Skip to main content
Breakfast

Fried Eggs

A simple dish of eggs fried in butter or oil, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Fried Eggs

Serves 1
Time10 seconds to 1 minute after flipping

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in the pan over low to medium heat.

  2. Crack open the eggs into the pan and let fry until the yolks begin to harden at the edges (indicated by a lightening in the yolk color).

  3. Using the spatula, flip the eggs over and allow to cook 10 seconds for over-easy, 30 seconds for over-medium, or up to 1 minute for over-hard.

  4. Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

305Calories
7 gProtein
30 gFat
2 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the main structure and protein that set firm as they cook.
Butter or olive oil
Conducts heat evenly across the pan and adds richness and flavour to the eggs.

The step that matters

Flip the eggs at the right moment. Egg whites set with heat and the yolk thickens as it warms, so flipping too early breaks the yolk and flipping too late overcooks it. Timing the seconds after the flip controls how runny or firm the yolk ends up.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More fried eggs recipes

with Bacon 8Breaded 4and Bacon 4with Tomatoes 4with Tomato Sauce 3 See all 85 →

You might also like

Rice GruelRice Gruel28 recipesPeptoned Milk GruelPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes