Sunday morning extra: basted eggs

I grew up on basted eggs for breakfast. I have always called them ann-eggs, because Susie, my grandmother, would say every morning, "Do you want an egg?" "Yes," I would reply, and what she brought to the table was a basted egg, or two.

A classic basted egg is created by cracking an egg into a skillet with enough fat in it, either bacon or sausage, to spoon over the top of the egg. The hot fat cooked the raw white around the yolk and put a pale-pink, sexual sheen over the yolk, while leaving the yolk runny underneath.

You could always tell a plain diner from a great diner by the way it responded to your order for basted eggs. True basted would come out with that pink sheen over the yolks. Lazy basted would come out with yellow yolks, as if you had ordered them sunny-side up. If the yolks were runny and the white cooked, fine. Too often, the white would be cooked, but the yolks hard. That is because the diner cook put a pan lid over the eggs, clamped it right down on the griddle, so steam developing underneath would do the cooking. With this method, it didn't take any time at all for the yolks to get hard.

At home, I have always preferred basted eggs, but the tradeoff is frying enough bacon or sausage to accumulate the necessary fat for basting. Then you have to eat that bacon or sausage, which was not a bad thing 50 years ago in your outdoor years, but it is something I have moved away from in my mature years. For a long time, I have settled for over-easy, because there has been no way to do runny-yolk sunny-side-up without leaving some white uncooked.

But there IS a way to do that, and it involves a pan lid. Break the eggs into a medium-low skillet, let the whites cook a bit around the edges, then take a large pan lid and hold it a couple of inches over the eggs, for a count of 10. Then peek, and if the yolks look firm, the eggs are done. If not, give it another five seconds. The difference from the old, lazy, diner cooks, who would clamp the lid over the eggs and read a chapter of "Superman," is finesse. You hold the lid a couple of inches OVER the eggs, just long enough for heat, not steam, to collect, and cook the whites. The yolks remain yellow, without the alluring pink sheen, but they are runny, which is the point. You're welcome.