The Perfect Way to Make an Egg
Eggs are an abundant ingredient in many dishes that people cook in many ways, from the common hard boiled to the recently used sous vide method. But these methods can either overcook or undercook the yolk or the egg white. The perfect egg would have a creamy, soft yolk and a tender but firm egg white. However, recently, a new method for creating eggs was made by a group of scientists. This discovery might seem like something from a science fiction movie, but cooking an egg is a big problem in thermodynamics and many other realms of chemistry and physics and even biology. So, what is the actual science behind cooking an egg?
The Science Behind Cooking an Egg
First, we need to know what an egg is. In simple terms, an egg is simply a safe storage space for animal babies, or in this case, chicks from a chicken. An egg is made up of 2 important parts called the albumen and the yolk. The albumen is the white part of any egg. The albumen consists of 90% water and 10% proteins. The yolk is the yellow part of the egg that contains most of the proteins from the egg.
When you boil an egg, you are causing a chemical reaction in the albumen and the yolk. These reactions are called coagulation, and this is how the boiled egg turns from a very watery mixture to a solid egg. In coagulation, the water starts evaporating from the egg due to the hot temperatures. This makes the proteins all alone in the heat. In this heat, these proteins bind together to make the egg that we eat.
However, as all chefs know, you could make a boiled egg with a liquid yolk or an overcooked albumen. This is because the chemical composition of the albumen and the yolk are very different, which makes these parts coagulate at very different temperatures. But scientists have discovered the recipe for a perfect egg using principles of thermodynamics, which is the study of how temperature affects systems like an egg. So, what is this method?
The Perfect Egg Made by Scientists
This method involves moving the egg between 2 cups of water at different temperatures called periodic cooking. Periodic cooking works by spreading heat all around the egg. Basically, when heat gets into contact with the egg's surface, it touches the outer layers, like the albumen but it does not reach the center of the egg or the yolk, which is why some badly prepared boiled eggs have a wet yolk but a firm egg white.
To fix this problem, periodic cooking makes sure that the heat actually spreads into the yolk by making the egg cooler, which allows the heat to transfer into the yolk without overcooking the albumen. This method also makes sure that the egg white and the egg yolk will become coagulated but not overcooked. This is because periodic cooking lets you control the heat that is entering the egg.
Step-by-Step Recipe for the Perfect Egg
Now that we know the way periodic cooking works, you might be wondering what this egg actually looks and tastes like. If you were wondering about that, then don't worry, because I have just followed the recipe for creating the perfect egg. For those of you who actually want to make the perfect egg at home, the recipe is very simple and only requires a stove, water, some eggs, a stopwatch, and preferably a thermometer to see if the water is at the right temperature. The recipe takes half an hour, and it goes as follows:
Boil a pot filled with water to 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then heat another pot of water to around 30 degrees Celsius or 85 degrees Fahrenheit. If you are off by a bit, then it's fine.
Place the eggs in the pot with boiling water. Start a stopwatch and wait for 2 minutes.
When 2 minutes are up, pick up the eggs and put them into the pot with the colder water. Wait 2 more minutes.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 seven more times
Once you are finished with step 5, pick up the eggs and peel the shell. Voila! You have made the perfect eggs using the power of periodic cooking.
This is the recipe that can be done in any household that we have certified to make the perfect egg. If you see an egg like this, you have actually won the prize for making the best egg in the world.
My Tasting Experience
As you can see in this image, the yolk is very opaque and orange, unlike a hard boiled egg, which has a solid yellow color as its yolk with some green on the edges. If you made the eggs and followed the recipe, you can feel that the albumen is very squishy. In my opinion, this reminds me of the eggs placed in Japanese noodles that I usually eat, although these are much better.
In terms of taste, the albumen is very chewy in your mouth, not hard unlike the eggs that I usually eat. On the other hand, the yolk is very soft and creamy because of the fat concentration. This is probably the best egg I have ever eaten, with no joke intended.
Why Perfect Eggs Matter
After reading through this newsletter, you might be wondering how this method of cooking eggs might help us solve the big problems in our world. Although scientists have not clearly specified a particular use case other than to spice up your cooking, I think that this project is useful in many ways, such as understanding how some polymers melt or how proteins react to different conditions. But only time will tell how this innovation will be useful.
In the meantime, you should subscribe to my newsletter to find out about how this innovation might be used in future experiments.
Bye! Have a day filled with smiles and eggs.