Athletes in the Kitchen: How to Cook Eggs Perfectly Ep 11

Scrambled eggs. A couple tricks to scrambled eggs. First, obviously you're going to want to crack your eggs in a bowl and whip them. You want to whip enough so that the whites of the egg are incorporated, but you don't want to whip too long because the longer you whip, the tougher the egg is going to be once it's cooked. It does change the structure of the proteins in there a little bit if you over-whip it.

Welcome to the Find Your Edge podcast. Get ready to dive into all things things, training, nutrition, recovery, and more. Whether you're a new or experienced endurance athlete, a weekend warrior, or someone who just wants to improve your health and fitness, this podcast is for you. I'm Chris Newport, founder, head coach, registered dietitian, exercise physiologist, and certified personal trainer with the Endurance Edge and the Fueling Edge. With more than 20 years experience in the fitness industry, 18 years in multi-sport, and over 10 years as a sports nutritionist, I'm speaking with athletes and experts about key actionable steps you can take to reach sustain peak performance and health. Let's do it. Welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. This is Chris Newport, your host, and we are in for another episode of our Athletes in the Kitchen series with the Fueling Edge chef, John Kohler. Welcome back.

Thanks, Chris. Great to be here again.

So today we are going to talk all about how to cook the perfect egg. So let's jump in. Let's start with purchasing as usual. What do we look for in a good quality egg? And does it matter what color the egg is?

That's a great question. So when shopping for eggs, the color does not matter at all. There are a lot of rumors and myths out there that the color of the egg will affect the healthiness of the egg. And that is completely not true. There are eggs that are white, green, blue, brown, and the color of the egg is completely dependent on the color of the feathers of the chicken that laid it.

Yep. And that is all breed of chicken.

That is it. So there is no health difference between different colors of eggs. So go ahead and buy whichever one is, you know, either more appealing to you or if you want to save a couple of bucks, whichever one is on sale on that particular day. I'm always buying large Grade A eggs. I like large because that's the standard for recipes. Sometimes you'll see extra large eggs. I rarely see medium eggs. And the Grade A is just the quality of the yolk that's in the inside of the shell. And they grade them by looking at the yolk through a basically like putting a candle behind it or a small light. It used to be a candle back in the old days. And they would look at the yolk to make sure it's centered in the egg and it is circular and well-formed. And that is what gives it the grade. So looking for large Grade A eggs. And then the only other thing that I do is I'll open up the container, look to make sure none of them are cracked and there's no liquid in there. And then finally check the date on it, make sure that it's a date that is within reason. Sometimes I'll buy eggs that I know that I'm going to hard boil and I'll look for ones where the date's a little closer because hard boiling eggs—

And closer, you mean like a little bit of an older egg?

Correct. Correct. Where the date is closer to the actual day that I'm, that I'm on rather than egg, that's the date's going to take longer to get to.

So let's jump into hard boil because you mentioned that. How do we cook the perfect hard boiled egg? Because it's so easy to overcook that yolk and then it has that gray very, very unappealing color and not so tasty either. So is there a trick? Is there a secret to the perfect hard-boiled egg?

There actually is. So first off, as I mentioned, you want to use eggs that are a little bit older, and that's going to help you when you peel them later on. The second thing is you want to get a very large pot, so a pot that is going to be appropriate for the amount of eggs you're cooking. You want them to basically sit in one layer on the bottom of the pot. So you can use a small soup pan or soup pot if you're only cooking 1 or 2. But if you're cooking a bunch of eggs, you know, a dozen, 2 dozen, then you're going to want to get a much larger pot so that they're in more or less one layer on the bottom of the pot. For cooking, you're going to want to put the eggs gently in the pot and then fill it with water to about 2 to 3 inches above the top of the eggs. And that's going to be room temperature or tepid water. And then put it on the stove. Turn the stove on to high and heat the water up. And once it comes to a full boil, meaning you see the large bubbles coming up throughout the entire pot, not just around the edges, turn off that heat, cover it, and set a timer for 12 minutes. And once that 12 minutes is up, you can take it off, drain it, and then put those eggs in some cold water. And preferably, if you have some, some ice, throw it in there as well. Let them cool down. And then when you peel them, those should be perfectly cooked eggs.

