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Infusing an Egg with Non-Egg Flavour

Tim_Sutherland_52834

I'm trying to infuse a whole egg in the shell with flavour and need some help. The concept is a whole egg in the shell is presented to the diner. They crack the egg open and eat a soft boiled (texture wise) egg that has unexpected non egg flavours, but still looks like an egg.

I have made soy infused and 'dinosaur/100year old' eggs before, but these are always hard boiled, served peeled and they have obviously been 'tampered' with. I am not after this effect.

I have placed a raw egg in cold coffee, in a vacuum chamber and pulled a vacuum to try and infuse the coffee into the egg. The white egg picked up a slight brown tint. I cooked this egg and a non-infused egg in ~82C water (old school style, need to keep my hand in) for six minutes then dropped them in an ice bath. Once cooled I cracked them open. The yolk of the infused egg looked normal but had a distinct coffee taste (I assume this is because the yolk is fat and the coffee flavour is soluble in fat - why @Grant_Lee_Crilly's coffee butter works.) The egg white had a very slight brown tint (not noticeable at dining light levels) and tasted weakly of coffee, especially close to the shell. The inside of the egg shell had brown dots where the coffee had penetrated.

Does any one know if the flavours of bacon are fat soluble? If I placed a raw egg in bacon fat would it infuse in like a truffle does? Would cooking an egg in bacon fat (bacon fat+egg+Ziplock bag in water bath) infuse the flavour in? Could you get cheese, herbs and/or mushrooms flavours in the same way or some other way?

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Brendan_Lee_56950

I have heard of brining eggs to infuse flavor so I suppose you could do a very strong bacon flavored brine and let the eggs soak for a few days in that.

Alternatively, (or additionally for that matter) you could maybe pin prick the eggs to speed infusion without really sacrificing their structure.

michaelnatkin

You could maybe even go further and actually inject the egg through a hypodermic needle, and then seal the tiny hole with a dot of wax if needed before cooking.

Tim_Sutherland_52834

@Michael, I've been looking to get hypodermic needles and syringes to try things like this, do you know of any good suppliers? My plan is to cook an egg to set the white, suck the yolk out and replace it with a sauce while the egg is still in the shell.

seijoed

Doesn't waxes melt around 62? I've been wondering if it would be doable to make custard eggs by sucking them out and injecting a custard into the shell.

michaelnatkin

Yes, the wax would melt away but my hope is that the white near it would set first and plug the hole. There are probably other ways to plug it, or you may not even need to. You should probably do what Grant does and cook the eggs in a water filled bag inside the circ, not free-floating - because if they leak you'll have a nasty mess to clean up.

seijoed

Right I use one of those laundry thingies to hold them if I do a lot.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I wonder if a proper combination of freezing and cooking could allow for a fairly firm set white with a liquid yolk (since it will be the last to unthaw). And then you could extract the yolk with a needle after it unthaws and replace it with something else. As far as I can tell egg whites don't suffer from the grainyness that yolks do after freezing.

seijoed

Haha, I love Unthaw it was wildly used in the wrong way up in WI.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Must be my Canadian English

michaelnatkin

@Brendan_Lee what an interesting idea!

Tim_Sutherland_52834

Update, SV egg in bacon fat.

I cooked an egg at 68C for 35 min in bacon fat (egg in a ziplock with bacon fat to cover). The bacon flavour was very subtle. I don't know if it was from this egg, or all the other stuff I had been tasting, but I had a greasy mouth feel for a long while after eating this egg.

I'll try a few multiday infusions in liquids, then cook and see what happens.

@Brendan rather than freezing eggs you just cooking them in simmering water. A quail egg at 90secs should have the whites set and the yolk still runny. A chicken egg at 5 mins should be the same. Just take the eggs out of the water, shock, peel (very carefully, as the whites are very delicate), use a needle to remove the yolk and replace it with something else.

I found this method to scramble eggs still in the shell, which will be interested to see what SV time/temp works.

seijoed

64-65?

Brendan_Lee_56950

@tim I was actually suggesting that as a way to keep the egg in with whatever your cooking with (i.e. bacon fat) longer without over cooking and still giving you a runny yolk to remove with a needle. I haven't tried it myself but it seems like a cool idea.