Eggs in Brown Butter

A one-pan fried egg dish that stands or falls on the butter: the point is to take it well past melted, to the nut-brown stage, then sharpen it with vinegar off the heat of the eggs.

• Serves two or threeSix eggs with three tablespoons of butter is a plate for two hungry people or three modest ones. It needs bread, and nothing else.
• Pan choiceUse a light-coloured pan — stainless or a well-seasoned carbon steel skillet — so you can judge the colour of the butter. In black cast iron the colour is hard to read and it is easy to overshoot.
• "Saute the eggs until set"This most likely means fried eggs rather than scrambled. Break them into the single tablespoon of foaming butter over medium heat and cook until the white is opaque. The recipe says only "set" and does not specify how far the yolk should go.
• Browning the butterWipe out any egg fragments first, then add the remaining two tablespoons. It will foam, subside, and the solids at the bottom will turn hazelnut brown — about two minutes. The smell shifts from dairy to toasted nuts, and that is the cue.
• The vinegarThe recipe adds it to the hot butter in the pan and pours "when hot"; stand back, as a teaspoon hitting hot butter spits and sends up a sharp vapour. Any wine vinegar suits; malt or cider vinegar is heavier than the dish wants. Swirl and pour at once.
• TimingHave the eggs plated and the platter warm before the butter goes on to brown. Brown butter passes from nut to burnt in a matter of seconds and cannot be brought back.
• SeasoningSalt the eggs in the pan and hold back at the table — the browned solids concentrate flavour and the vinegar reads as sharpness, so the finished plate tastes saltier than it is.