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Fried Eggs
Melt butter, bacon fat or pork fat in frying pan ; when it bubbles, turn in egg, which has been previously broken into a cup; when white is set, baste with liquid fat. If desired hard, turn and cook on both sides.
A bare-bones method that assumes a heavy pan, plenty of fat, and a cook who knows what a set white looks like. The only real technique here is the basting.
- The hinge: basting, not flippingSpooning the hot fat over the white cooks the top without turning the egg, so the yolk stays liquid and the surface films over. Keep the pan at medium, not high, or the bottom browns and toughens before the top sets.
- How much fatThe recipe gives no quantity. Basting works best with more than a film of fat; a tablespoon per egg in a small skillet is enough to tilt and spoon.
- Break into a cup firstThis is worth keeping. It lets you catch shell or a broken yolk before it hits the pan, and it lets the egg slide in gently rather than splashing into the fat.
- "If desired hard"Turning and cooking both sides is what a diner would call over-hard. A short time on the second side sets the yolk; longer and it goes chalky and grey at the edge.
- Pork fat and bacon fatBoth give good flavor here, though commercial lard sold today is often deodorized and milder than home-rendered fat. Salt the eggs in the pan accordingly.
- Pan choiceCast iron or carbon steel, well seasoned, or a nonstick pan. The recipe long predates nonstick cookware.
Lowney's Cook Book was published by the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer, and like other branded cookbooks of its era it surrounded its promotional chocolate recipes with a full general-purpose kitchen manual. That is why a book remembered for cocoa and fudge also tells you how to fry an egg. The basting method described here, rather than flipping or covering the pan, suits a kitchen where bacon and pork drippings were saved from the household's own cooking rather than bought. The distinction between a basted egg and one "desired hard" survives in the shorthand of the American diner.