today's breakfast: spanish fried egg

This morning I was looking for information about how to fry an egg in butter without the grease splattering everywhere.  It seems I get a lot of violent splatters every time I fry an egg and it can be a little scary sometimes.  And painful!  I figured it had something to do with the water in the butter, and I was right.  But the general consensus seems to be that there's nothing you can do to stop the splatters.  So, I gave up.

During my hunt for information I came across an article on theKitchn.com (love this website!) and it talked about Spanish-style fried eggs.  Basically, it's a fried egg, but you fry it in olive oil instead of butter; however, it's fried at a higher temperature, which cooks the egg quickly.

I used my small cast iron frying pan and filled it with enough olive oil to cover the bottom and then set it over medium heat.  It took a couple minutes, which I used to butter a piece of toast.  I flicked a tiny bit of water into the pan and it started to sizzle, which meant it was ready.  I cracked an egg into a mug and then put it into the pan. I don't usually do that, but I didn't want to chance any splatters of screaming hot oil.  It immediately started to fry.  I tilted the pan and spooned the hot oil over the egg. This isn't a fried egg that gets flipped over; the hot oil spooned over it cooks it just right.  When the top was cooked and the edges browned, it was ready.  I scooped it out and put it on a paper towel for a minute to absorb some of the oil. I then put it on top of my toast.

The process was easy and the white was nice and crunchy around the edges; however, I don't think I would use this as my default method for frying an egg.  It tasted good, but to me it's just easier to fry it the usual way.

Here's the article in case you want to read about this method: