Periodic Cooking

Intuition is being in harmony with the laws of nature discovered by the common denominators of experience. The sciences and math can better explain why so many experiences beforehand have ended in failure. Most admit its hard to make an omelette, and I was among them for a long time. They always break apart too easy! Then, a Gordon Ramsay Youtube video brought me into the light years ago. Here he is in Morocco showing us all how in under five minutes. He has learned from intuitions built by his own experience, and those who taught him, and them, and so on.

Fast forward halfway in the video and you’ll watch him whisk the eggs while they are in the pan, so as not to overheat any one area. Then, he evens things out to add final touches just as it still looks slightly wet or jelly-like. Finally, he folds the top with new ingredients in on itself to finish cooking on the plate.

Old lessons and experience taught him what a recent article from Nature claims in order to make the perfectly cooked egg, by something called periodic cooking. The figure below offers one of their results and comparison criteria.

What they found, that has befuddled chefs for ages, is how the yolk and albumen (white) have optimal cooking temperatures 20 °Celsius apart. The yolk is best at 65 °C/ 149 °F and the white at 85 °C/ 185 °F. The 36 °F difference is what causes so much opportunity to under or overcook components separately, or even together. Most cooking exercises have us get to some internal temperature range for the rarity of a steak or state of change like the pot boiling at 212 °F.

The periodic cooking method ping-pongs between bounded temperatures over a similar timeframe instead. On the left below is a depiction of this method along with the alternatives on right to highlight the differences. This allows temperatures to reach what’s needed for the white without staying too long to overcook the yolk. A medium boiled egg?

These other methods have varying time windows and results within a temperature range. Sous vide is most risky and wonky to time. Hard and Soft boiled optimize more for white or yolk.

In a world of business optimizations today, rendered sunny-side up or hard boiled directives guide systems that price or plan or budget. Each has their optimal points of procedure and level of sophistication.

Ultimately, they are heading in one direction. Optimize yolk, white, or unknown somewhere in between. For those making decisions with money, not eggs, it’s ok if you are pointed toward profit or growth and only want hard or soft boiled eggs. For most businesses, it’s never that simple, at least for very long.

In transportation departments to brokerage floors, the see-saw of growth|budget, and profits|service may swing in priority over the week, month, or point in the business cycle.

No system can cover all priorities at once across business line and horizon. Neither is one direction best in perpetuity. Nonetheless, having understanding of operational range, with the flexibility to fluctuate between profit|service and growth|budget optimizations can make for better eggs.

Some can accomplish this by intuition, swirling the egg mix in the pan until ready to fold with other cooks over breakfast runs at a boutique restaurant. Some open the cellophane and reheat a frozen concoction. Others just sell by the dozen, only separated by cartons and marketing.

The best and most personalized method seems to be the periodic. It’s just damn hard to scale. It always breaks apart when it’s ready to flip.