White miso is one of those ingredients that makes everything taste more like itself — richer, deeper, with a low-grade umami that you can't quite identify but absolutely feel. Blended into softened butter and spread on hot toast, it transforms what would be a good breakfast into a great one. The 7-minute egg is non-negotiable: fully set white, yolk that's jammy and just starting to set at the edges but still liquid and golden in the centre. Time it exactly.
Method
Cook the jammy eggs
Bring a small saucepan of water to a full boil. Lower the eggs in gently using a spoon — straight from the fridge is fine, and actually preferable for timing precision. Set a timer for exactly 7 minutes. While they cook, prepare an ice bath: a bowl with cold water and a handful of ice.
Fridge-cold eggs need exactly 7 minutes. Room temperature eggs need 6:30. Know your eggs.
Make the miso butter
While the eggs cook, mix softened butter and white miso paste together in a small bowl until completely smooth and uniform. It should look like pale, slightly beige butter with no streaks of miso visible. If your butter is cold, microwave for 10 seconds first.
Toast and butter
When the timer goes off, transfer eggs immediately to the ice bath. Toast the sourdough to deep golden — you want real colour here, not pale. Spread miso butter immediately over the hot toast. The heat melts the butter right into the bread and activates the miso in a way you don't get with cold butter.
Peel, halve, finish
After 2 minutes in the ice bath, gently peel the eggs — the white should be firm, the yolk should look deep orange and jammy when you halve them. Place on toast, cut-side up. Finish with a good pinch of flaky salt, toasted sesame seeds, and spring onion.
Mike's notes
This is one of those recipes that scales beautifully — make a batch of miso butter (it keeps in the fridge for two weeks) and you can have this breakfast in the time it takes to boil the eggs.
Variations worth trying: a drizzle of chilli crisp over the top, or swap the spring onion for a few torn basil leaves. Both work. The miso butter is also excellent stirred into pasta, spread on corn, or melted over roasted vegetables.