How To Cook An Egg … with Vinegar
In a whirlpool of boiling water, there’s some alchemy involved when egg whites seize up, forming little cocoons encapsulating their precious yolk. Adding a capful of vinegar to the pot ups the overall acidity, increasing the rate at which ovalbumin (the predominant protein in albumen, aka “the egg white”) denatures, in turn, solidifying the shape of a poached egg much faster. Personally, I only remember using vinegar and eggs in tandem while preparing Paas or homemade dyes for multi-colored Easter Eggs — try combining onion skins and vinegar for fire engine red eggs for Greek Easter! More recently, I was exposed to “naked eggs”; the calcium carbonate shell of an unboiled egg eventually dissolves when submerged in vinegar while the rest of the egg stays intact! That said, I called on Ned Baldwin, chef/restaurateur of Houseman in New York City, to ask him his take on this chemistry when it comes to involving vinegar in cooking eggs. Baldwin wrote How To Dress An Egg: Surprising And Simple Ways To Cook Dinner, which is full of easy, yet masterful methodology on how to cook a single ingredient.
He told me that when he poaches eggs, he goes light on the vinegar and uses apple cider vinegar, rather than the usual white distilled to avoid adding too much of the acetic flavor. “ Then doused in brown butter hollandaise, you don’t really taste [the vinegar in the poaching liquid] anyways.”
Apple cider vinegar also plays a role in Baldwin’s hard boiled eggs. He observes the 7-minute philosophy, and cooks the whole eggs in a blend of 25% apple cider vinegar to 75% water, for structure and flavor, but not an abrasive amount of acid, with lots of salt, black pepper, bay leaves, and sugar to balance it out. The eggs are served at both dinner and brunch with anchovies, a parsley salad, and tk kind of bread. They also make an appearance in his riff on a classic sauce gribiche: “We do a mayo on our steak and fries that has a ton of [these similarly] boiled eggs and tarragon vinegar,” he says. This isn’t so far off from deconstructed Deviled Eggs, which I’ve seen whipped up with additions of vinegar, Dijon mustard, and even hot sauce (the latter two condiments both contain vinegar, as explored in the hyperlinked Vinegar Professor articles).
For my next egg-vestigation, I tried fried. In the same vein as poached, egg whites spread during sunny side up attempts as well, so I wondered whether vinegar would help there too. It does, limiting dispersion, for a more compact fried egg. As I assessed further, I remember while writing ACID TRIP: Travels in the World of Vinegar, that I came across one of the simplest, most eye-opening uses for vinegar and eggs. It’s called oeufs à l'assassin, or “murderer eggs”, adding a small spoonful of red wine vinegar over fried eggs (the red vinegar is supposed to symbolize blood). A ploy to get young French children to eat their eggs, it adds the acid an egg doesn’t inherently have, bringing out the true creaminess of the yolk. In an awesome iteration, I was able to find a white wine vinegar version from the par excellence Bistrot Paul Bert in Paris. There, proprietor Bertrand Auboyneau fries his egg in butter, and tops it with a creamy “vinaigrette” of sorts, flourished with a flurry of soft herbs.
1 tablespoon butter
1 egg
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Chopped herbs, such as tarragon or parsley
Fry an egg as you would, with an ample knob of butter, over medium-high heat. Cook until the edges brown. Place on a warm plate and season with salt and pepper. While the pan is still hot, add the white wine vinegar and allow to reduce by half. Spoon over the egg and garnish with some herbs.
For my next egg-periment, I’m going to try a little vinegar in and/or atop my scrambled eggs, because, as they say, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet — and open a few bottles of vinegar while you’re at it.