Cycle 15 – Item 84

29 (Fri) March 2024

Fried Eggs (with Chicken Adobo)

3.5

by DJ + W + me

at home

-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-

with the Family

With the prospect of living on his own in about 16 months from now, DJ reached out to request cooking lessons from me.  An unexpected and most welcome new development in the GMTD narrative, which I’ve decided to continue through 2025 expressly to cover DJ’s high school graduation in June and college matriculation in August – what a storybook end to the saga.

Prior to today, 2 dishes have been attributed to BY DJ, both very memorable posts (see 4.052 Her Own Apple Pie; 5.102 Potato Croquette).  In the latter, written while I was living in Manila (before the family eventually joined me there) and coming back to Korea for occasional visits:

At long last, my years of slaving away in the kitchen for the kids are starting to pay off.  After school on Thursdays, 1st-graders at DJ’s school each take an extracurricular elective class.  And wouldn’t you know it, DJ chose cooking.  From a social perspective, I’m also quite impressed that the school even allows boys to cook.  This week, croquette was on the menu.  He brought them home and let me have the first one.  I actually teared.  They were awesome, really.

Thanks, DJ!  Sorry that I can’t be there every week to try your latest creation, but god knows how I wish that I could.

For the inaugural lesson, I went with eggs.  Arguably the most versatile ingredient that I can teach him to use; they’re also relatively cheap and easy to keep, convenient for a college student.   Granted, he’ll be eating the vast majority of meals in the campus dining hall, at least as a freshman, but his dorm will likely have a small kitchenette, where he can make himself quick late-night snacks, like scrambled eggs (with toast), fried eggs (with SPAM), boiled eggs (as is), steamed eggs (with rice), poached eggs (in ramyeon).  I was already planning on chicken adobo, so we started with fried eggs.

Turned out great.  I demonstrated one, then coached him through a few, which got better with each iteration.  Even W, the shiva of eggs (see for example 11.131 Tortured Eggs), got in on the lesson.  In the end, we had 8 eggs, varying levels of quality, some sunny side up, some over easy.

According to W, I seem to take certain cooking skills for granted, having slowly developed them over decades of practice, without consciously thinking about it.  The trick to making a fried egg is to add the egg to the pan in plenty of oil, wait a few seconds for the bottom to set, then jiggle it with the help of a spatula so that oil can get under it, thereby facilitating even cooking – otherwise, the egg will stick (even in a nonstick pan) and fall apart when it’s flipped over or taken out of the pan (see for example  8.037 Mangled This, Burned That).   Also little tricks like spooning oil over the top to accelerate cooking of the white and tipping the pan to create a small pool of oil in which to sort of deep fry the egg to get the edges crispier.  I never realized that I was doing these things until I had to explain them.

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)