I love eggs in any shape or form (though I prefer to start with ones that are egg-shaped). I suppose we all have our own ways of cooking them. I like soft-boiled eggs mushed up on buttered toast but I love cold hard-boiled ones at picnics. For the mix for an egg sandwich (always called egg butties in our house), I boil them until they still just about have a slightly runny middle, then chop them up painstakingly before mixing generously with mayo. I fry eggs in butter, never anything else. I have a glass lid that fits my small frying pan and I just put in the eggs on a medium heat, put the lid on and leave them to it. No basting required, then I don't waste the butter, using it to fry a slice or two of bread whilst keeping the eggs warm. Butter has become astronomically expensive here in the last few weeks.

I cook omelettes on one side only in butter, until there's just a touch of runniness left, then add whatever (cheese usually), fold it over and leave in the pan for a minute. Scrambled, I pour the mix into a nonstick frying pan of hot butter then almost immediately turn the heat off whilst braking everything up with a spatula. They must be very soft and almost runny for me. Half a minute too long and you have rubber shavings, very disappointing.

For omelettes and scrambled, my three golden rules are:

Three eggs per person
Don't overdo the beating
No milk, just salt 'n' pepper

I've been messing about recently trying to get nice poached eggs. I use a non-stick frying pan with water at least an inch deep that is just gently simmering. No salt, no vinegar, none of that daft swirling of the water. I just slide in the eggs one at a time. I found I can do three at the same time, though I tweak the heat to keep the simmer going. It's hard to know exactly when they're done but two or three minutes seems about right. I then put them on a sheet of kitchen towel on a warm plate to dry them a bit so that they don't make my toast soggy.