Eggz.

The only way I like my eggs are scrambled with A-1 Sauce on top, but this article on the perfect hard-boiled eg is fascinating.

The photo below demonstrates what happens when you lower an egg into boiling water. The egg in the upper left corner was boiled for precisely one minute, the one directly to its right was boiled for three minutes, and so on down the line, at two minute intervals, until you finally get to the egg on the bottom right, which was boiled for 15 minutes.

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Now, here's what happens as an egg white cooks:

• From 30 -140 degrees: As it gets hot, its proteins, which resemble coiled up balls of yarn, slowly start to uncoil.
• At 140 degrees: Some of these uncoiled proteins—called ovotransferrin—begin to bond with each other, creating a matrix, and turning the egg white milky and jelly-like (like the innermost layers of egg white in the 3-minute egg above).
• At 155 degrees: The ovotransferrin has formed and opaque solid, though it is still quite soft and moist (see the white of the 5-minute egg).
• At 180 degrees: The main protein in egg whites—ovalbumen—will cross-link and solidify, giving you a totally firm egg white (see the whites of the 7 and 9 minute eggs). This is very similar to the gunk that seeps out of the surface of overcooked salmon.
• 180 degrees-plus: The hotter you get the egg, the tighter these proteins bond, and the firmer, drier, and rubbier the egg white becomes (the 11-15 minute eggs). Hydrogen Sulfide, or "rotten-egg" aromas, begin to develop. Ick.

Egg yolks, on the other hand, follow a different set of temperatures:

• At 145 degrees: They begin to thicken and set up.
• At 158 degrees: They become totally firm, but are still bright orange and shiny.
• At 170 degrees: They become pale yellow and start to turn crumbly.
• 170 degrees-plus: They dry out and turn chalky. The sulfur in the whites rapidly reacts with the iron in the yolks, creating ferrous sulfide, and tinging the yolks.

The five degree temperature difference between when the egg white and the egg yolks firm is what allows chefs at fancy-pants restaurants to serve those "slow-cooked" eggs. They simply place the egg in a 140 degree water bath, wait about 45 minutes (by which point the egg has reached 140 degrees all the way from edge to center), then carefully crack them. The results is a white that is soft and translucent but holds it's shape, and a yolk that is still completely liquid. Beautiful.

And on and on. Man.