11

Method Omelette

Preparation Beat an egg before frying it, then flip it or fold it all together – usually with vegetables or meat and cheese inside.

Verdict Omelettes are a wild card. There’s so much riding on ingredients and their distribution, that it’s next to impossible to rank all omelettes as a single entity. And on top of that, there’s also the different cooking styles: flip, fold and tamagoyaki style. Still, the worst omelette is worse than the best omelette is good.

No. 10

Method Hard-boiled

Preparation Cook an egg in its shell in boiling water for 10 to 12 minutes.

Verdict The hard-boiled egg represents one of the food’s best features: its faculty. At its base, the egg is about sustenance. Yes, you can glam it up through different ingredients and cooking styles, but it doesn’t get more basic than boiling until it is not only edible, but is also prepackaged in its own shell for preservation. Simplicity never tasted so good.

No. 9

Method Egg salad/Deviled eggs

Preparation Hard boil an egg, cool, peel and then mix (either whites and all, or just the yolk) with mayonnaise.

Verdict It’s somehow fitting that the incredible egg’s most reliable collaborator would be a condiment that relies on egg as its primary ingredient.

Bonus aside Growing up in a Christian household, my siblings and I were made to refer to deviled eggs as picnic eggs. No matter their name, it was always great to see them brought to an after-church pot blessing lunch.

No. 8

Method Over-easy

Preparation Crack an egg on a medium-heated pan, then flip it as soon as the whites are cooked on the bottom. Remove from the heat before the yolk is cooked through.

Verdict The best thing about an over-easy egg is what it’s not: overhard. They look the same from the outside, but the relief that flows through the diner who cuts theirs open to reveal a river of runny yolk is worth the existence of the Devito to its Schwarzenegger.

No. 7

Method Scrambled (hard) Preparation Whip eggs, then cook in a pan.

Verdict If you close your eyes, and someone asks you to picture eggs, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to picture hard-scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs are breakfast. They’re Saturday mornings at home and summer camps away. They’re first time on your own and returning home for a holiday weekend. No dish in the Western world has the capacity for as much nostalgia. And no dish is as reliable at satisfying as scrambled eggs.

No. 6

Method Sunny side up

Preparation Crack an egg on a heated pan, and let it fry until the whites are cooked through, but the yolk is still runny.

Verdict This diner staple is best served with toast drenched in butter and coffee thick as mud. The only acceptable condiment is ketchup from a bottle that has been married so many times, there’s a 99 per cent chance that at least one per cent of the tomato sauce you patiently pour on your plate is as old as the establishment at which you’re dining. Bonus points to the diner who manages to eat an entire piece of toast with equal amounts of yolk on each bite.

No. 5

Method Baked Preparation Crack an egg in a lightly greased ramekin or muffin tin, add a little bit of cream or milk, and bake away. Remove from heat as soon as the whites are cooked through. Verdict It’s the thinking man’s frittata.

No. 4

Method Coddled

Preparation Look, I’ll level with you. Coddled eggs are pretty close to baked, except they’re cooked covered and in a bain marie. You can put them in a covered ramekin, but the reason why coddled eggs are ranked ahead of baked is because you can get these self-contained egg coddlers that are stupid-cute.

Verdict Did I not just mention fancy egg coddlers? They’re so adorable – and they make great grandma gifts.

No. 3

Method Scrambled (medium)

Preparation Pretend you’re making over-easy eggs, but when the time comes to flip, mix it all up instead. Then remove it from the pan, and let the yolk cook in the warm whites.

Verdict It takes half the effort of the slow scramble and tastes twice as good. Barely anyone cooks their eggs like this, too, so you can claim it as your personal recipe and it will probably impress people.

No. 2

Method Soft-boiled How Place an egg, still in its shell, in boiling water for four to five minutes. It’s probably best to put it into ice water as soon as its removed from the boiling water, so the yolk remains runny.

Verdict No one has achieved a higher level of decadence for such a low cost as the person who dips toast into a topless soft-boiled egg as it sits in an egg cup with a floral design. The experience is so civilized and yet simple. It reminds us that fanciful heights are always within reach, and that sophistication can be affordable to all.

No. 1

Method Poached (soft) How Crack an egg in boiling liquid for two to three minutes.

Verdict A perfectly poached egg is a wonder. It offers everything a softboiled egg endeavours to give, but without the mess of eggshells or inedible egg whites stuck to them. It’s a self-contained custard, a savoury pudding of satiating yolk protected only by fluffy boiled whites to which even clouds are envious. A protein and its own sauce, there is no other food so wholly perfect unto itself; so simultaneously nourishing and extravagant. But to return to how we began this ranking, the dish’s greatest attribute is also its least-known: a soft poached egg offers versatility within the constraints of its own preparation. While poaching in water with a splash of vinegar is the norm, further elegance may be attained by cooking the egg in a red wine that will paint the whites purple – and offer a richness to the flavour that cannot be properly articulated with the written word. The soft-poached egg is a microcosm of the egg itself, providing us with a beautiful marriage of sustenance and extravagance.