Fried Egg Porn, On A Horse

One of my favorite treats as a kid was so simple it is almost laughable. The dish that sent an electric charge up and down my spine and tickled my tummy was simply white rice topped with a fried egg.

This is a simple pleasure that works to this day. Fluffy, buttery rice topped with an egg, with slightly crispy edges and a runny yolk that gives the resulting mixture a heavenly, savory creaminess (rich and velvety). In terms of seasoning, a pinch of salt and pepper is sufficient.

The dish, called huevos montao’ a caballo (roughly eggs riding a horse, but mostly it means riding saddle). All my grandmother had to say was a caballo and I’d fly to the table!

I wasn’t a particularly finicky eater – mostly because there was no such thing in her house, you ate what she gave you or you ate it once it got cold but you did not dictate the menu in her house, especially if you were under three feet tall.

She was concerned that I wouldn’t eat the eggs because she was feeding me eggs every day. I had iron deficiency anemia and this is what the doctor ordered. So I had eggs at least twice a day for quite some time. I was not consistent in my love of the soft-boiled egg – sometimes pushing them and her away and rejecting the very idea (but I suspect this owed more to her heavy-handedness with the salt shaker).

I never, ever rejected anything a caballo.

Of course, I always assumed my grandmother invented a caballo, but I know better as an adult. The trend has returned with a vengeance and there is not a week that goes by that I do not find some food blog with some comfort food with a fried egg on top of it – from veggies to pasta to meats and fish to pastas and grains. The hamburger with the fried egg I saw a couple of weeks ago left me breathless and a little nostalgic.

It is not a new thing, no matter how they try to sell it to you and it is not exclusive to one culture or another:

Brazilians do it over steak.

The French adorn a ham and cheese with a fried egg and call it a Croque Madame.

Germans top schnitzel with sunny side up eggs.

Indonesians make nasi goreng, fried egg over stir-fried rice.

Koreans serve it over kimchi fried rice or bokkeumba.

There is a Moroccan delicacy called kefta tagine that consists of lamb meatballs and a fried egg.

Spaniards serve over rice and tomato sauce. (And Mami did a variation of rice, stewed cod, and then fried egg.)

The Taiwanese make cong you ban mian, flash fried scallions over noodles topped sunny side up.

I’ve seen them over noodles and in pizza! On top of some hash. Over beans in a tortilla, and on a leafy salad!! In a cup made from bacon. Over spinach or asparagus. Over French fries!!! 

And for you fans of “Moonstruck”, there’s the ever lovely eggs-in-a-hole that Italian Americans make to lure us into their crazy breakfasts!

Doesn’t matter how you fry your egg, it’s pure comfort, baby! Comfort and (food) porn.


UPDATE: If you enjoyed this article and the recipes in it, you can link to its companion piece, a dedicated Pinterest board you can refer to any time.

https://www.pinterest.com/amapolapress/food-goddess-fried-egg/