When we turn off the stove, does it matter gas versus electric? Like, should we move it to, like, if it's electric, should we move it off the burner? If it's gas, does it matter?

Great question. It is better to move it off of that burner if you can, especially if it's electric, because those do take a little bit longer to cool down and you're trying to, maintain that temperature, but not keep increasing that temperature that's in the— that you have in the pot.

So we just had Easter. Maybe we're dyeing our eggs. I don't know. Any other suggestions as to what to do with a hard-boiled egg other than dye it and hunt for it in the yard?

Absolutely. They do make great healthy snacks. You can peel them, put them in a plastic bag and take them to work with you. My daughter loves eating them for her, her school snack. So I do send those with her occasionally. Egg salad, if you're into that, is always great. You know, mix it with some mayonnaise, a little mustard, maybe some dill, salt and pepper. Very delicious on a sandwich or on top of a salad. Let's see, deviled eggs are great. Great party snack as well. Those can be made a little bit healthier by using a healthier mayonnaise with olive oil or avocado oil. Also, you could substitute a little bit of plain low-fat Greek yogurt in for some of the mayonnaise. That would, uh, would increase their nutritional value as well. And then, you know, the deviled eggs are kind of all about the seasoning that you like and the spice level that you like. So I always like to put some Dijon mustard in there, a little bit of spice with some cayenne pepper, some paprika. Depending, sometimes I'll use some garlic or onion powder as well. And then I like green in mine, so some green onion or some chives.

All right, so we've got, let's say, a dozen eggs, slice them, take the yolks out, mix them with, I don't know, roughly how much mayo, or if we're doing like a mayo Greek yogurt mix, like—

So if I'm doing a dozen and I'm just kind of spitballing this based on what I think would work, maybe use those dozen yolks along with 1/4 cup of mayonnaise and another, 1/4 cup of the yogurt, get those all nice and mashed up. And then—

Would you mash with like a fork or like a masher, or would you like blend it like in like a blender, Cuisinart or something like that?

I would use a fork or a masher, a spoon, whatever's gonna break 'em up. I wouldn't use a blender just because the, in my opinion, the eggs would stick in there. It'd be hard to get those out. And then I'd add maybe about 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard. Dash of cayenne, dash of paprika, and then some chopped up chives and/or green onion as well.

How do we beautifully get it back into the egg yolk?

If you wanna do it beautifully, you're probably gonna wanna use a piping bag or take a Ziploc bag and put a piping tip into it and then cut the corner off and put the egg in there. If you're just eating them for yourself and not serving them at a party, absolutely fine to just spoon it back in there and eat it that way.

And then what do we, do we sprinkle anything on top?

Again, it's all personal preference. It's the way I like to cook and that's the way I like to make food so that people, the people that are eating it enjoy it the most. So traditionally a little bit of paprika or a little bit of cayenne on top, but you can really go any way you want with some green on top again with the, chives or onions, or you could put red onion on top, some diced up pickle or cornichon.

That's the good Southern way.

Absolutely. So kind of whatever direction you like is the way that you should go.

How quickly should we be eating something like a cooked hard-boiled egg or a deviled egg?

So cooked hard-boiled egg, I like to eat within 5 days at home. I think that that's a really good, where I know it's still going to be safe and not have picked up any bacteria or grown any bacteria. The thing with eggs is that their content, them being basically an embryo, it's very good for growing things. So it grows the bacteria very quickly. So a little bit shorter time on eggs once they're cooked than a lot of other things. If I'm doing deviled eggs, probably within like 2 days.

Yeah.

Because that yolk is going to have that extra protein in there and that protein is what a lot of bacteria do like to munch on, unfortunately.

And I know this might be obvious, but we're keeping it in the fridge, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Please, please keep your, your eggs in the fridge unless you are buying them from a reputable farmer that, that has handled them properly and they don't wash them. All eggs that are store-bought need to be kept in the fridge before and after cooking.

So I think that's interesting that you brought that up in terms of washing. I think a lot of people don't realize that their eggs are that pretty because they are literally washed and like cleaned?

