Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist on the research revealing the 'perfect' technique for cooking boiled eggs

This week, we are talking eggs.

Scientists have just come up with the perfect way to cook a boiled egg - the drawback is that it will take you 32 minutes.

Normally, I would boil an egg by placing it in boiling water for anywhere between 6 and 10 minutes depending on how runny I like my yolk. 

 
The research published in the nature journal Communications Engineering took computer simulations to mathematically calculate the best way to boil an egg, then the researchers took 300 eggs and ran their own practical tests directed by the computer models. 

The challenge with egg cooking is that the white of an egg cooks at 85C, whereas the yolk of an egg cooks at 65C. This means that often when an egg is cooked in its shell you can have a perfectly cooked yolk with an undercooked egg white. 

To measure their eggs the researchers used: 

• FT-IR spectroscopy to assess the extent of protein denaturation.
• TPA (texture profile analysis) to measure texture of egg albumen and yolk.
• Quantitative Description Analysis to get insights on colour, consistency, texture and taste of the cooked eggs.
• Metabolomic Analysis to investigate nutritional profile. 

Their new method of cooking, which they called Periodic Cooking, results in an evenly-cooked egg with a higher nutritional content than other ways of cooking an egg. 

So how do you cook the perfect egg? 

Bring a pan of water to the boil, and also have another bowl of water that is sitting at 30 C.   

First, spoon the egg into the boiling water, wait 2 minutes - then move the egg to the cooler bowl of water for 2 minutes.   

Repeat this process of hot and cold 6 times and the egg will be perfectly cooked (according to science) - a total cook time of 32 minutes. 

So that's it - the perfect egg, if your perfect life means you can stand over a stove for 32 minutes. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Doctor Michelle Dickinson is with us now with our science
study of the Week. And I just love the study
you you've brought into us because we have been eating
eggs for as long as we've been able to reach
up into an east and pluck a raw egg out
and eat it, and yet we're still doing experiments as
to how to cook or boil the perfect egg.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
And you only have to google like the top chefs, right,
So if you look at Gordon Ramsey versus Jamie Oliver versus,
everybody's got their way of boiling an egg, right. And
I go, well, I put mine into a boiling pan
of water and then I do my six to ten minutes,
depending on how soft heart I wanted to be. My
husband is like, no, you have to put it into
cold water and then bring it to a boil, and

(00:55):
then he turns off the heat and then leaves it
for four a minute.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Like everyone has their little secret, you know, way of
doing it to get the perfect egg.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
For them, and I think everybody is still disappointed. So
here's where science can win. Okay, The journal is a
nature journal called Communications Engineering. Its open source. Go have
a look at it. It's filled with pictures of egg
cross sections. It's lovely. They have found the perfect way
to cook an egg. If you're boiling an egg, the
perfect way to cook it. And they have called this

(01:23):
new method periodic cooking, and they have an instruction there
and then they've done all this scientific analysis on it.
They've done FTIR spectroscopy to look at the nature denaturing
of the proteins in this or all the proteins cooked well.
They've done TPA, which is texture profile analysis, so is
everything cooked the perfect texture. They've done a quantitative description

(01:46):
analysis which looks at insights like color, texture, taste, So
they have for special people who do this who can
tell you is this a beautiful egg or not. And
they've done metabolic analysis to look at the nutritional profile
of the egg. And they have found the perfect way
to cook the perfect egg where nutritionally it's better for
you than standard boiling of eggs. Textually it's gorgeous. And

(02:09):
here's the thing. I didn't know this, but if you
have an egg, the white of an egg cooks at
eighty five degrees centigrade, but the yolk looks at sixty
five degrees centigrade.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
I didn't realize.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
So the problem is when you lob it into boiling water,
the yolk will cook, but the white won't. Or once
you've cooked the white, your yolk is ever cooked. And
that's the problem. So what do they do? How do
you cook the perfect egg? Well, the drawback is you
need thirty two minutes, which is you know, usually I
lob it in, I go away and do a million
other things. When they come back and it's slightly over cooked,
it's a little bit green, but you know, I got

(02:41):
all my other trawes done. No, you have to stand
there and this is what you do. You have a
pot of boiling water, and then you have a pot
of water that is set to exactly thirty degrees celsius.
So you have to have a thermometer in there to
check there. You take your egg, you take a spoon,
You spoon your egg into the boiling water. Start your
time are two minutes. After two minutes, you take it out,
You put it into thirty degrees the water for two minutes,

(03:02):
exactly two minutes, and then you put it back into
the boiling water for another two minutes. Peak that six
times of hot cold, hot cold, and what that does
is stops there. It cooks the egg white without overcooking
the yolk, because what you're doing is this sort of
hot cold so that heats transferring but not too much.
Thirty two minutes later you have the perfectly cooked egg

(03:23):
where your egg white is not runny, it's nice and solid,
but your yolk is still soft. You just so his
wife sounds really funny. So the authors aren't men, and
they go, this is the perf way, perfect way to
cook the egg. And I'm like, yes, without a perfect life,
because I don't know who has thirty two minutes to
be able to sit and every two minutes move their egg.

(03:44):
But then they got thinking and actually it was really simple.
So I have simple components that I've bought from JCR before,
and actually I can build a little egg robot for
less than a hundred bucks. You can buy off the
shelf components that would do this for you, which is
just a little arm like you can do it with
Lego blocks, and you can there's Lego mindstorm pieces, so
you could I go, well, maybe I could do this
and have my little robot do this for me so well.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
I love it. So you were complaining about the fact
you have to have thirty two minutes, but now you're
actually thinking that you'll actually commit time to building a
robot to help you. I love it, ZI project, I
love it. I think we'll all just keep cooking the
eggs by the way we normally do. But look, if
you've got thirty two minutes, head to News Talks EZB
dotco dot and z Ford Slash Sunday and you'll be
able to listen to this again and follow Michelle's instructions.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin. Listen
live to News Talks EB from nine am Sunday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio