Viral egg hack: how to make poached eggs in a frying pan

Why foodies are obsessed with this traditional Japanese cooking trick. Photo / Getty Images

From Chef de Cuisines to FoodTok advocates, everyone is trying this viral egg hack - poaching eggs in a frying pan.

Using a classic Japanese culinary technique, the egg is traditionally slow-cooked in the hot spring waters of onsen in Japan, earning it the name onsen tamago.

While both poached eggs and onsen tamago are cooked in water, their similarities stop there.

To make onsen tamago, you cook the egg with the shell on in order to achieve a flimsy egg-white texture, similar to custard.

Jasmine, from Seoul in South Korea, made a tutorial video on Instagram showing her followers how to cook the perfect onsen tamago egg.

“These are soo easy to make and I like to have a bunch of these in the fridge for me to use throughout the week,” she wrote in the social media caption.

“My favourite way to eat this is with rice, kewpie mayo and hot chili sauce. It’s so simple but so satisfying.”

Ingredients and Utensils

You need:

Eggs

A deep pan

Cool water

Boiling water

Onsen tamago can be eaten in many different ways - on top of noodles, on top of rice and by itself. Photo / Getty Images

Method

Add enough water into your pan so that the eggs are completely submerged and bring the water to a boil.

Once the water is bubbling, turn off the stove and pour the cool water into the pan with your eggs.

The eggs should be left to soak in the pan for around 11-15 minutes before you take them off of the stove.

Once you’ve removed the eggs, let them cool for five minutes.

Heat up your frying pan again and spray/pour some cooking oil on the base.

When you crack the eggs open into the frying pan, they should be somewhat boiled with a runny yolk and intact white.

Continue cooking and flipping the egg over until your yolk is the consistency that you want.

Serve, season and bon appétit

Loads of people have watched the video online and have tried their luck at the Japanese egg, with many exclaiming how easy it is to cook.

“I made these today,’ a woman wrote on Instagram, accompanied with a photo of her tasty lunch. ‘They’re so delicious!”

“I’ve always struggled with poached eggs - I can’t believe I never tried partially boiling them first! Genius.”