Absolutely. Eggs, when they come out of a chicken or whatever animal, they are dirty. They did come from inside the animal. In nature, they have a protective coating on them that, that did come from the animal. And if you buy them from a farm that is giving you farm fresh eggs, sometimes that's not washed off. In that case, you can actually leave those eggs out at room temperature until you use them. But I would recommend buying almost all your eggs from the grocery store unless you know the person that is raising those chickens and handling those eggs before you. You don't really know what you're getting. So I wouldn't buy eggs off the side of the road.

Yeah. Yeah. But luckily we have quite a few good farmers around here who are raising some good chickens. So, you know, and that will oftentimes vary in the quality of like the color of the egg yolk and the quality of their feed. So. Eggs are complicated. Like, should we care about like cage-free versus— I know we talked about color, but are there other things that are slapped on the label that we should show so much worry about?

You know, that's, that's really a personal preference. Uh, me personally, I think that buying eggs that are cage-free and hormone-free are— that's important to me. I like to know that the animals that are sacrificing so that we can eat have been given a good life and has been treated as humanely as possible. So I think that it's important. I think that the more people that got on that bandwagon, it may cost a little bit more, but it's really worth it. And it's really just something that concerns me in terms of just the proper treating of all life.

Yeah, so we have chickens at home and they are some hilarious animals. Animals and they love being outside and they are not typically fed. You know how a lot of containers will say vegetarian fed?

Yes.

Well, chickens will eat not all vegetarian. Let's just put it that way. So I think that's a little bit of a misnomer that people think that they have to be vegetarian fed. And that is not the case at all. Chickens will eat just about anything.

Yes, absolutely. They're like the goats of the bird world, huh?

They are. And anytime we come out, we might have treats. For them. And when I say treats, it's like leftover slaw, or they love eating like pumpkins from Halloween, right? They'll, you know, watermelon too. They come running at us like a bunch of school kids. It's the funniest thing you've ever seen. Maybe one of these days I'll like take a little video of that. And so yes, good healthy chickens, at least in my mind, if you can go for more of the cage-free or if you wanna spend the extra money, I do think it is valuable 'cause those animals are being treated well. Okay, so we went over our hard-boiled eggs and our deviled eggs, potentially some egg salad. Let's get into like the perfect fried egg. Sure. What's the trick there?

All right, so fried eggs. I think the biggest thing for cooking eggs is making sure that you have a great nonstick pan. It's definitely worth investing in, you know, getting a pan that it might be $50, $60 for just a small egg pan, but those pans will last you a long time if you take care of them properly. And they really do help so that you're not getting the sticking and you're getting even heating throughout, throughout your cooking. So number one, buy a great pan, something that's nonstick, and then treat it right. Meaning every time you use it, all you should have to do is wipe it out with a, with a damp cloth. Never use soap on it. Don't put it through the dishwasher. And then when you do put it back in your drawers, put a cloth over it. So if anything gets on top of it, you're not wiping off or scarring any of that nonstick surface.

Yeah, because that nonstick, we don't want to scratch that. That's no bueno. So what about for like a utensil? Should we use them? I mean, clearly we don't want to use metal. So if we're not using metal, what do we use?

Some sort of silicone spatula. You want to get one that's going to be rated at least 450 degrees, and you can pick those up really cheap these days at Target or Walmart or Bed Bath Beyond. Get a couple of those. I like to get the ones that actually scrape and they have a little bit of a cup in them as well. I think that those also, when you're doing baking applications, those will work for whipping and scraping stuff in bowls. So kind of a dual purpose.

And getting the peanut butter from the bottom of the jar.

Absolutely.

It's key.

Absolutely.

Okay, so we've got a good pan for cooking our egg, then what's— there's gotta be some more tricks.

Yeah, so for fried egg, you definitely wanna oil the pan. Cooking eggs, if I'm doing 'em for home and not worried about making it extremely healthy, I like to use butter because it does add extra flavor. But otherwise—

Some butter is good.

