Friday, October 19, 2012

13 minute eggs


I came across this method in Ideas in Food, and it got filed away into the must try that sometime. Asparagus finally readily available it seemed like a perfect time to try substituting out the poached egg with this 13 minute egg in one of my favourite combinations, butter roasted spears of asparagus, Pancetta and egg. It probably isn’t the most straightforward way to cook an egg, however unlike previous temperature sensitive cooking this does not involve staring at a thermometer for hours on end, only 13 minutes. OK well you may be asking why do I want to keep an eye on a pot of hot water for 13 minutes, it’s only an egg. Well it may only be an egg, but it’s an egg with a silky soft white and warm liquid yolk, a far easier and hassle free stand in for a poached egg, especially if you’re making more than a couple, and to top it off, you can cook the eggs up to two days ahead of time and just reheat in a 60°C for ten minutes.


  • Bring a pot of water to 75°C, using a large volume of water will make maintaining a constant temperature easier. 
  • Place the eggs into the water and cook for 13 minutes, don’t use eggs straight from the fridge.
  • Transfer the eggs to an ice bath to cool. 
  • Reheat the eggs at 60°C for 10 minutes, or store in the fridge for up to 2 days. 
  • Shelling them can be a bit tricky, but that could just be me, I have terrible luck with eggs, but I find with these eggs the easiest way is to use a knife to crack around the fat end of the egg, remove the shell and pour the egg out.