Chinese Cooking Basics: Eggs over Easy

It's Labor Day weekend, and I have a perfect simple dish on your day off. It's my favorite and as basic as it gets - eggs over easy with soy sauce on rice. My mom would make this for me for dinner when she was feeling lazy. I love breaking the creamy egg yolk that mixes with the saltiness of the soy sauce, and combining all of that with rice in one bite. In another bite, I'd get the crispy edge of the egg white...what a perfect contrast in textures. Anyways, other than the obvious soy sauce, the Chinese part of this dish is cooking the egg in a wok. I know you must be thinking "it should be easy." Not so much if you don't have the right equipment or technique.


The wok is actually a perfect vehicle to cook your egg over easy or sunny side up because the sloped bottom of the wok means that you'll have the same shaped cooked egg every time, as opposed to cooking it in a flat pan where the egg white can spread out before getting cooked.

The secret to a perfectly cooked egg (over easy or sunny side up) is a very hot wok. Your egg shouldn't stick as long as your pan and oil are hot, so it doesn't matter if you don't have a non-stick wok (I have an old stainless steel one). When you see wisps of smoke coming out of your wok, that means it's time to add the oil. Add the egg when your oil gets hot, stand back quickly as the hot oil will splatter when it comes in contact with the egg, and flip when the edges brown if you're making an over easy egg.

Put the cooked egg over warm rice, drizzle as much soy sauce as you like on top of the egg, and enjoy! It makes a nice quick lunch with left over rice or dinner.