Otherwise I'll definitely use a canola oil or grapeseed or avocado. Again, I don't like to use olive oil when I'm heating just because of the bitter flavor that it starts to get. But that avocado oil is really healthy too. So a good alternative if you want to keep it more healthy. So in your little egg pan, tablespoon of that avocado oil, and then you crack your egg into a bowl to make sure you don't get any of the—

Ooh, I like that trick.

Into any of the shell into the pan, because otherwise, you know, you've got to quickly get it out of there before it coagulates into the egg. So then you slide the egg into the pan and you just let it sit probably a good 45 seconds. And you're going to want to keep that on—

Did you mention our heat? What heat do we have?

Medium-high heat.

Okay.

Yeah. Keep it on a medium-high heat. Pan nice and hot, oil in there, slide the egg in, 45 seconds down. I season it, season the top while it's there. And then depending on what type of fried egg you're looking for, you're either going to be flipping it or not. You know, obviously sunny side up, you're 45 seconds to a minute, then you're sliding it right out. If you want over easy, over medium, over well, then you're going to want to do the flip and just getting a spatula under one side of the egg, tilting the pan and kind of rolling the egg over is the best way to go. Unless you're really adept at flipping them. Yeah. So yeah. And then, you know, just you cook it until basically until it's done. So it's really going to be a visual thing depending on how runny you like your yolk is how long you want to keep it in there.

Okay, so we got a good fried egg. What about scrambled?

Scrambled eggs, a couple tricks to scrambled eggs. First, obviously you're going to want to crack your eggs in a bowl and whip them. You want to whip enough so that the whites of the egg are incorporated, but you don't want to whip too long because the longer you whip, the tougher the egg is going to be once it's once it's cooked. It does change the structure of the proteins in there a little bit if you over-whip it. So that's one thing. Some people do like to add a little bit of dairy to theirs. Personally at home, I don't. But if you are using dairy, you want to use something that has a higher fat content, whole milk, at least 2% milk or some half and half or heavy cream. That will make it—

Is that just to make it a little creamier?

It'll make it creamier. The steam from that as well will make it a little bit lighter, a little bit airier.

Oh, okay, right.

And then again, you want that really hot pan, medium-high heat, put your oil in, so a tablespoon of oil, and then you slide the eggs in. And what you want to do is use your spatula and you want to consistently stir them until they're cooked to the doneness that you like. And what that's going to do, you're going to get those nice restaurant-quality curdy eggs because the agitation is having the proteins coagulate in a way that they form those nice curds rather than, you know, like a flat layer, which will happen if you just leave the eggs in there and let them cook and then start to stir them or break them up.

Reminds me of our— at the Fueling Edge, we have the All-American Breakfast, which is broccoli and turkey sausage and scrambled eggs and potatoes. And I will say those scrambled eggs have been coming out mighty fine because John is putting his little magic touch on it. So That's some great tips. All right, so we got scrambled, we got fried. Now I'm thinking of some kind of like frittata or like egg muffin or something that we can maybe cook on the weekend, or maybe we have like a brunch or we cook it on the weekend and then we have it maybe throughout the week or we freeze it. Tell us about that. Like how, what's, what's, what's the trick to a good frittata?

Well, I think the trick to a good frittata is going to be cooking it so that it's not overcooked or undercooked, and then making it so that you enjoy the fillings that you put in it. So, you know, a couple classic ones are the, you know, bacon and spinach or spinach and mushroom. Broccoli is always a big favorite. Basically anything you can make an omelet out of, you can make a frittata out of. All you're doing is scrambling enough eggs so that you can fill your container or your cooking vessel. I like to use a, a small cast iron skillet, but you could use a casserole dish. You could use muffin tins and do mini ones. Basically all you're going to want to do is make sure that you get the inside of those oiled up, especially if you're using the baking dish or the muffin tins so that they don't stick. If your cast iron skillet has been well loved and well seasoned, you're not going to need to use so much oil in there, if any at all, because it will come right out of there on its own. But I think just, just getting ingredients that you like in there, making sure that you mix it up, then pour into your cooking vessel. And then when you cook it, I like cooking for a lower temperature, at a lower temperature for a longer time. And for me, what that does is it gives you more of a window to pull it out. And makes it so that I know that I'm not going to overcook it because, you know, just like with salt, when you're cooking, you can always put more in, but you can't take it away.

