One of my greatest culinary achievements was borne out of necessity. I was in a late-morning haze and needed sustenance, and I found some leftover chana masala and some rice in the fridge. While the rice and curry was heating in the microwave (stay classy, self), I fried an egg in pan coated (OK, drenched) in butter. I brightened things up a bit with a cautious squirt of hot sauce and then gently slid the fried egg on top of the bowl. It was one of the best hangover cures I've ever cobbled together.
I've got eggs on the brain because of the choose-your-own-adventure recipe generator Mark Bittman put together in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine. In it, a reader can start at the top of a graphic and pick a base from ham, toast, cooked spinach or others, and descend like a haphazard Plinko chip through cooking methods and finishing ingredients, ending in a custom-made meal. I'd go with black beans topped with a fried egg and finished with roast chilies and guacamole if I had all those things lying around.
At one point a burger topped with an egg seemed like an act of supreme decadence. Now a burger without an egg seems incomplete. I'm wondering if actress Clara Peller, made popular in those mid-'80s Wendy's commercials, would now be asking, "Where's the yolk?" if she were with us today. Eggs might be taking over the world.
I've seen eggs on salads, eggs on sandwiches, eggs on steaks, eggs on rice bowls, and while I don't think eggs are quite as versatile as Sriracha, I'm hard pressed to come up with a long list of things eggs shouldn't go on.
In fact, as popular as the below Portlandia skit was, it could have been so much better. They should have adorned everything with eggs.