Eggs and coconut oil

Brandon_Byrd_40557

I've recently started incorporating more coconut oil into my recipes and overall diet, and have noticed a strange phenomenon. When cooking eggs in coconut oil - be it virgin or standard - the proteins in both the whites and the yolks of eggs appear to firm up more than they do when cooked in other lipids. While I can fry an egg in butter or ghee and produce the desired results pretty much every time, it's a mixed bag with coconut oil. Typically the outsides toughen more (and more quickly) than I intended, leaving the insides much runnier than expected. My wife has noticed similar difficulties frying eggs in coconut oil. Additionally, I've deep fried sous vide egg yolks in virgin coconut oil (expensive, but it was all we had on hand at the time!) and their exterior seemed to toughen more than when I use peanut oil. Am I imagining all this? Or do eggs cooked in coconut oil really behave differently? And if they do behave differently, why?

grant

I would love to know. That sounds fascinating and bizarre.