Shadowing Practice: Every Way To Cook an Egg - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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There are so many different ways to prepare an egg, and it can be hard to choose, which is why I'm going to show you every different way to cook an egg.
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Before I touch any eggs, I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
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I don't really like eggs.
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We're going to do this anyway.
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We're starting off simple with boiled eggs.
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I'll do soft, then medium, then hard.
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And what makes this very simple is that they all cook in the same way, just with different timings.
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As I drop them in, notice that I'm being super, super careful.
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I'm not throwing the eggs in like a basketball.
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I'm slowly lowering them down and laying them right on the bottom of my pot.
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And then immediately we want to start our timer.
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Since the fully hard-boiled egg is going to take 10 minutes, I'll set the timer to 10, but the very first eggs we'll pull are those soft-boiled eggs at five minutes.
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While our eggs are cooking, we need to prep an ice bath.
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The reason we need an ice bath is to quickly stop the cooking process because when anything comes off the heat, it's going to continue cooking,
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and the eggs are so sensitive and delicate that we need to shock them right away with this cold bath.
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Our timer says they've been going for almost exactly five minutes, which means I can go ahead and pull the first two of our eggs.
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These should be perfectly soft-boiled.
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Now, if you want a medium boiled egg, those are going to take seven minutes.
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So we'll wait a bit more for those to finish up.
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Exactly seven minutes, so these can come out, which means our medium boiled eggs are done.
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At this point here, we don't want these to cook much more, so that cold water is going to do the opposite of what our boiling water was doing.
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And when our timer goes off, those hard-boiled eggs should be done as well.
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Once we've waited a couple minutes for our eggs to cool down, I'm going to show you what all of these different eggs should look like on the inside.
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Here we have our soft boiled eggs, then our medium, and then our hard.
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First, for our soft boiled eggs, the white should be set, but that yolk inside should be nice and runny.
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These ones are much more delicate, so to open this one, I'll crack all the way around the egg and then take off his little hat, and if I scoop inside,
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you should see this beautiful runny yolk with that egg white set all throughout.
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What's really fun with an egg like this is you can kind of mix it up in its own shell.
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And if you finish it with just a touch of salt and a little fresh cracked pepper, you've got this beautiful, almost fluffy, frothy, yolky bite.
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For medium boiled eggs, the outside is going to be set, but the inside is going to be that nice jammy yolk that you see all over social media.
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One thing I love is that everybody has a different method of cracking open their eggs.
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I like to get one big piece off all at once.
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Now, if we slice in, you should see that we have this beautiful, squishy, jammy yolk in the middle, and a nice, soft, squishy white on the outside.
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And this, for me, is one of my favorite ways to cook and eat an egg.
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I'm going to open our second one and see if it's any better.
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There's something so satisfying about cooking the perfect medium-boiled egg.
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A hard-boiled egg needs no introduction.
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These are probably the easiest of the three to cook.
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If you've boiled it for longer than that 10-minute mark, the full egg should be firm and set.
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When I cut this one open, we should have a fully set yolk, and the white will be firmer.
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I'd describe it even as a touch rubbery.
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Ooh, look at that yolk.
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Moving on, I'm going to show you the simple art of poaching an egg.
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The first step is to your pot of boiling water, add just a splash of vinegar.
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What the vinegar does is helps your egg keep a nice shape while it cooks.
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I'll start by cracking an egg into a fine mesh strainer and as you can see, when I roll it around, we'll lose a little bit of that extra egg white.
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This here is an optional step, but it will give you cleaner poached eggs.
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The next step is is to create a little vortex in your pot of boiling water.
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Once you get a nice little vortex going, quickly and carefully drop your egg into the center and let it swirl around.
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What that vortex is doing is spinning and keeping the egg right in the center, which working together with the vinegar is going to hold everything together to get us a nice clean poached egg.
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After about two to three minutes, you can start thinking about pulling out your poached egg.
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My favorite way to check if it's done is to just poke where that yolk is, and if it's nice and soft and squishy, and the white looks like it's firm enough, then it's done.
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The last little step some people do is trim off those extra little bits to make it look a little bit cleaner.
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And then you have yourself a beautiful poached egg.
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My favorite way to enjoy poached eggs is eggs benedict.
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I've been making this ever since I was a kid.
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I think it is one of the best breakfast foods out there.
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Oh my gosh, it looks so good.
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I'll finish these off with a touch of smoked paprika.
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And then, because it's my favorite herb, just a few little bits of fresh dill.
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The moment I know you've all been waiting for.
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It doesn't matter who you are.
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You can't not love that.
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Don't look at me like I'm crazy, but this is how I eat my eggs benedict.
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I basically don't want to see anything except for hollandaise sauce.
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Now it's ready to eat.
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One of the most classic ways to cook eggs at home is also over easy, over medium, or over hard.
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When a lot of people wake up in the morning and think to make some eggs, they think of making them like that.
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I'm going to start off with over easy, and the first step is just a nice bit of butter.