Yeah.

Same thing with cooking. If something's overdone, you can't fix it unless you cook another one. If something's underdone, you can almost always cook a little more.

So are we cooking this in the oven? And you mentioned a lower heat. So what's the— What's the ticket to the right heat?

So I like to use a heat around 250, 275. And the way that I cook it, or the time that I cook it, it's always going to depend on the size of the pan. But if I was using muffin tins and did it at that 275 with each muffin tin filled with about 1 to 1.5 eggs, I would say that that would be done in about 15, maybe 20 minutes. Whereas if I'm using my cast iron skillet, which is a, a 12-inch skillet that I use the most, that's probably gonna take more along the lines of an hour and 15 to an hour and a half.

Okay.

Given the lower temperature.

If we don't wanna use knives on our, you know, once the frittata comes out, then like, are we waiting and then flipping it out onto like a pan? Are we, what do we do with it once it's done?

Oh.

So it's still pretty.

Absolutely. So I think that if you do want to not cut it in the pan and maybe present it, one good way to go is to take a whatever plate you're going to serve it on, put it directly on top of the cooking vessel once it's cooled for maybe 15 minutes, and that'll help solidify it and kind of bring it together. Put that cooking or the serving vessel on top and then invert And kind of quickly so that it should plop right out onto that serving dish. And then pull the cooking vessel off and then you can dress up the top with maybe some chives or some—

Something fancy. Yeah.

If you did a broccoli one, maybe put a couple nice florets of broccoli on top.

So you mentioned a couple of different flavors. Let's see if we can hook people up with a, you know, at least some sense of a recipe. So let's say we're doing a small cast iron pan or no, let's go, let's go muffin tin. 'Cause that's pretty standard, like 12 muffin tins, right? How many eggs? Should we do the milk or no milk? And then what do we put in it? And if we're trying to increase our veggie intake, how do we not make it totally soupy?

Good question. When I'm making frittatas, I definitely don't add extra liquid dairy. Lots of times I will add cheese, but basically per egg, I use about half ounce of cheese and half ounce of whatever the other flavoring is. So if I was doing broccoli cheddar, I'd use about half ounce of cheddar, half ounce of finely chopped up broccoli, and put those in there.

And is it raw or is it cooked already?

I use raw broccoli actually when I'm putting it in there. Those crucifers, the one thing that they, really benefit from is less cooking because they'll hang on to a lot more of their nutritional value the less heat that you get into them. So my rule of thumb is generally half ounce of cheese and half ounce of whatever else I'm putting in there, or a total of 1 ounce per egg of the fillings.

Yeah. Okay. And then so in your example of the cheddar and the broccoli, Any spices?

I just, I simply add salt and pepper. I think eggs have a great flavor and I like to make that shine rather than flavor them with a lot of other stuff.

So it sounds like if we're doing the muffin tin, at least 12 eggs, or would you do a few more?

It depends on how many you wanna make. If you only wanted to make 3, then I would use probably 3 eggs. You know, just because you're using the muffin tin, you don't necessarily need to fill every hole in the muffin tin.

Yeah.

So it's all personal preference, but yeah, just make sure that you're using the appropriate amount for the amount that you wanna cook.

So you mentioned mushrooms, which I personally love. I did not growing up, but have since changed. Let's say we wanna make more of like a vegetarian. So no bacon and mushrooms, beautiful together, but what can we do with mushrooms that's maybe not including bacon? A pork product?

Sure. Maybe mushrooms and spinach.

Okay. All right.

You know, I think that that's super healthy and super tasty. And the thing with mushrooms is they release so much moisture. You know, as you said earlier, we want to make these so they're not soupy. So you do want to cook them first and then let them cool and then put them into your, your egg mixture. For cooking mushrooms, you know, a couple tricks when you're doing those. When you wash them, you don't want to wash them underwater. You just want to brush them with either You buy an extra toothbrush from somewhere and you just brush them really lightly.

Why do we not want to wash them?

