Sous vide eggs are excellent. When you cook an egg through conventional methods, there’s always a pretty big difference in how much the yolk and white are cooked. In particular when you fry an egg because the white becomes rubbery and the inside stays very runny. Poached eggs are slightly better for cooking the egg uniformly, but the white is still much more cooked than the yolk. With a sous vide egg, on the other hand, you get a much more consistent texture and gooey yolk.
Check out the moment I broke this sous vide egg yolk (Warning: this is some serious #foodporn).
Some people choose to sous vide an egg at 63C for 45 minutes, but then the white can be a little too runny for some tastes, so others cook it for less time but at a higher temperature. It’s up to your personal preference which way you want to do it. In this recipe I cooked the egg at the higher temperature of 75C for just 13 minutes, and the result is that you still get that sous-vide egg effect, but the white is a little firmer. So set your sous vide machine to 75C and 13 minutes and put the egg into the water bath -straight from the fridge and still in its shell. Note: if your sous vide cooker only has increments of 10 and 15 minutes, set it for 15 and then wait until it says 13 before putting the egg in. While that’s cooking, toast your muffin and slice up your avocado.
Then lay the avocado on top of the muffin and place the spinach on top of that.
When the alarm goes off to signal that your egg is done, take the egg out of the sous vide machine and deshell it (don't rush this - the egg is still quite soft and it's very easy to mess up - trust me). If you don’t want to serve the egg straight away, put it in an ice bath (still in the shell) to make sure it doesn't overcook.
Carefully balance your egg on top of the spinach – be warned, they’re slippery little buggers! – and grate a little Parmesan cheese on top. Then season the whole thing with salt and pepper and get ready for that oh-so satisfying first incision into the egg.
This recipe’s also fantastic if you add some smoked salmon, ham or bacon. NB: To keep eggs for later, place in an ice bath and store in the fridge. To reheat them, simply place them back in the sous vide machine at around 60C for 5 mins.
Ingredients:
- 1 egg
- Half a muffin
- A few spinach leaves
- Quarter of an avocado, sliced
- Few grates of Parmesan
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Cook the egg (straight from the fridge) at 75C for 13 minutes (slightly less if the egg's at room temperature).
- Toast the muffin half.
- Arrange avocado on the muffin.
- Place spinach leaves on the avocado.
- Carefully place egg on top.
- Grate a little Parmesan cheese over it.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Watch my video to learn how to get your sous vide egg out of the shell in one piece.