Experiment: Cooking the egg at 65 degrees
Material: Eggs, water, salt
"I do not even know how to boil an egg!" complains sometimes a wife of her husband, as if to boil an egg was the most 'simple world, indicating a poor ability to' culinary arts. Yet cook an egg in water and 'less simple than it seems at first sight.
A chicken and egg 'made up to 74% water, 12% protein and 11% di grassi con tracce di vitamine, minerali e altre sostanze. Il grasso e’ concentrato esclusivamente nel tuorlo, mentre l’albume e’ sostanzialmente una soluzione al 10% di proteine in acqua.
Sono le proteine, e la loro capacita’ di coagulare all’aumentare della temperatura, che ci permettono di preparare un uovo sodo. Possiamo immaginare le proteine, sia nell’albume che nel tuorlo, come dei gomitoli di lana sospesi in un’oceano d’acqua. Aumentando la temperatura alcune proteine cominciano a “srotolarsi” parzialmente: si “denaturano”. Quando due proteine denaturate si incontrano si possono legare tra loro. A poco a poco si forma un reticolo tridimensionale solido di proteine that traps the water molecules within it: and 'took coagulation. However, if this is far too long, the protein network becomes so 'dense that "squeezes" out of the water molecules, the egg white takes on a rubbery texture and unattractive and the yolk becomes almost dry and sandy.
Recommend Pellegrino Artusi in his "The science of cooking and the art of eating well:
| Eggs drinking boil two minutes, the eggs of ten, then start counting since the disposed boiling if you like soft-boiled, needs only six or seven minutes, and in both cases, just removed from the fire, put in the water cold. |
At 100 ° C the egg white and yolk coagulate both, but since 'the yolk and' more 'slow cooking, being more' inside the egg is likely to overcook. Depending on the desired thickness of the albumen and yolk recipes typically recommend a cooking time, ranging from the egg hard boiled egg, from 2-3 minutes to 10 minutes from the moment it is placed in boiling water. Artusi's suggestion to put the eggs in cold water is used to stop the cooking.
In reality 'the secret of good cooking of the egg is not' time, but a controlled temperature. You should cook the egg to the temperature at which the proteins coagulate, which is' always less than 100 ° C. There are several proteins in the egg, and each coagulate at different temperatures. The ovotransferrin, the album begins to coagulate at 62 ° C and becomes a soft solid at 65 ° C. Since 'the ovotransferrin is only 12% of albumen proteins, it remains soft. A 85 ° C even ovalbumin, which constitutes 54% of albumen proteins, coagulation, and the white becomes more 'compact. The egg yolk instead thickens and solidifies at 65 ° C to 70 ° C.
If you have patience and a cooking thermometer to monitor the water temperature, you can try to cook an egg, keeping the water for one hour at about 65 degrees. If you like the soft egg your patience will be 'rewarded by the incredible texture achieved with this area, which, let this be known, is also performed in some well-known three-star restaurants.
Since 'are not equipped with a thermal bath or an oven that keeps the temperature at the level I had to make do. I took a large pot with 3 liters of water. More 'water is' best able to maintain temperature control. I took two eggs and heat gently in a pan (40 degrees) 'cause was more 'gentle transition to the hot water, so that the shell will crack or break. In the meantime, I put in warm water. I waited for the arrival of 70 degrees, I closed the lid, put out the fire, moved the pot on the fire most 'small (taking off for now), insert the thermometer, and waited until the temperature reaches 65 degrees exactly. Then using a spoon I gently deposited the eggs in the bottom of the pan, far apart, after putting a teaspoon of salt to help the coagulation of albumen in the unlikely event that the shell had cracked.
The temperature drops slowly, and reached 64.5 C rekindle the flame, holding to a minimum, almost spent, the time required to move up the temperature to 65 C (about 1 minute). Due to the thermal after turning off the gas temperature rises even a few tenths of a degree. Arriving at 65.2. With my pot and the temperature of my cooking takes about 10 minutes to return to 64.5. This procedure '1 hour, to be sure that the egg had reached the desired consistency.
After 1 hour remove the egg gently, and open it on a plate
Since 'at this temperature only one of the proteins of the album is' coagulated, white has a consistency incredibly morbida. Il tuorlo invece non e’ piu’ liquido ma e’ cremoso
Forse per servirlo al meglio avrei dovuto preparare qualche salsina, ma non essendo uno Chef ho preferito dell’umile Sale e Pepe (ma se qualcuno ha dei consigli......)
Ovviamente potete anche sbizzarrirvi e cuocerlo a 64 o 69 gradi, e saggiare la diversa consistenza. Vi accorgerete come due gradi in piu’ o in meno cambino la consistenza sia del tuorlo che dell’albume. Prima che mi diciate "Ma vale la pena cuocere 1 ora due misere uova?". Ovviamente non e' una cosa che farei sempre, ma data la consistenza assolutamente mai assaggiata, si, ogni tanto lo rifaro' :)
Se invece preferite seguire Artusi, however, always pay attention to the times. Boil an egg too well to get a rubbery texture of albumen and yolk dry and granular, greenish could also form a film around the yolk. The album develops a little bit of dihydrogen sulfide (H 2 S), that gas with the smell of ... rotten eggs. In contact with the iron in the yolk is formed iron sulfide, which gives the greenish, slightly repulsive and ugly, but completely harmless and edible.
