Sous Vide Eggs-- not so good

[Porcine Aviator]

I have cooked Sous Vide for several years with excellent results, but never boiled eggs.

I made eggs at 158° this morning, and found that the whites are unacceptable compared to the normal stove top technique. The whites are runny and have a slimy undercooked texture. While this may not be dangerous, it is certainly unappetizing.

Here's why:

When you cook eggs in 200° water on the stove, the egg cooks from the outside-in. The whites get fully cooked while you can determine the doneness of the yolk by timing.

Not so with Sous Vide. The entire egg is the same temp. So, if you like hard whites, which I do, and soft yolks-- which I do-- Sous Vide can't deliver.

Of course you could simply raise the temp. to 165-175°, but then you would have a hard boiled egg that took 45 minutes longer to make than traditional cooking.

I think the only place for a Sous Vide egg is in a Caesar Salad.

[swamprb]

Here are some more techniques for eggs sous vide;

https://www.chefsteps.com/gallery?tag=Sous%20Vide&generator=chefsteps&published_status=published&difficulty=any&sort=relevance&search_all=eggs

[Porcine Aviator]

Here are some more techniques for eggs sous vide;

https://www.chefsteps.com/gallery?tag=Sous%20Vide&generator=chefsteps&published_status=published&difficulty=any&sort=relevance&search_all=eggs

Thanks, I have tried most of these-- some are okay, some require a great deal of extra effort for results similar to classic preparations.

I doubt you could tell any difference in Sous Vide Crème Brulee ( Burnt Cream) compared with a properly made classic prep.

[arbeck]

You can do really great things with Sous Vide eggs. Especially if you have to cook a lot of them. I personally like cooking them for a few hours at 131F to pasteurize them. Then I shock them. Then I cook them to the desired doneness.

If you want a slightly runny yolk and a completely firm white, you'd go 75C (167F) for just over 16 minutes. Chefsteps has a handy egg calculator if you need it. It's never failed me.

http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-egg-calculator

That being said, doing eggs sous vide is really only needed when you are doing large batches. When doing six or less eggs, I prefer steaming them. Load up a pan with a steamer basket and get the water boiling, then dump in my eggs. For soft boiled go 6 minutes. For completely hard boiled go 12 minutes. For a nice fudgy yolk (my preference for most applications) go about 10 minutes. Make sure you shock them in ice water after.

[arbeck]

Thanks, I have tried most of these-- some are okay, some require a great deal of extra effort for results similar to classic preparations.

I doubt you could tell any difference in Sous Vide Crème Brulee ( Burnt Cream) compared with a properly made classic prep.

You can almost always make a classic preparation that matches sous vide (with certain exceptions). Where sous vide shines is that your window for success is much larger and you can increase volumes easily. For instance I made the pot de creme recipe from chefsteps. Not only was it dead simple, I made 12 servings at one time that could be kept in the fridge for a week with no loss of quality. Pulling out perfectly made pot de creme at a pot luck is pretty impressive and not something I'd want to attempt with the traditional method of preparation.

This is true for almost everything I cook sous vide. I can cook a perfect steak by keeping it moving in the pan, and flipping it frequently. However, doing two steaks this way at once is hard. And doing more than two is impossible. Yet I can do 7-8 steaks easy in my water bath and I have two hours of padding in my schedule when I do it.

[Porcine Aviator]

You can almost always make a classic preparation that matches sous vide (with certain exceptions). Where sous vide shines is that your window for success is much larger and you can increase volumes easily. For instance I made the pot de creme recipe from chefsteps. Not only was it dead simple, I made 12 servings at one time that could be kept in the fridge for a week with no loss of quality. Pulling out perfectly made pot de creme at a pot luck is pretty impressive and not something I'd want to attempt with the traditional method of preparation.

This is true for almost everything I cook sous vide. I can cook a perfect steak by keeping it moving in the pan, and flipping it frequently. However, doing two steaks this way at once is hard. And doing more than two is impossible. Yet I can do 7-8 steaks easy in my water bath and I have two hours of padding in my schedule when I do it.


The subject is boiled eggs.

I cook a myriad of foods Sous Vide-- no need to sell me-- but some are simply not compatible with the technique. Sous Vide is not a gastronomic panacea. Where it works it is without peer.

On a stove top, the outer portion of protein in an egg is subjected to higher temps than the yolk ( except hard boiled) and produces a different result from Sous Vide. It is a simple concept. I think most folks prefer the traditional fully cooked white with a softer yolk-- they don't like runny whites.

If you know how to reproduce the stove top result through Sous Vide ( simply), I would love to learn how.

Oddly, I don't believe that you can produce a "perfect steak" in a pan. Which is why I use the Sous Vide method, when possible, for steaks. The texture and character of the steak is quite superior to a pan fried version.
I am sure this is what you meant to imply.

[landarc]

I happen to have had some sous vide eggs I really enjoyed, but, I don't always want firm whites and runny yolks, just a matter of how I feel. If your taste runs to a firm white and runny yolk, clearly, steaming or boiling is the way to go, the heat transfer is just better that way.

In terms of the steak, I would say, that I have run across a spectrum there, with some folks expressing a preference for the gradation of cooking created by pan or broiler, over sous vide.

[arbeck]

The subject is boiled eggs.

I cook a myriad of foods Sous Vide-- no need to sell me-- but some are simply not compatible with the technique. Sous Vide is not a gastronomic panacea. Where it works it is without peer.

On a stove top, the outer portion of protein in an egg is subjected to higher temps than the yolk ( except hard boiled) and produces a different result from Sous Vide. It is a simple concept. I think most folks prefer the traditional fully cooked white with a softer yolk-- they don't like runny whites.

If you know how to reproduce the stove top result through Sous Vide ( simply), I would love to learn how.

Oddly, I don't believe that you can produce a "perfect steak" in a pan. Which is why I use the Sous Vide method, when possible, for steaks. The texture and character of the steak is quite superior to a pan fried version.
I am sure this is what you meant to imply.

If you want to replicate a hard boiled egg sous vide, you simply bump your temperature above the setting temperature for the white, and then remove the egg before the yolk is over cooked. I'd go 185F for 15 minutes and you should be pretty good.

Like I said before, steaming is easier, but for large volumes not very practical. You can also boil them, but that has other problems. If you start them in cool water, your cooking time is dependent on the volume of water, the power of your burner, and the initial temperature of the water. If you drop them into simmering water, you risk the shells cracking when you put them in. With the Sous Vide method the water temperature is lower so they are less likely to crack. The lower temperature also gives you a bigger window so that leaving them in for a few seconds too long or taking them out in a different order than you put them in is no big deal.

The other option is to go at about 165F for 40 minutes. That will get you an egg that's really close to traditional. It takes longer, but if I'm doing two dozen eggs for deviled eggs, this is what I'm doing.

I can cook a steak in a pan that is pretty close to indistinguishable from my sous vide method (sear, bag, cook, sear). However it takes a lot of effort. What I do is heat a large pan or griddle over fairly high heat. Put a thin film of oil over the entire thing. Put the steak in the pan and constantly move it around the pan. The constant movement minimizes the effect that hot spots in the pan/burner create. It evens out the heat getting to the steak. The biggest key though is to flip it constantly. I flip it every 30 seconds. This allows the surface to cool and stop it from developing the over cooked layer. Basically you're alternating high heat and no heat to come out with an average that mimics a constant 130-140F. When done right, I don't think many people can tell the difference. The problem though is that it requires constant attention. And just going a few seconds too long on a side can ruin it. If I'm just cooking a steak for myself it's no big deal. But when I'm cooking one for me and my wife, it becomes awfully hard.