Home › Cooking of True Proteids Continued: Eggs › Cooking of True Proteids Continued: Eggs: Beaten

Cooking of True Proteids Continued: Eggs: Beaten

Slightly Beaten Eggs. For slightly beaten eggs the yolks and whites are not separated. Eggs are slightly beaten, when a full spoonful can be taken up. Well Beaten Yolks. Yolks are "well beaten," when they are light, thick and lemon-colored.

Whites Beaten Dry. Whites are beaten dry, when the mass does not slip from the dish turned upside down.

Utensils for Beating Eggs. A fork, whisk, perforated spoon, or Dover egg beater are the utensils commonly used in beating eggs. When whites of eggs are beaten dry, the mass will be larger, if it be beaten with one of the first three utensils, but it will take a longer time to do the work than with the Dover egg beater.

COOKING EGGS In our first lesson we noted that albumin was toughened by a high degree of heat. If you set a saucepan of cold water over the fire, put in a thermometer, and then break an egg into the water, you can note how the consistency of the egg changes as the water heats. As a study in the cooking of eggs, it might be worth while to cook several eggs, on different occasions, transferring them from the water, with a skimmer, to a slice of toast, when the thermometer registers 134 deg, 160 deg, 180 deg and 212 deg respectively. As far as solubility has a bearing on the subject, a raw egg is more digestible than one that has been cooked; but for other reasons, people in general prefer to have the albumin in eggs slightly coagulated by heat.

EGGS COOKED IN SHELL, SOFT, MEDIUM, ETC. (1) Take a granite ware saucepan, holding rather more than one quart. In it heat one quart of water to the boiling point, remove the saucepan from the fire, and lower an egg into it, cover closely and let it stand six minutes, for soft-cooked, and eight minutes, for medium-cooked eggs. With two eggs let stand eight minutes, for soft-cooked, ten minutes, for medium-cooked, and half an hour, if the eggs are to be used in salads, for a garnish, etc. (2) Take two saucepans, the same as above. Heat the water in each to the boiling point, remove from the fire, and lower into one an egg from a refrigerator, and into the other an egg from the warm room; cook as before, six minutes, then compare the consistency of the two eggs. Why this difference? (3) In a similar manner, we could learn that, in order to have uniform results, the conditions must not vary; i.e., the kind of saucepan, number of eggs in a saucepan, the quantity of water, as well as the temperature of the eggs, must be the same each time.