Ingredients
- 4-6 Pieces Eggs
- 2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
- 2 Tablespoons Mirin
- 1/4 Cup Water
Instructions
- Boil the eggs in a pot for 4 minutes.
- Submerge the eggs in an ice bath.
- Let the eggs cook for 45 minutes at 147F.
- Submerge again in an ice bath.
- Peel and marinate the eggs overnight in a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, and water.
I was really fascinated by these perfectly cooked eggs the very first time I had one in a bowl of authentic Japanese ramen. So overwhelmed by its perfection, I thought that preparing them at home would be close to impossible and should be left exclusively in the hands of a well-experienced Japanese chef.
Getting a sous vide set up gave me the guts to finally try doing these ramen eggs myself. After two unsuccessful attempts, I finally came up with a fool-proof procedure which I'd like to walk you through.
First, boil the eggs in a pot of water for 4 minutes.
A few points to remember:
- Always start with room temperature eggs. Pulling them out of the fridge and straight into a pot of boiling water would cause their shells to crack instantly.
- Bring your pot of water to a boil before getting the eggs in. Having the eggs inside the pot while waiting for the water to boil would mean too much cooking time.
- Lower the eggs gently into the water taking care not to damage the shells.
- Stir the eggs around the pot as they boil, at least for the first two minutes. The centrifugal force created by this motion would force the yolks to set at the center.
By the end of this step, the whites should have set enough while the yolk remains really runny, still raw I guess. The eggs would still be very fragile and very hard to handle.
Immediately take them out of the boiling water and stop any further cooking by submerging them in an ice bath for about 15 minutes. Bringing the temperature of these eggs down should prepare them for the sous vide bath.
Next, leave them to cook sous vide for 45 minutes at 147F. That should set the whites a bit further and cook the yolks to a slightly more liquid wax consistency. I've tested a lot of sous vide immersion circulators over the past year, and my current favorite is the Joule from Chefsteps. I've done a full review to to show you why!
Give the eggs another ice bath to keep the yolks from cooking any further.
Meanwhile, prepare a marinade. There are a lot of recipes out there for this. I find that a simple mix of mirin, soy sauce, and water or stock works well enough.
Finally, peel the eggs and leave them to marinate in the soy sauce mixture overnight. You'll want to tint those egg whites evenly and simply getting them in a bowl with the marinade won't work. Covering them with some paper towels should solve this. Getting them in a bag, like I did, works well too.
I found it really challenging to peel the first egg without damaging the white. So, I took my kitchen torch and blasted the remaining eggs briefly. This extremely high heat caused the shells to brittle up, crack, and come off easily.
I would advise that you marinate these eggs overnight and not any longer. Doing so would toughen the whites too much and allow the marinade to penetrate deeper and reach the yolks.
Too much fuss for this simple ingredient? Well, at least perfection is much easier to achieve.
Ingredients
- 4-6 Pieces Eggs
- 2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
- 2 Tablespoons Mirin
- 1/4 Cup Water
Instructions
- Boil the eggs in a pot for 4 minutes.
- Submerge the eggs in an ice bath.
- Let the eggs cook for 45 minutes at 147F.
- Submerge again in an ice bath.
- Peel and marinate the eggs overnight in a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, and water.
Sous Vide French Toast
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