How to Cook the Perfect Hard-Boiled Egg, According to Science

Eggs are getting lots (and lots) of attention right now — and rightfully so.

A dozen eggs have become so expensive they might as well be considered a luxury item. And that's if you can find them at all. That's why it's key to know how to cook them properly when you do find eggs at a reasonable price. Luckily, a new scientific study is showing us all how to prepare the perfect boiled egg. 

This month, researchers published findings in the journal Communications Engineering exploring a technique known as "periodic cooking" that they believe creates the perfect boiled egg by cooking the yolk and the white to the same consistency. The only catch is it takes 32 minutes to complete. 

The reason the two components cook at different temperatures, Emilia Di Lorenzo, a graduate student at the University of Naples Federico II, and lead author of the study, explained, is due to their different nutrient densities. 

Related: Here's Why It's Been So Hard to Find Eggs

“The albumen is mainly composed of water and proteins,” Di Lorenzo told the New York Times. “Yolk, on the other hand, is much richer in nutrients.”

So, to make the two meet in the middle, Di Lorenzo and the team alternated cooking the eggs in boiling (212 degrees) and lukewarm water (86 degrees) for two minutes each in eight cycles. This created an average cooking temperature of 150 degrees, which the team said is the perfect temperature for the yolk, while the hotter immersion is perfect for the white. They came to this technique after running mathematical and computational models of heat transfer to simulate different times and temperatures and how they affected the egg's components. 

“When you change a boundary condition, the heat will reverse, so the heat flow will go from positive to negative and vice versa,” Di Maio told Science News. “After a few cycles, you end up with a stationary solution of this problem, which gives a rather constant temperature for the yolk, and temperature which goes from 30° C to 100° C for the albumen.”

The end result, Di Lorenzo shared with the Associated Press, is a balanced, soft egg that “you can almost spread … like on bread."

Related: Yes, You Can Freeze Eggs — Here's How to Do It the Right Way

While the texture is certainly important, the researchers also reported that their method preserved more of the egg's nutrients than other methods, including retaining a higher concentration of polyphenols, which they note "appears to be protective and prevent the onset of several diseases."

There was, however, one downside to the experiment. According to the team, it's a bit more difficult to peel the periodic egg than other means, but the juice may still be worth the squeeze who value texture over anything else. 

So, if you have 30 minutes to spare, try this method. Just remember to follow our advice on the best ways to cook a boiled egg to make it an extra special treat.

Read the original article on Food & Wine