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As a father mainly at home and responsible for all meals of our household, I rely on a reserve of boiled eggs in the fridge – ready to be added to soups, salads, stews, sandwiches, stir-fries and tacos – as an essential part of my planning.
Years ago, in order to answer a recurring question: what is the best way to boil an egg? – I have developed a plan using the only method I know: lots of tests.
It was an effort of several decades. The series of tests that I conducted in various forms as a kitchen monkey at Cook's Illustrated magazine, as a recipe for the Serious Eats website and looking at my recipe book, produced good data, but none of them between them was definitive. Other experiences at home (weeks ago when my wife, Adri, asked me to stop serving egg salad for dinner) left unanswered questions and conflicting results .
Do older eggs really peel more easily? (Internet insists that they do it.) Can an ice bath prevent yolks? Is there anything that the instant pot can not do better? I just did not have enough data to say for sure.
With this in mind, for my first column on cooking and science for the New York Times, I decided to conduct my biggest egg peeling experience to date and I've finally found some answers.
Ninety-six volunteers went through my restaurant, Wursthall, in San Mateo, California, in August to peel and taste more than 700 eggs cooked by different methods, which, as evidenced by superficial online research, the biggest blind experience of boiling and peeling eggs in the history of the universe. (If someone from Guinness reads, I have a pretty bulky documentation.)
The eggs were graded and timed to determine ease of peeling, then examined for important defects (torn or torn whites) and small ones (slightly stung whites). Peeled eggs were tasted in pre-labeled, untagged, single-shot samples. When visual differences between the eggs could affect the judgment of the tasters, we blindfolded them.
For some experiments, such as a test to determine the amount of eggs from real hens raised at pasture, differ from those obtained with 15 dozens in a crate at Costco, I performed a triangular test. (We give three samples to the tester.One of them is different.His job is to tell us which one is different.)
All of these tests were double-blind, which meant that neither the test subjects nor administrators knew which eggs were which. Using the results, I devised some subsequent experiments for another day of testing before drawing any conclusions.
I have bad news: there is no way to guarantee peeled eggs 100% of the time. But if you can work with 87% or more, let's get down to business.
First of all, let me share my idea of a perfect boiled egg: it should be tender even when it is completely cooked. The white must not be rubbery, nor the yellow limestone or green. And most importantly, it should peel easily. There is little more frustration than watching a large patch of egg white dislodge as you scratch the shell clumsily.
Here's the real thing, which confirms the data I've been collecting for years: By far, the most important factor in determining whether or not a boiled egg cleanly peels is the temperature at which it starts to cook. When the eggs start in cold water, egg white proteins coagulate slowly, binding tightly to the inner membrane of the eggshell. The difference is night and day: cold water eggs have nearly nine times more fat defects and double the number of small defects.
There are two cooking methods on the stove that preheat a hot start and produce easy-to-peel eggs: boil and steam.
But taste tests showed that steamed eggs were softer than their cooked counterparts. Indeed, the steam is softer than boiling water, allowing eggs to cook without any trace of elasticity in the whites or chalk in the yellows. Cooking a steamed egg can take a minute longer than boiling, but you save time during preparation: Bringing an inch of water to a boil is much faster than bringing any a saucepan of water to boil.
After testing three of the most popular time and temperature combinations on the Instant Pot (ie a pressure cooker), I unfortunately can not recommend using it. It's not faster or easier than boiling eggs; eggs are not easier to peel; and the time required for various pressure cooker models to reach the cooking pressure (and thus start the countdown) can vary considerably, making the method unreliable.
In addition, the blindfolded tasters confirmed that the whites were significantly harder (with the same internal temperature of the yolk). This makes sense, given the high cooking temperature reached in a pressure cooker.
Also not recommended: the briefly popular technique of cooking eggs in their shells in a muffin pan.
Some variables had little or no effect. Adding small amounts of vinegar, baking soda or salt to your water is useless. None have any advantages for peeling, while in extreme cases, vinegar and baking soda produce unpleasant colors and tastes (ghostly blue egg whites!).
The only difference between chilled eggs and eggs at room temperature is that eggs at room temperature cook about a minute faster.
What about the freshness? Thanks to my neighbor's relationship with an underground cabal of backyard chicken owners, I struggled for more than 100 eggs, ranging from oviducts to two days, in San Mateo's backyard herds. I compared them to supermarket eggs aged at least two weeks. (Each box of eggs sold in the United States carries a three-digit number between 1 and 365, representing the day of the year of its packaging.)
It turns out that age does not make much difference either. Even the still hot eggs of the hen's body peeled as easily as the graying specimen. (Tasting tests also showed that most people could not tell the difference between barnyard eggs and supermarket eggs, and those who could were divided into two that were better.)
Stitching the tip of an egg with a pin does not affect the ease of peeling the egg, but helps prevent thin-shelled eggs from cracking under the pressure of the egg. gas expansion during cooking. This will also reduce the large dimple that you will often find at the fat end of the cooked egg, caused by the printing of an air pocket located at this location.
Immediately, soaking your boiled eggs in an ice bath will have a similar effect of reducing dimples, but it also makes them a bit more difficult to peel. This result surprised me because previous tests on a smaller scale had suggested a slight advantage for peeling frozen eggs; but when a mountain of new data does not correspond to your previous hypothesis, you change hypothesis.
An ice bath also did not help reduce the incidence of sulphurous green patina around overcooked egg yolks – the eggs are so small that there is negligible carryover cooking. If the yellow is green, it would have been a green ice bath or not.
Even with evidence, I do not expect everyone to adopt the steam technique, and that's fine. If you have a method that suits you, stay there (even if it's the instant pot).
Science can deepen your understanding of the interaction between heat and molecules, between taste and pleasure. This can definitely make you a better cook. But cooking is much more than the pure science of the craft. I'm not here to tell you how to cook or try to change your traditions and habits; My only job is to show you the data, demonstrate the science and deliver a tasty recipe or two.
Whether you use this information to change your kitchen everyday or just to give unsolicited cooking tips to a perfectly capable brunch host, I hope you find something useful.
Recipe: Steamed eggs perfectly peeled
J. Kenji López-Alt is the author of "The Food Lab: Better Cooking at Home Through Science" and the Culinary Advisor of the Serious Eats website. He is also chef and co-owner of Wursthall Restaurant in San Mateo, California. His new column, Science and Family Cooking, will be published monthly.
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