What is the best way to cook a perfect egg with a soft yolk? Five to six minutes in boiling water is the simple answer. An hour and a half at 65 degrees, say chefs who are involved in molecular cooking. Italian researchers are now coming in Communications Engineering With a new method that they call ‘periodic cooking’.
The problem of eggs is that there are different proteins in egg yolk and protein, the molecules of which lose their structure at different temperatures. The yolk is cooked at a lower temperature than the protein. That makes it so difficult to perfectly cook an egg. Where ‘perfect’ stands for an egg that yolk and protein are just as tender and creamy.
With short cooking, the heat reaches the yolk too late to become just as cooked as the protein. But if you cook the egg until the yolk has solidified, the protein becomes somewhat rubbery. Cooking sous-video, long-term yarn at low temperature, does not solve that. Because 85 degrees is ideal for the protein and 65 degrees for the yolk. So how do you achieve the optimum temperature for both parts without first taking the egg apart, the researchers wondered.
Vary with the temperature
This created the idea to vary with the temperature of the water. With in mind that the temperature in the yolk, in the middle of the egg, changes less quickly than the temperature in the protein, closer to the heat source.
What they had calculated in computer models was indeed about to happen when they started cooking eggs.
Two immersion pools were made: one with boiling water (100 ° C) and one with water of 30 °. The eggs changed the bath every two minutes, from hot to cold, a total of 32 minutes. The temperature in the protein varied from 30 ° to 100 °, while the yolk reached a constant temperature of 67 °.
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Change more evenly
With a technique with which they could identify molecular changes, the researchers also saw the influence of different cooking techniques on the protein structure. For example, they found that the different proteins change more evenly in shape with periodic cooking than simply cooking and that the nutritional value of the egg was better preserved.
The researchers think it is a successful experiment. Not only because they have succeeded in cooking a perfect egg in their eyes. But also because their method may be more widely applicable, especially in the food industry.
Whether the ‘perfect’ egg from the Italian experiment is also the favorite egg of lovers of a cooked egg is the question. Some swear by a tough, crumbly yolk. And for other people nothing goes over a soft -boiled egg with soldiers (strips of toasted bread), with solid protein and a running yolk.