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I think that butter, as opposed to oil, gives better flavor to a fried egg.
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I'll start by cracking the egg super close to the base of the pan.
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Then, because over easy cooks very fast, I'll quickly hit it with a touch of salt and a bit of fresh cracked pepper.
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And once that egg white on the bottom has set, quickly go under it with your spatula and give it a nice gentle flip.
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After just a few quick moments on that other side, our egg is done.
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For over medium, it's the same exact thing as over easy, but we're going to leave it just a few moments longer.
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Egg goes in, then we'll hit it with a nice pinch of salt, fresh cracked pepper.
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And once Once that's cooked for about a minute to a minute and a half on one side, shimmy your spatula right under it and give it a nice careful flip.
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The goal with our over medium egg is to have the inside of the yolk have just that right amount of gooeyness, while the outside of the yolk is more firmly set.
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Once the yolk starts to give just a bit of resistance, we can go ahead and take it off the heat.
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Now finally, for over hard, I'll crack my egg right into the center of my pan.
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As always, remember to hit it with just a nice pinch of salt, then the same with the pepper.
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We've cooked it for about two to three minutes on one side over medium heat.
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Go ahead and give it a confident flip.
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If you don't want a broken yolk on your egg, it's important to just leave it for a few moments after you've flipped it over.
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Then, once we know that yolk has set, it's okay to reposition it.
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Once you've cooked it for another two to three minutes on that side, you can go ahead and take it off the heat.
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Over easy, over medium, and over hard.
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When I cut through the over easy, you should see that there is a perfect yolk right in the center.
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Look at all that yolkiness.
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For the over medium, when I cut in, there should be just a touch of yolk in the center if I press down.
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And if you've timed it properly, the yolk should look something like this.
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A little bit firm to the touch on the outsides, but still with a bit of yolk.
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And finally, over hard.
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If you like your eggs over hard, I don't know what to tell you.
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It's sort of like liking a well-done steak.
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An egg shouldn't sound like that.
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I'm all for those nice crispy edges that you get when you cook it for a bit longer, but why would anybody want to cook an egg like that?
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Normally, I would never do this.
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The only good part is the crust.
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This is not right.
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This is not how you should cook an egg.
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Sunny side up eggs are I think a really fun way to cook eggs.
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We'll start our pan over medium heat
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and add in just a touch of butter
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but then in this pan I'm going to add a bit more butter
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because I like my sunny side up eggs with some brown butter.
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You could try to do it all in the same pan but that timing is a little bit tricky.
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Now into the center of my pan I'll crack my egg then I'll turn down the heat a bit lower
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and add on a lid.
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You can see immediately that lid fogging up just a little bit
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which will help to sort of steam the top of the whites.
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After literally 30 to 45 seconds, you'll see that all the whites on the outside of our egg should be fully set.
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And that top yolk in the middle is perfect.
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Over here, I'm just going to give my brown butter a little shake.
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And while that finishes up, I'll bring my egg over to my plate.
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We'll add a little bit of chili oil or chili crisp.
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That is art.
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I should auction this egg.
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And once my butter is nice and brown, I'll add in some of that brown butter foam, being careful not to touch the yolk.
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And that's it.
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You could either say it looks like a mess or you could say it looks perfect, but that is my favorite way to eat a sunny set up egg.
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Delicious.
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It tastes really good, but I think it looks even better than it tastes.
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Maybe I do like eggs.
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I've got a very simple method for scrambled eggs.
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I'm going to make mine with three eggs, and we start by simply cracking all three eggs into a cold nonstick pan.
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It's very important that you make sure the pan is nonstick.
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Next, before doing anything else, grab a few bits of butter, then cut it up into a few small cubes and add this to your pan.
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We'll turn the heat to medium-low and then begin stirring.
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You may have seen Gordon Ramsay do a method for eggs like this before.
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The way it all happens from here is stirring 30 seconds on the heat, then 30 seconds off, but still keeping that flame on so we have it ready when we need to go back.
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And it basically prevents overcooking so your scrambled eggs don't become rubbery.
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As you stir, keep a timer in your head.
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30 seconds on, then 30 seconds off.
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Always making sure to scrape We wipe every part of the
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pan at any given moment to make sure no egg sits in one place for too long.
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What we're basically doing right now is breaking apart all of
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those egg curds to give us a very silky smooth final product.
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I know this might look like overkill, but in reality it only really takes a couple minutes and after trying a lot of different types of scrambled eggs, this one is by far my favorite.
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You can see now that the eggs are starting to clump up just a bit.
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So at this point we'll go back and forth a few more times, but have to be ready to season.
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To season our eggs, I'll go in with a touch of salt.
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The reason we don't add it earlier is because it can mess with the structure of the eggs, just a touch of fresh cracked pepper, and my secret ingredient, chicken bouillon powder.
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This is a trick from my grandfather who didn't cook much but got me to fall in love with good scrambled eggs.
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It adds this incredible umami creaminess and I still use the exact brand that he always used.
