An egg is a versatile thing. These egg recipes can be main meals. They can be snacks between meals. You can add them to other meals, like ramen, toast, and couscous. You probably shouldn’t eat them raw, Disney movies notwithstanding, but luckily eggs are easy to cook.

If you get eggshell in your egg, you can fish it out with a spoon, or with the spoon-shaped half an eggshell that’s already in your hand. It won’t kill you if you eat it, so no need to panic.

Core Ingredients

• Egg(s)

Preparation I: Hard-boiled Eggs There are as many different ways to boil an egg as there are grandmothers to teach us how to do it. This one involves paying the least attention.

• Add water to a pot. At a minimum, you want the water to be the height of the egg, so the egg can float. More water is okay, but too much water and it’ll take a long time to boil. We’re not made of patience.

• Optional: add salt to water.

• Bring water to a boil.

• Add eggs.

• Put lid on pot to keep the heat in.

• Turn off the stove.

• Wait 30 minutes. Longer is fine. Go watch an episode of a TV show and come back. Go ahead and finish the whole season. The egg can wait.

Unless there’s hidden treasure involved like in
Birds of Fortune, in which case, go ahead and
panic about eggs.

• The egg is boiled!

• If you’ve made extra eggs for later, good job! Go you!*

Preparation II: Scrambled Eggs & Omelettes In the Microwave

• Crack eggs into a microwave-safe container. Use the plastic tupperware that your Chinese takeout came in, or take a microwave-safe mug and spray the inside with cooking oil.

• Stir with fork, making sure to break the yolks.

• Add salt and maybe pepper. Stir through.

• For omelettes: Cook in the microwave for a minute or so. Check if they’re done. If not, cook for another 30 seconds, and repeat until they’re solid.

• For scrambled eggs: do the same thing, but every 30ish seconds take it out of the microwave and stir it with the fork.

Preparation III: Fried or Scrambled Eggs & Omelettes On the Stove

• Put some oil, butter, or margarine in a frying pan.

• Turn on the stove to medium heat.

• Crack the egg into the frying pan.

• Leave the egg alone until most or all of the clear liquid has turned into a white solid.

• If you take it out now, that’s called “sunny side up.”

• If you flip it over and don’t break the yolk, so it’s still a yellow liquid, that’s called “over easy.”

• If you break the yolk at any point, or you cook the yolk to a yellow solid, that’s okay! That’s how you make eggs “over hard.” That is a valid cook- ing option.

• If you stir the eggs a bunch, that’s “scrambled eggs.”

• If you stir the eggs in a bowl, then pour them in the pan and don’t touch them again until they’re cooked through, that’s an “omelette.”

* If you don’t peel the leftover eggs immediately (and why would you?), make sure you’ve got a method to tell cooked and raw eggs apart in the fridge. Drawing smiley faces on the shell works wonders.

God-Tier

• Cook in onions and tomatoes.

• Add cheddar cheese. At any stage. Mix some chunks in before you micro- wave. Grate it on after it’s cooked. Don’t make us admit you can do this with cheese singles. But you can.

• Serve with salsa.

• Serve with ketchup.

• Serve with soy sauce. Probably not at the same time as salsa and ketch- up.

• Add ready-made hollandaise or those little hollandaise packets. Some wilted spinach makes it a cheater’s Eggs Benedict. Hollandaise sauce is not traditionally served on an omelette, but no one can stop you.

If, like Takuma from
Melancholic Parables, you
only eat food with a name
that begins with a vowel,
an omelette might be the
dish for you.