How to hard Boil Ostrich Eggs - How to Sous Vide Ostrich Eggs - @Whats4Chow
Author: Whats4Chow
Recipe type: Eggs
Serves: 2
Today we’re going to hard boil an ostrich egg, and at the same time, we’re going to sous vide another ostrich egg in my big digital pot.
Ingredients
- Ostrich Eggs
- Vinegar
- Water
Instructions
- How to Hard Boil Ostrich Eggs – How to Sous Vide Ostrich Eggs - @Whats4Chow
- Hi and welcome to episode #641 with Whats4Chow.com.
- Today we’re going to hard boil an ostrich egg, and at the same
- time, we’re going to sous vide another ostrich egg in my big
- digital pot. Before I started on this journey, I searched the
- internet to see what information was available on both
- methods, and only found a little info on boiling the eggs. The
- consensus for boiling seems to be 90-120 minutes.
- As far as sous vide goes, there is absolutely nothing on the web,
- so I did some calculations of my own, based on how I’d sous
- vide a thick chunk of meat similar in weight and size to the egg.
- The closest I came was a large pork knuckle of 1.8kg and roughly
- the same size as the egg. I have done hundreds of those very
- successfully, and the timing / temperature combination for
- those was 13 hours at 73c --- so that was my starting point.
- I also added a cup full of vinegar to each pot in the hope that
- the vinegar would weaken the shell a little and make it easier to
- peel after the cooking process was complete.
- I brought a large pot of water vinegar solution to a boil and
- placed the egg in the water, set my timer for 2 hours and
- carried on preparing the sous vide pot. You may have noticed
- that the egg was floating. This is never a good sign with any egg,
- as it means the egg is near or past it’s sell-by date. It was too
- late to turn back, so I continued.
- Here I raised the temperature to 73c and placed in the egg in
- the pot. I put the lid on and set my timer for 13 hours.
- After 2 hours, I removed the egg in the boiling pot from the
- water and immediately plunged it into a large bowl of iced
- water. This halts the cooking process, and also helps loosen the
- membrane that sits between the shell and the egg. I let this cool
- for 60 minutes, and proceeded to peel the egg.
- I did this by chipping a line into the shell using my butcher’s axe,
- but you could use anything like this, including the back of a
- cleaver or heavy blade knife.
- As I suspected, the egg was off…. Rotten, and half of the egg’s
- mass had already wasted through the porous shell. At least it
- allowed me to practice the peeling part of the exercise.
- And, despite this all, the egg appeared to be properly hard
- boiled, with a firm white, or in this case brown, and firm yolk.
- Another 11 hours later,
- I removed the sous vide egg from the cooker and plunged this
- into a bowl of iced water. Once again I left this for 60 minutes to
- cool. I noticed immediately that the vinegar in the water had
- almost totally softened the outler layer of once shiny enamel on
- the shell, and this could simply be rubbed off.
- I chipped a line into the shell and started to peel it away. This
- egg did not float at all, but did have a pronounced air sac at the
- bottom end, indicating that it was pretty close to it’s sell-by
- date. An interesting point to note is just how thick the
- membrane is.
- I cut through the egg and found that the sous vide time was just
- short. The white of the egg had not set entirely, and there was a
- small under-cooked patch in the centre of the yolk.
- On the second day, I ran out to our local ostrich farm and
- grabbed another 2 eggs, this making sure they had just been
- laid.
- The first egg was processed exactly the same as the boiled egg,
- but the sous vide egg I adjusted the process to counter the
- under-cooked result in the first test. I decided to increase the
- sous vide temperature instead of increasing the time. I
- increased the temperature to 80c for 13 hours, and everything
- worked out just fine.
- The boiled egg was disappointing in appearance, with the white
- having a dull grey color, however the sous vide ostrich egg was
- much better, with a more pleasing color and better texture.
- It is important to note that if you want a nice clean cut through
- the yolk, you will need to use a wire cutter, not a blade.
- Here is a little serving suggestion I put together – sliced ostrich
- egg served with crispy bacon, sausage, tomato and mustard
- mayo sauce.
