Eggsperiment

So, about a week or so ago I was referred to an article about Hervé This, one of the fathers of the molecular gastronomy phenomenon. Hervé was appointed to a new position at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique by none other than Jean-Marie Lehn, a Nobel-prize winning scientist.

In the article, there was a tidbit that was too enticing to resist.

But what really intrigues me, of course, is exactly how he managed to unboil an egg. He explains that when an egg is cooked, the protein molecules unroll themselves, link up and enclose the water molecules. In order to 'uncook' the egg, you need to detach the protein molecules from each other. By adding a product like sodium borohydride, the egg becomes liquid within three hours. For those who want to try it at home, vitamin C also does the trick.

Try it at home?! Yes, please!

I think that the basic idea here is that when eggs cook, neighboring protein molecules with dangling sulfur groups get bonded together. These "disulfide" bonds can easily be broken by reduction, either with an inorganic reagent like sodium borohydride or the milder ascorbic acid. Break the bonds, liquefy the egg.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, some people have already tried the vitamin C version, without a lot of success.

No reason to reinvent the wheel. If wimpy ascorbates weren't doing the deed, then I needed to amp it up a bit, and go for the borohydride. Sometimes, it's good to have a lab full of chemicals and a boss out of town.

Here are the eggs, before and after. Thanks for the eggs, Maggie!

The egg on top got sodium borohydride sprinkled liberally over it, and a pinch of potassium hydroxide and more borohydride was dissolved in the egg in water underneath.

After an hour, the "dry" egg had a nice fluffy wig of foam on the top. The water-soaked egg had little bubbles of hydrogen clinging to it, and interestingly, was beginning to split. I am not a patient man, so the dry egg got a double dose of borohydride.

After another hour, the wig on the dry egg had puffed out alarmingly. The borohydride was clearly "pitting" the surface, but to what extent the egg remained solid underneath was a mystery. The egg in the water was cracking all over now.

A third hour. At this point, the wig appeared to be stable. The egg in the water was more dramatic. It was clearly beginning to lose cohesion, with little chunks of the yolk starting to escape. Also, it looked really gross.

After a quick rinse, I was disappointed in the amount of damage that had occurred to the dry egg. It was also hard to tell what exactly was going on with the wet egg - was it unboiling? Was it just getting pitted and flaky? At any rate, I wouldn't call this "unboiling," exactly.

Hervé, if you ever read this, you should really publish your procedure, before someone goes and does something stupid like dumping a boiled egg into lithium aluminum hydride.