The Chemistry of Cookery

the breakfast fireside. The apparatus required is a saucepan large enough for boiling a pint of water—the materials, two eggs. Cook one in the orthodox manner by keeping it in boiling water three-and-a-half minutes. Then place the other in this same boiling water; but, instead of keeping the saucepan over the fire, place it on the hearth and leave it there, with the egg in it, about ten minutes or more. A still better way of making the comparative experiment is to use, for the second egg, a water-bath, or _bain-marie_ of the French cook—a vessel immersed in boiling, or nearly boiling water, like a glue-pot, and therefore not quite so hot as its source of heat. In this case a thermometer should be used, and the water surrounding the egg be kept at or near 180° Fahr. Time of immersion about ten or twelve minutes. A comparison of results will show that the egg that has been cooked at a temperature of more than 30° below the boiling-point of water is tender and delicate, evenly so throughout, no part being hard while another part is semi-raw and slimy. I said ‘ten minutes or more,’ because, when thus cooked, a prolonged exposure to the hot water does no mischief; if the temperature of 160° is not exceeded, it may remain twice as long without hardening. The 180° is above-named because the rising of the temperature of the egg itself is due to the difference between its own temperature and that of the water, and when that difference is very small, this takes place very slowly, besides which the temperature of the water is, of course, lowered in raising that of the cold egg. In order to test this principle severely, I made the following experiment. At 10.30 P.M. I placed a new-laid egg in a covered stoneware jar, of about one-pint capacity, and filled this with boiling water; then wrapped the jar in many folds of flannel—so many that, with the egg, they filled a hat-case, in which I placed the bundle and left it there until breakfast-time next morning,