Molecular gastronomy marks the cutting edge of epicurism these days. If your willing to learn a little egg-protein chemistry, you can calibrate your eggs with astonishing exactitude.Cooking eggs is really a question of temperature, not time. If the oven in your kitchen isn't accurate, cook eggs at 65 degrees C, or 149 F in plenty of water, using a good thermometer. About an hour later, timing isn't critical, and the eggs can stay in the oven for hours or even over night,then carefully shell it. The white is as delicately set and smooth as custard, and the yolk is still orange and soft.(Salmonella can't survive more than a few minutes at 60C or140F, so a 65-degree egg cooked for an hour should be quite safe.) If you prefer a firmer egg, cook it at 167 F or 176 F. www.slowfoodusa.org
Eggs vary in weight, but most recipes don't specify the size of the eggs as small, medium, large, extra large, or jumbo. The reason is that it really doesn't matter too much. Whatever the size, the recipe is going to come out just fine. Beating the egg whites in a copper bowl causes the amino acids that have sulfur in them to bond together where the sulfur atoms are. Linking two sulfur atoms in this way forms a disulfide bridge (Cystine), a very strong chemical bond that helps keep the protein stuck in the new position.
