February 26, 2010
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success!
A while back, I had posted that the one food item I had never figured out was the (perfect) soft-boiled egg.. I’d run into many problems of various kinds every time I attempted them in the past.. But now, I finally figured it out! The problem was that I was focusing on the wrong variable.. The perfect soft-boiled egg is not primarily about how long to cook the egg, it’s about the right temperature for the water. You need to get the water to the temperature where the whites will harden, but the yolk will not fully cook.. I’m not sure what that temperature is, but I believe it’s somewhere between 80 and 90C. I have a handy digital meat thermometer which can help in measuring the water temp (which was very inexpensive). Get the water to around the right temp, then carefully place the eggs in the water, and then give it “adequate time” to cook (I cooked them for about 8 minutes, which worked fine).
Now, to figure out the right temperature exactly.
update – found this page which is interesting:
http://www.edinformatics.com/math_science/science_of_cooking/cooking_temperatures.htm(and also yes, I meant between 80 and 90C, though it seems doesn’t even need to be that high, and can probably be around 63 or 65C – though that’s questionable from a safety perspective).
Comments (5)
funny, i just made some hard boiled eggs. haha.
i find though that when i’ve put the egg in after the water has boiled, the egg tends to crack. does that happen to you?
@searchingfortreasures -
Yes, that was one of the problems I’ve had as well in the past. I think what I did that resolves that problem is this:
1) Let the water reach a boil
2) Lower the heat on the water, so that it is not even quite simmering (just at/under boiling)
3) Carefully place eggs in the water
I think if you are going for hard boiled, maybe at that point you turn up the heat, but make sure it doesn’t reach a “rolling boil” at any time, just barely simmering.. A quick search online hints that water begins to simmer around 95C, which is definitely more than enough to cook an egg to hard boil an egg.
oh, apparently salting the water can help with this as well. I salt the water myself, though that may have several effects (it should theoretically change the boiling point a little bit as well).
I had to look up what a soft-boiled egg even was! You have expanded my egg horizons.
nice… a yummy skill…