Scientists report optimal method to boil an egg

What happened

Italian scientists said Thursday that it takes 32 minutes and two temperatures of water to achieve a perfectly boiled egg, given the different chemical compositions of the yolk and egg white, or albumen.

"The method not only optimizes egg texture and nutrients, but also holds promise for innovative culinary applications and materials treatment," the researchers reported in the journal Communications Engineering.

Who said what

The Italian scientists developed their "periodic cooking" method using fluid dynamics software and about 300 eggs. It "requires no special culinary skill or fancy gadgets," The New York Times said. But it does involve the egg "alternating between boiling and lukewarm water" — two minutes in a 212-degree bath, two minutes soaking at 86 degrees, repeated eight times total. The boiling water leaves "a well-cooked albumen without wasting the yolk," which reaches perfection in the average water temperature of 150 degrees, said Ernesto Di Maio, a materials scientist at the University of Naples, to the Times.

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What next?

"It's probably brilliant — but who is the method for?" Deb Perelman, who runs the Smitten Kitchen blog, said to the Times. "For home cooking, there's always a necessary balance of perfect versus a reasonable effort." Perelman's "preferred foolproof method," the Times said, "involves a long ice bath after the egg is cooked."