How to boil an egg

After quite some time I am reporting back... with a quite simple topic [so it seems]. Hot to boil an egg.
But how have I heard it so often in cooking shows [like MasterChef and TopChef] - the most simple things, demand perfection... please throw the first stone, who does think, that he/she can boil the perfect egg!

No? I am totally unscathed - that means most people out there do have some issues to boil the perfect egg.

So what are the options:

• Traditional boiled egg
• It is very difficult to pull off the right consistency
• It is almost impossible, to peel the egg perfectly, without totally blemish its service
• Especially if you are intend to cook a hard boiled egg, the egg white will be rubbery and smells like sulphur.

• Sous Vide egg
• One of my favorites
• It takes pretty long - around 45 minutes
• The egg yolk it perfect [depending how you like it].
• The egg white, is fluid, and usually you are inclined, to eat yolk only.
• It is not possible, to peel an traditional egg from the result [white is simply not stiff enough]
• Sous vide isn't the most accessible equipment out there [however it becomes better and better

• Pressure cooker
• Very fast method 
• It needs a steaming basket
• Eggs are looking boiled traditionally.
• The egg peel can be perfectly removed

• Rice cooker
• Needs also a steam insert.
• Same as pressure cooker just slightly faster

I have seen last two versions and it made click! Duh - not the pressure made the egg peel better [like theorized on many websites] - it is the steam! Look water can boil only at 100ºC. However steam can be far hotter. That means the membrane in the egg expends due to the higher temperature.
But the egg white doesn't get overheated [and rubbery] due to the fact, that it doesn't boil usually long enough - and as the membrane builds an insulating air barrier [speaking of theories- this is mine.

That means, you don't even need a rice cooker or pressure cooker - you just can steam in a normal pot.

This having said I still would not boil a hardboiled or medium egg through steam. Because you don't end up with a perfect result, and the egg white might just be too hard. What do you think about a combination - short steam [e.g. pressure cooker] about 2 minutes [with another steamer you might need to steam the eggs longer], dropping the eggs into an ice bath.
Then throwing them into a water bath for another 30-40 minutes at the temperature, you prefer the egg.

The result is the perfect egg - the yolk [nectar of the gods] is perfect - and the egg white is nice, solid and shiny. Additionally it peels perfectly.

This type of egg, you could bread and fry [shortly - maybe you pass the sous vide step, due to the fact, that the frying oil will anyway warm up the egg enough]. Or you make a perfect [runny] Scotch egg. Or... sky's the limit!

Hühnerfrikassee - German Chicken Casserole - Sous Vide

Fresh in love, it is one of my adventures to expose my Kenyan girlfriend to German cuisine. Well- I rarely do this - I am just to comfortable with my very own style of cooking- but some dishes are just worth to do.

One of this dishes is Hühnerfrikassee. But I can't really do a traditional recipe traditionally. This wouldn't be me...

So let's start- what is chicken fricassee? It is a chicken stew in a white cream enriched sauce with some vegetable. And it is delicious! In short it is poached chicken, carrots, asparagus, mushrooms, peas in a white roux based on chicken stock.

Usually, it is a simple affair- poach a chicken in vegetable enriched water until done and let it chill down. Roast some wheat flour in butter. Add stock (your chicken water) to the still blonde roasted flour. Stir and whisk until smooth. Add some diced vegetable and cook them through (put the vegetable at different times into it). Add chicken add some cream, some capers and lemon juice to taste (and don't forget to season at all times). And serve with rice.

Usually the chicken is a bit on the dry and stringy side, the vegetables are too soft (except of the peas - smart cooks put frozen peas just a couple of minutes before serving into the pot)... The sauce is usually to flour heavy, or too thin.

My attempt is slightly different!

I sous vide'd the chicken breast at 62.5°C for 1.5h. Put also the chicken legs into the bath- but the chicken breast came into the ice bath, I did increased the water to 75°C and cooked for another 2h.

The vegetables were cooked separate at 85°C for 30-45 min.

 I made a pressure cooker chicken stock (with the carcass of the used chicken, plus a package of chicken wings) and clarified it with ground chicken and egg white. Then I made a roux with less flour.

I added asparagus and peas into the roux, then added the chopped chicken meat and the other vegetable (I used carrots, turnips, leek, green asparagus, baby marrow, mushrooms and peas). I took half of the roux out of the pot and added drained silken tofu to it and blended it. This gave a lovely texture and thickness, without being overly floury.

The I just put everything together and voilà!

It was simply the best chicken fricassee I ever had. The chicken was super moist and tender and flavorful... The vegetable perfectly cooked, the sauce voluminous without being heavy!

But where is light, there is also shadow:

• I didn't seasoned the vegetable and the chicken, before putting them into the bags (except of the turnips and carrots which I put together with some salt and a pinch of sugar). I salted everything afterwards, but it would have been much better, if everything was seasoned in the bag.

• the leek had a kinda stringy texture... I'll try to cook it longer the next time!

• I forgot to buy capers (dammit)!

• I was too lazy to blend up some sauce separately to have a bit more airiness...

As you can see- nothing major.

The only thing inconvenient is, that I have only one sous vide rig- and that chicken breasts, chicken legs and vegetable have to cook at different temperatures...

At least try to use silken tofu in your cream sauces... Doesn't sound very good, but the texture is amazing, the sauce is lighter and healthier!

Chicken Hearts...

So I posted, that cleaning and prepping chicken hearts are pain in the butt.

You might ask: is it worth it.

I have breaded these little morsels in panko breadcrumbs [yeah - more work] and fried them up.

The taste - well not bad. Just alone, they are crunchy but taste like the chicken hearts in a chicken soup [a somewhat traumatic experience out of my childhood].
With these bread pickles, they taste just about right.

Well - I guess, I just cooked them wrong. When I sous-vide them, I intended to "braise" them on a rather high temperature of 72ºC. But the meat didn't became flaky and soft. Just the opposite... slightly chewy. Not enough, to make the experiment a failure. But still enough, to be a bit underwhelmed.

So next time, I will cook them at 62ºC [like a proper SV chicken] - and hope, that the texture becomes better.

But yeah - I can imagine now, why some people just raving about grilled chicken hearts...

My verdict: Almost delicious!