Mushrooms will absorb a lot of water when you do wash them underwater, and it makes them a lot harder to cook because that, as we all know, putting mushrooms in a pan, they release a lot of water. This is going to have a lot of extra water in there to release, which just, it increases the cooking time exponentially if you've got that extra water in there. And then once you've brushed them clean, depending on the mushroom, if you're using portobellos or a really large mushroom, you want to remove those gills because in the large mushrooms they are pretty substantial. But if you've got your button mushrooms or your cremini mushrooms, things like that, you don't need to remove any gills. And then slice them thin. By thin, I mean 1/8 of an inch or thinner. And you want to get a really hot pan, high heat. Get a decent amount of oil in there. And by decent amount, I'm thinking maybe like 3 tablespoons per box, small pint of mushrooms. Once it's really hot, you throw your mushrooms in there and don't touch it. Leave it for maybe 3 minutes. And what that's going to do is you're going to get a nice caramelization on the mushrooms. Then you can start to stir them, turn them around a little bit, and then leave it again for another 2 or 3 minutes. And by the time that they've been in there for 6 to 8 minutes, they're gonna have released a lot of their moisture, and you can take them out, cool them on a plate or on a rack, and then put them into the egg mixture for your frittata. Keeping that extra moisture out is gonna be really big in not making it soupy, and leaving those mushrooms to cook in there is gonna give them much more caramelization on the outside. It's gonna concentrate the flavor, so you're gonna have a much more flavorful final product.

[Speaker:CHRISTINA Fiumara] Would you do any spices with that, or do you feel like eggs and mushrooms are— The way you've just described are pretty flavorful as is.

Potentially, I might add a little bit of fresh thyme in when I'm cooking the mushrooms. I really like balsamic mushrooms. So towards the end, I might put a couple tablespoons of balsamic vinegar in with the mushrooms and let them absorb that and then add them in there. But again, I'm a really big advocate of cooking by your likes and dislikes. So if you like something, Give it a try. And if it doesn't work, then you don't have to try it again. But, you know, maybe you'll discover something that's phenomenal, and then you'll be able to serve that to all your friends and show them what you invented.

Have your magic trick. Okay, so we did hard-boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, fried eggs. We did a little frittata. So to kind of wrap things up, what would be your couple of tips that you would want people to walk away with when it comes to cooking the perfect egg?

I think that cooking the perfect egg, you know, one thing is to get that restaurant-quality egg. When you're doing scrambled eggs, you definitely want to get the hot pan, keep stirring it while it's cooking, and that'll give you those nice big curds. Another thing is buying eggs or, you know, keeping eggs for the method of cooking that you're going to have. Like I mentioned, if you are hard-boiling and you're going to, you know, either dye them and then use them for Easter and possibly put them back in the refrigerator like, you know, my parents did when I was a kid.

And you're still here.

I'm still here. You know, as long as they're only out for a couple of hours, the food code actually says they could be out for up to 6 hours and then put back in and you're still okay.

That's a long time in the sun.

Yeah. Yeah. But, but buying the eggs for the method of cooking that you're going to use. So, you know, the fresher eggs, I'm definitely going to want to have those in my refrigerator for when I'm doing scrambled eggs or frittatas or quiches or any of those things. But it makes it so much easier to peel the eggs when you're doing hard-boiled eggs if they are a little bit older. Another trick is once you start peeling those eggs, crack 'em and keep water running over them, cold water. And that kind of helps loosen the shell a little bit as well. So there's another good tip for you.

Cool. All right, and then it sounds like, at least what I came away with, is be generous in oiling or greasing your pan so that they don't stick, 'cause eggs are notorious for sticking.

Absolutely, and that's more going for the shirred egg or the baked eggs. If you have that nonstick pan, you don't really need to use a lot for fried or scrambled eggs, but when you are baking eggs, yes, definitely be generous when you're either spraying or oiling your pan so that they don't stick.

Cool. All right, so I think we got some good tips for cooking the perfect egg, and that wraps up another episode of Athletes in the Kitchen. All right, so we will see you next month. Thanks again, John.

Thank you, Chris.