I've recently made a couple of trips to the London area, and I've had a terrible time trying to convince the hotel breakfast cooks that I want my eggs fried "over hard", meaning that both the white and the yolk are cooked until solid.
It may just be that the cooks were not native English speakers, but I'm wondering whether this is a term used in American English but not in British English.
Is there a good way to express this in the UK?
There's no word for this as such; in the UK 'fried eggs' always means 'sunny-side up', some places will understand 'over easy' but that's the limit of what is common knowledge.
Something like "I don't want the yolks runny" Or "I want the yolks cooked through" should do the trick.
This is anecdotal, as I can't find any references to this. When they understand you, ask them what they would call it!
I'm a Brit who prefers fried eggs hard. There isn't a usual British English name for that, because it's an unusual preference here. I ask for them "Hard-fried, so that the yolks are solid" and that usually works.
Any variety of "over" in the description of a fried egg in the UK risks confusion. Many people know it is an American way of cooking eggs, but are unsure what it means, and may improvise.
As an alternative to the other answers, you could ask for your egg to be fried with a "hard yolk". This is how I usually phrase this request.
It will usually be understood because hard / soft are commonly used in reference to boiled eggs: "hard boiled egg" vs "soft boiled egg".
Whether or not your request will actually be honoured is another matter! In my experience the chef will often just cook it the way he usually does (whether that means soft or hard). Perhaps because it's unusual for customers to be selective. I've never come across anyone except myself who specifies how they want their yolk in a fried egg.
According to the article The Importance of Serving a British Breakfast in Caterer & Hotelkeeper (which is a British journal):
At our hotel, for example, we offer a full-choice British breakfast. The senior chef cooks the dishes himself and shares with us a special pride in its high quality.
We try never to serve a hard fried egg, except on request; scrambled eggs are cooked fresh to order...
Ask for 'well done and turned over'. That's my taste as well. It gets me what I want.
‘Over hard’
is what I would call
‘Turned’ (over) and well-cooked.
Some answers and comments above refer to fried eggs being flipped. ‘Flipping’, in my experience, involves flicking hot fat from around a sunny-side up egg onto both the white and the yolk. Although, for many people, 'flipping' a fried egg means to turn it upside down (i.e. yolk downwards), the idea of flipping hot oil onto a frying egg is supported by the OED. It is also a usage I grew up with.
Flip - A smart stroke or blow; A sudden jerk or movement; To put into motion with a flip (OED).
I like my eggs sunny side up and flipped (i.e. white is made firm, not slimy, while the yolk remains runny). If I suspect that (the hot oil) flipping will be substandard (i.e. there will still be slime) - and it's something of a UK speciality to fry eggs too fast so the underside of the white verges on crisp while the upper side of the white and the yolk have a generous film of uncooked slime - then I ask for my eggs to be turned ("over easy" ?).
Even if you don't know a technical term for the way you want them cooked, you can always just be explicitly descriptive: "over, but cooked until the center is solid", or something similar.
"Over well" is the alternative to "over hard," but whether anyone (especially the people in the kitchen) would understand it is an open question.
