Italian Scientists Reveal the Secret to Perfectly Boiled Eggs

Boiling eggs to perfection is a culinary challenge that has sparked numerous debates. A team of Italian physicists has introduced an innovative method that promises to enhance the texture and preserve more nutrients in eggs compared to traditional boiling techniques.

According to researchers from the National Research Council in Pozzuoli, near Naples, the ideal cooking temperatures for egg white and yolk differ significantly, requiring around 85 degrees Celsius for the egg white and 65 degrees Celsius for the yolk. Simmering eggs in boiling water at 100 degrees Celsius can result in a rubbery yolk, while cooking them sous-vide at lower temperatures for extended periods often leaves the white undercooked.

To optimize egg cooking, the researchers utilized computational fluid dynamics to simulate heat transfer within eggs. Their novel method involves alternating immersion of eggs in boiling water (approximately 100 degrees Celsius) and warm water (around 30 degrees Celsius) for two minutes each, over a total duration of 32 minutes.

This technique ensures that the egg white reaches a temperature between 100 and 87 degrees Celsius while the yolk remains consistently around 67 degrees Celsius, resulting in a creamy texture. The researchers describe this thermal profile as optimal for cooking eggs uniformly.

Extensive testing, including infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry, compared their method--termed periodic cooking--to hard-boiled, soft-boiled, and sous-vide eggs. The findings indicated that the periodic cooking method not only achieves superior texture but also retains more nutrients, including flavonoids.

The consistency of eggs cooked using this method is reported to be similar to that of soft-boiled eggs. However, unlike traditional soft-boiled eggs, which can leave the yolk too runny, the periodic cooking results in a yolk that is perfectly cooked throughout. Researchers believe this innovative cooking technique could have far-reaching implications, extending beyond culinary applications to material processing, including hardening, crystallization, and structuring of materials.