In search of the perfect soft boiled egg

I'm told that there is nothing like a sous vide egg. It's time to find out!

I'm fortunate enough to have a friend with a chicken coop. I get green and brown eggs on a semi regular basis. (Thanks Alec!)

As a kid I spent a year in Sweden and will never forget the overflowing baskets of 4 min and 5 min eggs at the hotel where we lived. Since then I've had a warm spot for soft boiled eggs.

Let's see if Sous Vide can improve on them.

First off given my recent difficulty with the the vacuum packing machine, sous vide eggs are awesome since they don't actually need to be sealed. Gently lower them into the water and wait.

I cooked my first four eggs at 147.2° for an hour. They came out somewhat more runny than I would like for a soft boiled egg. I've heard that people boil them for a few minutes once they are out of the water bath to firm up the whites and leave the yolks soft and slightly runny. (I haven't tried that yet.) But the texture was amazing. It was like custard. Perfectly silky smooth. They worked better as poached eggs (as shown on the plate) rather than being eaten straight from the shell.

So now I'm trying another batch at 155 degrees for an hour to see if we can get harder whites while keeping the yolk soft. Turns out you can't. Here's how that egg turned out.

Yolk was too hard and the white was still too soft.

So I cooked two more eggs at 150 degrees for an hour. Cracked one (on the right) and as expected got runny whites. The one on the left I boiled in a different pot for 30 seconds to firm the whites. Here's how that turned out in comparison. Thinking 30 seconds was too long but definitely an improvement.

I tested the 150 degree plus post boil version with a Swedish friend who gave it two thumbs up. (After mocking me for the long process I've been going through!)

Still too hard for my taste. So the last attempt is 147 degrees for an hour with a 15 second quick boil at the end to firm the whites.  Here's the result.

It's absolutely perfect. The yolk is silky smooth. The whites aren't stuck to the shell and are just as perfectly done as I could imagine. This egg is divine.

I should have checked the ultimate source first. From the beginning sous vide cookbook. "Most people feel the temperature for the perfect egg is 148°F and an equivalent of a poached egg is 142°F." Have a look at the photos and judge for yourself...