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Fried Eggs in Oil
Thoroughly heat one gill of oil in a very small frying pan, crack in one fresh egg, and fry for two minutes; carefully close up the white with a skimmer. Lift up with the skimmer, drain on a cloth, prepare five more in a similar way, and use as directed. The eggs should be well fried around, but rather soft in the centre.
Save the oil in which the eggs were cooked for any other cooking purposes.
A Spanish-style fried egg: deep oil, a very small pan, one egg at a time. The original assumes you know what the oil should look like before the egg goes in, which is the whole trick.
- The hingeThe white must be gathered in toward the yolk with the skimmer within the first few seconds, before it has set and spread into lace. Tilt the pan so the oil pools on one side and spoon it over the white as it puffs.
- A gillHalf a cup in American measure, about 4 fl oz; an imperial gill is 5 fl oz. The recipe gives no pan size, only "very small" -- small enough that a gill gives a usable depth of oil.
- Oil heatThe recipe gives no temperature, only "thoroughly heat": something in the region of 350-375F, when the surface shimmers and a drop of egg white seizes and bubbles at once. Cooler than that and the egg sits flat and greasy; hotter and the edges blacken before the white sets.
- Two minutesOn modern gas or induction this is likely generous. At a good heat the white may be set with frilled brown edges in well under two minutes, and the full time risks firming the yolk the recipe wants soft.
- One at a timeSix eggs, cooked singly, is the point of the small pan. Two eggs in the same oil drop its temperature and the whites fuse. Have a cloth or paper on a plate ready to drain each one.
- Reusing the oilStrain it through a fine sieve while still warm, let it cool, and keep it covered in the refrigerator. Egg albumen scorches and turns the oil bitter fast, so use it within a few days and not for anything delicate.
- Soft centreA runny yolk is the intended result. If you are cooking for anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised, use pasteurized eggs or cook the yolk through.
- Yield and useSix eggs, one per person as a garnish or two as a dish. The recipe only says "use as directed," so time them last and serve immediately.
Frying an egg in a deep pool of hot oil rather than a film of butter or bacon fat is associated with the Spanish method, huevos fritos, and it depends on olive oil being cheap and abundant enough to use by the half-cup and then save. Closing the white up with a skimmer is the technique that gives the ruffled, blistered edge and the barely-set yolk, and the direction to "use as directed" suggests these eggs were not the dish but its crown -- laid over rice, potatoes, or a vegetable stew.