Slow-cooked eggs

I don’t think I ever thought I’d write a recipe telling you how to boil an egg. You know how to do that. There are handy little contraptions that tell you when your egg is done. Slow cooked eggs, however, are a revelation.

For years, molecular chefs and gastronomists have banged on about slow cooked eggs – what temperature and for how long you can cook an egg so that the yolk is silky, but ‘just’ set and the white has that perfect amount of opaqueness. It’s a luxury to eat and a skill to master. While in Japan, you just mosey on down to your nearest perfectly heated natural spring and bung a few eggs in, in the modern world, chefs argue that around 63C for an hour will give you just the ticket.

Of course, commercial kitchens have vats of water and immersion circulators regulating the temperature, but here’s what my friend (and chef) Trisha Greentree likes to call a ‘Ghetto Bath’. It might take a few goes to perfect, but once you nail it, you’ll be impressing the pants of anyone who visits for breakfast.

 

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You will need:

4 eggs

Water

A clip on thermometer

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Method:

Leave out your eggs at room temperature. Place a plate at the bottom of a stockpot or deep saucepan.

Fill with water, clip on your thermometer and bring the temperature up to 63C.

Gently lower in your eggs. Keep an eye on the temperature of the water, as you want the eggs to cook for 1 hour at more or less 63C (a degree or two above or below won’t kill you, but try to find the temperature sweet spot on your stove where you can sustain a fairly constant 63C. That might mean your saucepan sits part way off the heat, but you’ll need to play around with it in your own set up to find that o

Have some ice on hand in case the temperature spikes and add in ice cubes one by one until the temperature lowers. After an hour, carefully remove the eggs from their bath, and they’re done.

If you’re super paranoid that the eggs might need a bit longer – remove an egg and carefully cut a 10 cent-sized hole in the top. If the white has just set, you’re good to go. If it’s still a little too opaque, give them a few more minutes and you should be right (sit the opened egg in a sieve at the top of the water, so that no water gets in the hole you just cut).

Simply crack the eggs open and they’’ll pop straight out as the slow cooking process doesn’t bond the outer membrane to the shell.