Vocabulary: egg dish

Also spelled omelet (AmE). From French. Common fillings: cheese, ham, mushrooms, herbs, peppers. Chinese: 歐姆蛋.

• a dish of beaten eggs cooked in a pan until set, typically folded around a filling

  He made a mushroom and cheese omelette for breakfast.

Also called "preserved egg" or "thousand-year egg" (despite the name, preservation actually takes only weeks to months). Made by curing duck, chicken, or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, and quicklime, which turns the yolk dark green/gray and the white into a dark, gelatinous jelly.

• a Chinese preserved egg with a dark, jelly-like white and greenish-gray yolk (Chinese 皮蛋)

  The congee was topped with sliced century egg.

Usually treated as plural. Low heat and constant stirring keep them soft and creamy.

• eggs beaten and stirred in a pan as they cook into soft curds (Chinese 炒蛋)

  She made fluffy scrambled eggs with a little butter.

Cracking the shell before steeping lets the dark, spiced liquid marble the white.

• a boiled egg cracked and steeped in tea, soy sauce, and spices, giving a marbled pattern (Chinese 茶葉蛋)

  Convenience stores in Taiwan sell tea eggs right by the register.

The rich, grainy yolk is the prized part; often steamed and eaten with congee.

• a duck egg cured in brine or salted clay until the yolk turns firm, orange, and oily (Chinese 鹹鴨蛋)

  Salted duck egg yolk is used in mooncakes and zongzi.

See poach. The white sets around a soft, runny yolk; a little vinegar in the water helps it hold together.

• an egg cooked gently out of its shell in simmering water (Chinese 水波蛋)

  Eggs Benedict is built on a poached egg.

"Soft-boiled" = runny yolk; "hard-boiled" = fully set yolk.

• an egg cooked in its shell in boiling water (Chinese 水煮蛋)

  A soft-boiled egg has a runny yolk.

"Sunny-side up" = not flipped; "over easy/medium/hard" = flipped, with the yolk increasingly set.

• an egg cooked in a pan with little stirring, so the white sets around a whole yolk (Chinese 煎蛋; sunny-side up 荷包蛋)

  He fried an egg sunny-side up for breakfast.