The sun is not my preferred method for preparing eggs, unless it's at the Annual Oatman, AZ Sidewalk Egg Fry Contest. It's too hard to get them right, it seems they always come out with the yolks overcooked, probably because of the even heat in the Sun Oven's insulated cooking chamber. Also, it takes a lot longer then cooking them in a frying pan. I don't mind the additional twenty minutes it takes to solar cook things with naturally long cooking times, like meats or stews, but with eggs it's just not very practical. I tried to speed things up, without much luck, by preheating the pan. Unfortunately this morning's sun wasn't quite strong enough. The Sun Oven's temperature hovered around 200ºf. It took almost half an hour to the cook two eggs with prosciutto and the yolks were overdone. Oh well, Martin was happy to wake up to a hot breakfast. He gets up later than me and is in charge of his own morning meal which usually consists of coffee and toast.
How much overcooked? Bluish? Egg salad-y? My eggs finish in the muffin pan in about 20 mins with a cooked yolk that's just a little runny in the center. But, the eggs are room temperature.
ReplyDeleteI like my whites fully cooked with runny yolks. It seems like in the Sun Oven the whites and yolks cook at the same rate, so if the yolks are runny the whites are undercooked. The ones in the picture were not horribly overcooked, but the yolks were not runny. Also, yesterday was a bad day to try to solar cook eggs. It was on again off again sunshine and the Sun Oven didn't get very hot. It just seems easier to use a good old cast iron frying pan for fried eggs. One of the things I like best about solar cooking is the "fix it and forget it" factor, eggs require too much monitoring for my taste. However, egg dishes like frittatas or stratas come out great in the Sun Oven.
ReplyDeleteOh, I agree. I really believe in solar cooking but not to the extent that I won't use my other appliances. I use the BTUs as my test. Under fifteen minutes and it's a wash, either way. Over fifteen minutes and you start to really suck those fossil fuel BTUs. The only eggs, other than the frittatas, that I do in the solar oven are the McMuffin eggs that I freeze for later breakfasts.
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