If you’ve eaten non-instant ramen, chances are you’ve also had the oh-so delicious soft boiled egg. The egg whites are fully cooked, but the yolk retains a molten consistency. As it turns out, making these types of eggs is not a trivial feat. Why? Because egg yolks and whites cook at very different temperatures – 64 °C and 80 °C respectively. In other words, the egg white has to be cooked to a much higher temperature than the yolk. To complicate matters further, egg sizes vary and the yolk doesn’t sit perfectly in the center…
Fortunately, thanks to Google, I found a simple-to-follow recipe on how to make such an egg as well as a very thorough treatise on boiling eggs in general (below). But for the impatient, this is a shortcut (but requires fine-tuning) method that’s worked well for me:
- In a 1 quart pot, add up to 4 medium to large eggs and 1 cm of water
- Cover and bring to a boil on high heat
- Continue boiling for 5-5:30 minutes
- Remove and cool in an ice bath
The cooking time will vary depending on the power of your stove and the number of eggs that you are trying to make. By keeping the water to a minimum, the amount of heat (and time) needed to bring everything to boil should hopefully be more or less consistent across different stoves.
After you’ve cooked and cooled your soft-boiled eggs, you can then marinate the peeled eggs in a light soy sauce broth. I like to mix 2 parts water to 1 part light soy sauce, 1 slice of ginger, and sugar to taste. Be sure the sauce is not too salty as the eggs will absorb it thoroughly given time. Usually a few hours of marination is all you need. Enjoy!
Additional notes: The egg pictured in this post was done using Epicurean Debauchery’s technique. There’s a bit more babysitting involved in his process, but so far my soft boiled eggs have all turned out fairly consistent even when using different stoves and pots (you will want to use the same size of eggs though).
Update: Khymos has posted an update on making the perfect egg yolk. Sous vide the egg at 63 °C. Cool to room temperature, and then boil the egg for 3 min to set the egg white (also can pre-boil egg instead). Link