I’ve been on an egg kick lately, so Jim’s post about eggs in a basket came at the perfect time to introduce a recurring Salt & Fat feature: our experiences cooking each other’s recipes. Call it peer review, double-checking, self-commenting. You’ve read Jim’s post, right? Good!

First note: I don’t actually own a cast-iron pan. Yes, they’re just grand at cooking, heavy and rugged and manly. But I’m too lazy to clean them the long way. So I compromise and wield a blue steel pan, which is also heavy and nonstick, but completely smooth and so easier to wipe. It doesn’t replace cast iron completely; hey, I’m not a fan of upside-down pineapple cake anyway.

In the pan went the butter and hazelnut bread, then eggs followed by fumee de sel (smoked salt). I like my eggs very runny and my toast pretty dark, so next time I’ll let the toast do its thing for a minute, flip it, and then break the eggs.

I should mention that Christa, my better half, dislikes yolks, so I made her an egg-white-only version. You’ll definitely want to flip the whole thing there since egg whites cook so unevenly (the bottom burns quickly, the top stays liquid forever.)

Normally I’m not a fan of seedy, grainy bread, but this was a perfect pairing. A drizzle of truffle oil over the whole thing, a side of breakfast sausage and hot-sauced kewpie mayo, and brother, what a breakfast. Thanks, Jim.