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@bgruber

Thanks to SeriousEats convenient comment subscriptions, I get comments forwarded to my inbox, so yep. Still reading them.

As for the answer... em... because Cook's Illustrated readers like their salmon more well-done than I do?

shh... don't tell Chris!

Funny, I make cheesecake pops when I have a chunk of cheesecake that's too big to toss but too small to serve on its own. First I shove a plastic spoon into a big chunk of cheesecake, then dunk it in melted chocolate, then put it in the freezer. I served a tray of these things and all I heard were moans of pleasure. (My cheesecake is made from scratch. I've seen Shamdra Lee do this where she murders a frozen cheesecake with a scoop, winding up with a cheesecake carcass.)

Re: Soup Sips - do you mean in small cups? That does seem rather silly. I like to serve "dessert bites" on Chinese porcelain spoons. Even if you have 2 it's not like wolfing down an entire dessert - but you get to have a tasty sweet in small measure.

candidly, i quite agree with most of the list. i appreciate the "response" you offer here (but generally don't agree with you). many foodies i know have been grumbling about the "trends" identified in the Chicago Tribune piece for some time.... there is a lot of pretension and indulgence in the food world and i think it is a good thing for a provocative commentator to offer a "reality check" from time to time....

and you reference the Tribune piece as the "bashing of supposed elites"... "supposed"???? excuse me? who else but "elites" can afford $40 "bistro" entrees and most of the restaurants that feature "foam" and "molecular gastronomy"?

I completely agree with number 9 and 4 - Molecular Gastronomy and Foam! I went to wd-50 for a friend's birthday celebration about a year ago and it was a truly horrifying experience. I ordered the foie gras "gravel" (essentially foie gras that was freeze dried and then shattered with a hammer) and a fish dish and shared a dessert with the table. All of the dishes were too tiny for a proper meal and all covered in or accompanied with foam, I went home with a horrible stomach ache. My boyfriend and I both rolled on the bed feeling the pain of eating dishes of science experiments. I wanted to like wd-50 but I am sorry to say I can't and I won't.

@ScoutinSpokane - sounds like something that might be good for the toaster oven.

Kenji,

The heat transfer rate/area = (coefficient of thermal conductivity)*(T_bath-T_egg)/distance

The equation is the same regardless of the medium. The dependence on the medium comes from the thermal conductivity coefficient.

Also, I agree with you that we are the only two involved in this conversation right now :)

@pookay

p.s. All of this is starting to remind me why thermodynamics was my second least favorite class in college :)

Kenji,
The contradition I pointed out still stands no matter what constants are involved since any constant divided by zero is still infinity.

The rate of heating per area is proportional to the temperature difference and inversely proportional to the distance (this actually means that in the instant right after the cool egg is put in the boiling water, the rate of heat transfer to the outer surface of the egg is infinite; note that this is not a paradox since an infinite rate times an infinitely small time interval is still a finite amount of heat). The temperature itself is not inversely proportional to the distance (or the square of the distance); solving the rate equation, the temperature approaches that of the boiling water exponentially fast with time so that if you wait long enough the whole egg will be the same temperature as the bath. The distance to the heat bath appears only in the exponent, so that the closer to the bath, the faster the temperature changes.

@Pookay
Thanks for the correction, although I think the original statement is technically not inaccurate - the temperature I did say proportional, which is not to say that there are not constants involved (such as the temperature of the heat source) in the equation that takes care of the zero/infinity case.

Newton's law of cooling only states that the rate of heat transfer is proportional to the temperature difference between the body and its surroundings - it doesn't have anything to do the temperature gradient formed within a solid mass. To solve that, I think it helps to think of the egg as something like a russian doll - a series of solids. From there you can see that because of Newton's law of cooling, the outer layers heat up at a much faster rate than the inner layers and that the differences in the rate at which the various layers are heating up is proportional to the distance, which means that the differences in the actual temperatures of the various layers are proportional to the inverse square of the distance.

@Attack monkey
I was doing it lid off - but like I said in the post, you can't control for all the variables that might affect cooking time - your house might be a few degrees cooler than mine, or your stove might have a few more btu's than mine. This article is meant more as a guide so that you know what aspects to consider when boiling an egg, and so that you understand the science behind it, and will thus be able to optimize cooking in your own particular environment. If that means putting on a lid to reduce the rate of heat loss, so be it!

- Kenji

As a scientist, I'm glad that someone is starting a series focusing on this aspect of cooking. However, I would like to point out an inconsistency:

"when a mass is exposed to heat for a given period of time, a temperature gradient will form within that mass, with the area closest to the heat source being hottest, and the area furthest from the heat source being coolest. With very few exceptions, the temperature of a given spot in the food is proportional to the inverse square of its distance from the surface exposed to the heat source."

If this were true, since the distance from the heat source at the surface of the egg is zero, this would imply that the surface of the egg has infinite temperature. I think you mean to say that the RATE of heat conduction depends on the distance from the heat source (as well as the temperature difference). Also, the rate of heat conduction is proportional to the inverse of the distance from the source, NOT the inverse squared (Newton's law of cooling).

I will beg to differ on the instructions given here.

You *can* have more control and reduce the variables involved in cooking your eggs. First of all, starting with cold eggs right out of the fridge is a mistake. You are maximizing the temperature difference between the egg's starting temperature and its final temperature. You will have much more control if you warm the eggs first. I place them in a bath of hot tap water for 10 minutes while I heat my water.

Secondly, I place the eggs directly into boiling water. The reason I put the eggs directly into boiling water is that waiting for a boil is a "soft target". What you consider a boil or a simmer could be as much as a minute different from someone else.

Lastly, I stop the cooking after a prescribed period of time by pouring off most of the hot water and replacing it with water and ice.

In summary: 1) I reduce the temperature change that will be required from the starting point of the egg to the end point of the process by warming the eggs up. 2) I avoid soft milestones by placing the eggs directly into boiling water at the beginning of the cooking process. 3) I stop the cooking (and improve the peel of the egg) by using an ice wash at the end.

BTW, if you want hot eggs, pull them out after only 10 or 15 seconds. The ice water will have already improved the peel by cooling the membrane and surface of the egg without cooling the inside of the egg. You can even peel the egg most of the time before the heat rebounds and makes the egg too hot to hold. A neat trick!

I've been doing it the way that Sara Moulton mentioned on her show many years ago - put the eggs in a saucepan covered with water. Bring it to a boil, not a hard boil. Turn off heat. Cover and let sit on a cold burner for a specific amount of time (I think she said 13 minutes but I do it for 16 minutes).

Remove carefully. Crack. Peel.

I find that if I crack them a bit and then refrigerate for awhile, they peel much easier.

So I am not really boiling per-say. This way I never over-boil, I never get a green line around the yolk, and I don't get that horrid sulphur smell you get from over boiling. Works well every time for me.

I love this article! I've always thought I was an idiot since every time I boil eggs (I'm a hard boil-type), there is always something wrong with them. Now I know why! Soft boiled eggs look fascinating, but runny yolks gross me out big time.