Too Many Cooks: How Do You Like Your Eggs?

You'll be hearing from the staff at FOOD52 every week in Too Many Cooks, our group column in which we pool our answers to questions about food, cooking, life, and more.

We've been all about eggs this week -- frying them every which way, cracking them any way we can -- so we decided to tackle our favorite egg preparations for our weekly group post.

The answers were a little surprising! As Kristen pointed out, egg preferences are really solidified in childhood -- so if your parents favored soft-boiled eggs, chances are that you do, too. Pretty Proustian, huh? And then of course we had a couple of all-around egg-loving abstainers.

What's your favorite way to eat eggs?

The Undecided

Kristy: I can't commit. It really depends on the week!

Ryan: I like eggs...when they're on things.

Boiled

Merrill: Think I'll go with a medium-soft boiled egg, mashed up with a little knob of softened butter and some salt. Spoon onto buttered toast, shower with freshly cracked black pepper, eat. Close second: egg salad made with eggs that are not quite hard-boiled and homemade mayonnaise.

Maddy: Soft-boiled eggs can't be beat in my book. Stand the cooked egg up in an egg cup, slice off the top, sprinkle a little salt into the exposed liquid yolk, and dunk a buttered toast soldier in there while it's still warm. Spoon out the remains with a demitasse spoon. Alternatively, carefully peel the soft-boiled egg and lower it into a steaming bowl of ramen. Heaven!

Jenny: I also like soft boiled then mashed up into a cup of ricotta cheese. Best breakfast.

Peter: The way my mom used to make them for me when I was a little boy: Soft-boiled, placed in a little egg cup, opened up on the top and served with a little egg spoon (I was a little boy, remember?). Oh, and a side of buttered and grape-jellyed toast. (Yes, grape jelly. See the aforementioned "little boy" reference.)

Jennifer: I would have to go with medium boiled -- served warm with S&P and butter -- add a little Tabasco for some spice.

Fried

Kenzi: All this talk about fried eggs, and not a mention here? I'm going take-no-prisoners method, all the way, on a salad of heartier greens (mustard or kale do the trick nicely).

Christina: My go-to breakfast prep is sunny-side up in butter. But for a lazy dinner I break out the poached prep -- over rice, polenta, leftover vegetables or even in soup. Whatever seems to be lurky as leftovers gets gilded with that lovely runny yolk.

Gheanna: I was hesitant to be the odd one out here, but I have no shame in saying sunny side up, and for one reason only: longsilog, a Filipino breakfast dish. Any "-silog" dish is served with garlic fried rice and an egg, and in this case, my inescapable childhood memory is of longanisa (sweet pork sausage) served with an egg, sunny side up, over garlic fried rice with fresh tomato mixed in. Mash the egg over the rice and mix it all together, and it's heaven.

Kristen: I love them all, but I'm going to stand by fried eggs on toast (press-down method). (Most of our egg loyalties seem to come from childhood -- watch out parents!)

Poached

Michael: Definitely poached. I especially like poached eggs because they have a tendency to be resting on top of (or nestled into) other delicious things—meat and potato hashes; spicy, tomatoey stews; roasted vegetables; etc.

En Cocotte

Amanda: Love eggs en cocotte -- you just crack them into a nice dish, add a little olive oil or butter, some herbs, maybe a scrap of garlic, some coarse salt. Bake them while you make toast. Dig in! And I'm with Jennifer on the Tabasco.

In a Hole

Molly: I love gashouse eggs (what we called "egg-in-the-hole" or Merrill's one-eyed sandwiches) -- over-medium with plenty of freshly ground black pepper and butter.

Scrambled

Nozlee: Buttery, smooshy, runny, creamy -- scrambled eggs are everything that's great about eggs with all the advantages of being way more sandwichable and scoopable than other preparations. (Neither "smooshy" nor "sandwichable" are words, but you know what I mean.) I even secretly love dry scrambled eggs, as long as there's enough butter and hot sauce!