General Principle of Cooking
Ingredients
Directions
Albumen coagulates at 160° F. and toughens when boiled, so eggs should be cooked below the boiling point for a tender consistency.
For soft-cooked eggs, allow 1 pint of water for two eggs; for each additional egg, an extra cupful.
For soft-cooked eggs, let the water come to boiling point, put in the eggs, cover, and remove at once from the fire, then let stand covered for 6 to 8 minutes.
For soft-cooked eggs, remove to hot cups.
For hard-cooked eggs, prepare as for soft-cooked eggs, placing the saucepan on the back of the stove where the water will keep hot but not boil, for 30 minutes.
For hard-cooked eggs, if plunged at once into cold water, the yolks will keep their color.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Egg white proteins set with heat, so cooking temperature controls whether the texture stays tender or turns firm.
The step that matters
Keep the water below a boil for hard-cooked eggs. Albumen coagulates around 160° F. and toughens when boiled. Holding the pan just off the boil on the back of the stove sets the whites gently, keeping them tender rather than rubbery.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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