Runny eggs, my nemesis

Sunny side ups.

Bane of my culinary existence.

I made breakfast potatoes for dinner; I had a lot of potatoes I needed to get rid of, and I love having breakfast for dinner sometimes. I mean, I love breakfast. The large, lazy Sunday morning type where you have the time (and energy) to chop up potatoes and make some nice eggs and stuff, maybe some bacon to go with.

Eggs, hidden by the potatoes so you can't see the failure.

Japan seems to not really dig these kinds of breakfasts. Most places I go either a) Don't have breakfast or b) Have a "morning set" that comes with toast, a salad, and like, coffee or tea. Maybe some places will have egg salad with that or a sausage or something. But I don't really see eggs and toast for breakfast (otherwise I'd be more inclined to eat out for breakfast!). So it's nice to sometimes make it at home, whether for breakfast or dinner or whatever. Eggs in a basket are my default "oh hm, I need to finish these eggs and/or this bread" go to egg meal.

My default egg-for-breakfast is the scrambled egg, mostly because it's really easy to make, despite creating another dish to clean. Plus they're pretty tasty.

However, I do really like a runny yolk kind of egg, and there's something... happy, about sunny-side ups. They also go quite well with bread.

The problem is I can't make them to save my life. Or anything with a runny yolk for that matter (save the eggs in a basket). Mine always end up too overcooked, or the egg whites aren't cooked enough. I've tried reading about it online and watching videos.

Tonight, I tried to make it by steaming it at first. I don't think I was supposed to add water though. Oops. For some reason, in my head steaming = presence of water. My eggs ended up kind of... soppy and wet. Dripping, even. It was kind of... not so great. Plus the insides were partially cooked, so the bottom part was that pastely kind of yellow that's not so tasty. Sigh. The time I tried to make it before this, the insides ended up thoroughly cooked. Oops.

The second attempt tonight involved trying to baste the egg in oil, or, as the video recommended, butter, nearly browned (oh man, does that smell ridiculously good). It still turned out partially cooked inside though. I think I'm cooking them for too long? It doesn't seem like it's that long... it feels like it's cooking for a minute and then BAM slightly solid insides BAM BAM fully cooked yellow yolk. Ugh.
The basted egg method though... yeah, I was planning on experimenting all tonight with making runny eggs, but after that last one - cooked in butter - my arteries pleaded no more. Right, that's one method I'm not trying again (at least, not with butter. Maybe canola oil or something less fatty).

Tomorrow, I'm actually going to have breakfast! At least, that's the plan.

And if I fail again, there's always breakfast potatoes to make everything better.