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Once we've added those seasonings, back onto the heat where we'll stir it up just a little bit more
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and this is the point where we can really let those eggs start to set.
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I like to serve my scrambled eggs when they're still just a bit glossy
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because remember these are still going to cook as they sit on the plate.
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If you have creme fraiche and you want to add a bit of extra creaminess at the end, fold just a touch of creme fraiche into your eggs with that seasoning.
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But otherwise, just to keep them nice and fancy, I like to top them off with just a few chives.
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And those are my grandpa's scrambled eggs.
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Some would say the most difficult type of egg to prepare is the classic French omelette.
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If you follow a few simple steps, it's really not as bad as it looks.
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If you're trying to make one omelette, three eggs into a bowl, notice how I'm whisking with a fork instead of a regular whisk because a whisk would give us too many air bubbles.
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Then we'll turn our burner to medium-low heat.
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We want this process to be nice and slow.
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And then add in one or two small squares of butter.
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And in goes our egg all at once.
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Working quickly, similar to making those scrambled eggs, we want to start scraping the sides of our pan to make sure
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that no bits of eggs sit in the same place for too long.
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The key here is to cook all of the eggs slowly and evenly.
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And if you need to move your pan off the heat once in a while to make that happen, then do that.
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Notice how I'm constantly scraping right up against the sides of the pan to keep nice clean edges on my omelet.
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Back on the heat, keep stirring constantly.
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Try to think of it like you want to cook every
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little bit of egg in here the exact same amount of time.
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And as it gets later in the process, what I'm looking for now is how jiggly the egg is on top.
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Making a perfect French omelet takes a lot of patience.
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Part of you is just going to want to turn up the heat and just finish the egg, but it's important that you wait and take it slow.
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Now that there's barely any jiggle on the top of the egg here.
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I'm going to move the pan around on the flame to get the pan right above those areas
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that have the most jiggle to try to fully set that egg.
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And now is your time to add in any toppings or perhaps just a bit of seasoning to finish up your omelet.
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If we can fix that last little bit of jiggle on the top here, we are ready to roll.
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Turn off the heat, get your plate, and then ever so carefully with your spatula, begin to fold that egg up and over itself and eventually onto your plate.
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Then to finish it off, keep it simple.
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Just a few chives sprinkled carefully over the top and your french omelet is complete.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Every Way To Cook an Egg”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: egg, yolk, cook, pan, medium. This video has 109 sentences and 2770 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:01. The speaker talks fast, about 251 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| egg noun | /ɛɡ/ | An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, often housing an embryo within a membrane or shell… |
| boil verb | /bɔɪ(ə)l/ | To heat to the point where it begins to turn into a gas. |
| crack noun | /kɹæk/ | A thin and usually jagged space opened in a previously solid material. |
| butter noun | /ˈbʌtɚ/ | A soft, fatty foodstuff made by churning the cream of milk (generally cow's milk). |
| pepper noun | /ˈpɛp.ə/ | A plant of the family Piperaceae. |
| stir verb | /stɝ/ | To disturb the relative position of the particles (of a liquid or similar) by passing an object through it. |
| timer noun | /ˈtaɪmɚ/ | A device used to measure amounts of time. |
| flip verb | /flɪp/ | To throw so as to turn over. |
| carefully adverb | /ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/ | With care; attentively, circumspectly. |
| bath noun | /bɑːθ/ | A tub or pool which is used for bathing: bathtub. |
| sunny adjective | /ˈsʌni/ | Featuring a lot of sunshine. |
| vinegar noun | /ˈvɪnəɡɚ/ | A sour liquid formed by the fermentation of alcohol used as a condiment or preservative; a dilute solution of acetic acid. |
| fold verb | /ˈfəʊld/ | To bend (any thin material, such as paper) over so that it comes in contact with itself. |
| flame noun | /fleɪm/ | The visible part of fire; a stream of burning vapour or gas, emitting light and heat. |
| delicate adjective | /ˈdɛl.ɪ.kət/ | Easily damaged or requiring careful handling. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| finish up verb | To complete the last details of a task. | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| break apart verb | To dismantle something into its base components. | |
| come off verb | To become detached. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| cool down verb | /kuːl ˈdaʊn/ | To become cooler; to be reduced in temperature. |
| cut through verb | To take a shortcut through. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I don't really like eggs.
- We're going to do this anyway.
- We're starting off simple with boiled eggs.
- I'll do soft, then medium, then hard.
- I'm not throwing the eggs in like a basketball.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | they've been going · I've been making |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've waited · you've boiled · has set |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are done · should be done · should be set |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | choose, which is · minutes, which means · out, which means |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 73 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, I'll, we'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: bath /bɑːθ/, smooth /smuːð/, grandfather /ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌfɑðɚ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shock /ʃɔk/, shell /ʃɛl/, shake /ˈʃeɪk/, auction /ˈɔkʃən/, patience /ˈpeɪ̯.ʃəns/
- Long words — get the stress right: ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, preposition /ˌpɹɛpəˈzɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like egg, boil, crack.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.