There’s A New Way To Cook The Perfect Egg – It’s Not How You Think

Boiling an egg feels like walking a tightrope: misjudge it by just a fraction and you’ll end up with either a snot-like undercooked white or a miserable, dry yolk. Fortunately, a team of scientists has finally cracked it, developing a novel method to cook all parts of an egg to perfection.

The major drawback to this supposedly foolproof technique is that it’s an absolute faff, and consists of transferring an egg between a pan of boiling water and a bowl of lukewarm water every two minutes for a total of 32 minutes. Let’s be honest, you’ve gotta be a bit of an egghead to spend that much time and effort tweaking the consistency of your breakfast.

Outlining their triumph in a new study, the researchers begin by explaining that egg cooks are faced with one insurmountable problem – namely the “two-phase structure” of an egg, whereby the white (or albumen) and yolk cook at different temperatures. Specifically, the proteins in egg white become denatured at 85°C (185°F), while the yolk requires a temperature of just 65°C (149°F).

Research into a potential solution for this conundrum remains embryonic, which is why the study authors decided to get technical. Using computational fluid dynamics software, they found that by repeatedly transferring an egg between water baths at temperatures of 100°C and 30°C (212°F and 86°F), they were able to maintain the temperature within the yolk at 67°C (152.6°F) for 32 minutes.

“This peculiar thermal profile allows for optimal cooking of the egg in all its parts,” write the researchers.

Labeling their method “periodic cooking”, the eggs-perimentors then compared the textures of eggs prepared using this long-winded technique to hard- and soft-boiled eggs, as well as those cooked in a warm water bath for an hour – a process known as sous vide. Results indicated that hard-boiling an egg for 12 minutes results in a uniform temperature of 100°C (212°F) in all parts, leading to a well-cooked white while transforming the yolk into an undesirable “solid paste”.

On the other hand, soft-boiling for six minutes leaves the yolk undercooked, while sous vide provides a nice creamy yolk but runny white. 

“This problem appears to be overcome with the periodic cooking technique because the use of the cycles helps to reach a higher temperature in the albumen, allowing for further cooking and setting, while still maintaining the creamy consistency of the yolk,” write the study authors. “This detail is what makes it possible to have a runny, creamy yolk with a nicely set albumen when using the periodic cooking technique, differently from what happens with other cooking methods,” they continue.

To prove that it’s worth going to all that trouble for the perfect egg, the team then used Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry to analyze the chemical composition of eggs cooked using each of the four methods. Overall, periodic cooking resulted in the highest concentration of a class of molecules known as polyphenols.

Noting that “a diet rich in polyphenols appears to be protective and prevent the onset of several diseases,” the researchers conclude that we should dedicate more than half an hour to each egg we cook.

Or you can just scramble them.

The study is published in the journal Communications Engineering.

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