If you’ve ever struggled to cook a hard-boiled egg, science is now offering the perfect solution to your woes.
A process known as “periodic cooking” promises the perfect boiled egg, with the yolk and white of the egg both ending up evenly cooked. Even better, this method of cooking might leave the egg with a higher nutritional content.
Details about the method — which were published in the journal Communications Engineering — underscore that the difficulty of boiling an egg stems from the fact that the white of an egg cooks at 85 degrees Celsius (185 degrees Fahrenheit) while the yolk cooks at 65 degrees Celsius (149 degrees Fahrenheit).
To get around this conundrum, the periodic cooking method involves moving an egg from a pan of boiling water at 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit) into a bowl kept at 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).
The transfer process is then repeated back and forth every two minutes for 32 minutes.
According to a summary of the researchers’ findings:
“Periodically-cooked eggs had a soft yolk similar to that of a sous vide egg, while the consistency of the white was somewhere between that of sous vide and soft-boiled.”
Using this method, the yolk remains at a constant temperature and cooks to a creamy texture. Study author Emilia Di Lorenzo from the University of Naples Federico II told the Associated Press that “you can almost spread it, like on bread.”
The researchers also placed periodically cooked eggs under a chemical analysis that found that the eggs contained higher levels of micronutrients known as polyphenols.
Using periodic cooking to prepare eggs also helps preserve amino acids, which are useful for building proteins in the body.
Registered dietitian Micah Siva — who was not involved with the study — told CNN that cooking food is “incredibly scientific,” so she’s not surprised that adjusting the cooking temperature can yield a more appetizing boiled egg.
Still, she questioned the real-world value of periodic cooking:
“Most people struggle to get a meal on the table and are looking for shortcuts … not a way to fuss over something as simple as a boiling egg.”
Add a Comment