Science says this is the perfect way to boil eggs

There’s no single method to boil an egg, but a team at the Italian National Research Council’s Institute for Polymers, Composites, and Biomaterials now believe there is a “perfect” way to cook them. In order to make it, however, you’ll need some patience and a watchful eye.

Eggs remain a breakfast staple on many tables, but there’s an art to making them just right. That’s because chicken eggs technically cook at two temperatures. While the yolk begins cooking at 65 degrees Celsius (149 degrees Fahrenheit), the egg white (or albumen) only starts solidifying at 85 degrees C (185 degrees F). This often makes it difficult to balance yolk and egg white consistencies without over- or undercooking one of them. The result, according to researchers led by chemist Pellegrino Musto, is that there are now many different cooking methods beyond the simple hard- and soft-boiled options. One of the most popular among chefs at the moment is the “sous vide” approach, in which eggs are often placed in a sealed bag and cooked in a water bath between 60-70 degrees C (140-158 degrees F) for at least an hour.

“[Sous vide] gives a very peculiar result, where both albumen and yolk have the same creamy texture,” Musto and colleagues write in their study published on February 6th in the journal, Communications Engineering.

The problem with sous vide, researchers argue, is that only one of albumen’s proteins actually sets at such comparatively low temperatures. Apart from the textural change, this can also affect an egg’s overall nutritional content.

To investigate a possible optimal cooking scenario, Musto’s team turned to software capable of simulating computational fluid dynamics. By augmenting factors like time and heat, researchers could then “compare the evolution of the temperatures and the cooking degrees inside the egg obtained with different

cooking methods.” After some trial-and-error, Musto and colleagues believe they have found their perfect egg methodology. But while it doesn’t take nearly as long as the fashionable sous vide technique, it still isn’t as quick as an easy scramble of fry.

The new method, which Musto calls the “periodic cooking” approach, doesn’t require complex tools or years of culinary training. All that’s needed is a pot of boiling water kept at a steady 100 degrees C (212 degrees F), as well as a bowl filled with water kept at 30 degrees C (86 degrees F). After submerging eggs in the boiling water for two minutes, they are then transferred to the bowl for another two minutes. Repeat that cycle eight times for a total of 32 minutes, and voilà—the perfect, periodic cooked egg.

To back up their claim, researchers tested the egg’s texture and sensory qualities, as well as analyzed its chemical and nutritional properties using nuclear magnetic resonance and high-resolution mass spectrometry. The final results yielded eggs with a softer, sous vide-like yolk, while the egg white solidified into a consistency somewhere between the sous vide and soft-boiled methods. Not only that, but the chemical analysis suggests periodically cooked yolks yielded more of the potentially beneficial micronutrients known as polyphenols.

“Periodic cooking clearly stood out as the most advantageous cooking method in terms of egg nutritional content,” the study’s authors write. “An even higher impact on human diet is here implied: not only are we able to reach a perfectly diverse texture in a two-phase food product, but we are also able to preserve, in both these phases, a higher nutrient amount, providing a useful tool to boost poor dietary habits.”

The results may also go beyond breakfast. Given how prevalent eggs are across numerous dishes, periodic cooking may also help improve other meals’ nutritional content and overall appeal. According to the team, the fluid dynamics involved in periodic cooking may be applicable in other materials research projects.

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