Some time back, I was considering whether it was possible for me to buy a pack of eggs and finish them all in 5 days. No more waking up in the morning and contemplating what to have for breakfast. Just eggs. After all, eggs can be considered a superfood, given their high nutritional value. Furthermore, eggs are one of the best sources of protein, which I figured I really required since I lost quite a bit of muscle mass since the army days.
Last week, I decided to give this experiment a shot. As I had to attend a Friday evening meeting, I dragged myself to school even though it’s recess week. Popped by the supermarket and went straight to the eggs section. First up was two different kinds of eggs labelled grade A and grade B, with the grade A eggs slightly more expensive. I wonder how they grade the eggs. The next brand of eggs was the cheapest out of the 3 and it was local produce compared to the first two. So I just grabbed those, on account that they were produced locally and also that it was a house product.
Upon reaching back to my room, I realised that the eggs varied greatly in color. I remember seeing those cartons of eggs at hawker centers, which were a lot more consistent, somewhat like a factory output.
I may not have much experience in cooking, but I have dabbled a bit in basic culinary for one (myself, duhhh). Somehow, everything taste better when it’s cooked by yourself, perhaps even everything except burnt food. When it comes to egg cooking, I have never tried cooking an egg without fire nor oil. The resources available to me are boiled water, a microwave and a induction cooker which is basically useless to me as I do not possess cooking utensils.
Hence, I laid out a plan to attempt the different methods of cooking an egg starting with the simplest – cooking with hot water. Forgive the poor image quality, it’s a phone camera. I honestly have no idea how long it takes to cook an egg with hot water, but I figured since the egg has to cook from the outside in, the cooking time has to be long enough such that the yolk is cooked. However, given that the instant noodles only take 3 minutes to cook, I had to cook them separately.
Instant Noodles + Eggs
Firstly, I placed two eggs in the bowl and added the boiling water. My first mistake was pouring the water directly on the eggs. The shell immediately cracked and bits of egg can be seen floating around the water eerily. I waited for about 5 minutes, before discarding the water. Next, I placed the noodles into the bowl and cracked both eggs on top of the noodles. At this time, the eggs were semi cooked, with bits of the white cooked while some are still transparent. Strangely, the first egg disappeared when it hit the noodles, while the second slid off the noodles and ended up below them. I filled up the bowl with boiling water and added the seasoning.
After about 3 minutes, I decided it’s time to find out if the noodles were edible. Turns out the experiment was successful.
The eggs were nicely done, neither too cooked or undercooked. While stirring my noodles, I realised where the missing first egg went. With reference to the above photo, the bottom left part where it is slightly yellow. The egg must have broke apart upon hitting the noodles and got soaked up by the noodles while the second egg retained its shape. One point to note is that never add the flavoring on top of the egg as it will solidify along with the egg, ruining the taste.
Half Boiled
Over the next few days, I tried cooking half boiled eggs. This is my first attempt. The procedure was the same, except this time I cooked the eggs twice in boiling water for about 4 minutes each. The results were quite satisfactory. The whites had a funny taste though. The hot beverage as well as the yolk helped to mask that.
On day 3 of the experiment, I tried cooking the egg with the microwave. In theory, by cracking the eggs into a container, adding water and microwaving them, you should get cooked eggs. The theory holds true, except for the fact that I added too much water and cooked the eggs too long(1 minute). I ended up with an egg pie floating on a sea of hot water. The egg was so cooked that the yolk was all dried up and the whites hard.
For day 4 and 5, I varied the cooking time to see if the funny smell from the egg whites could be removed. As can be inferred from the above photograph, I totally overcooked the egg. The yolk was 90% cooked, but somehow parts of the white was still uncooked. The funny smell still remained unfortunately.
2 Last Eggs
The last day of the experiment, day 5. I had 2 last eggs, and it had to turn out right. After all, I had 4 days and 8 eggs worth of practice. One side note is that over the previous 4 days, I was scalded almost every time when I was handling the hot eggs. Consider it a side quest, I aimed to counter this problem on the last day of my experiment. Given the overcooked state of the eggs on day 4, I dialed back the exposure time slightly on day 5. Upon draining the water, I added cold water bit by bit to cool the egg but avoid cracking the ceramic at the same time due to the extreme temperature difference between the interior and exterior of the bowl (not pictured here). BTW, a shoutout to the Cadbury hot chocolate drink above, for tanking me through so many nights of studying.
The end result is that the yolk was not so overcooked this time, but the whites were much more undercooked than on day 4. This could be due to the fact that by cooling the eggs prior to cracking them, I stopped the eggs from cooking with residual heat from the egg itself. This factor may be insignificant, however there was no way of confirming this as I had run out of eggs. On the bright side, the eggs were of room temperature after their cold water spa. #sidequestcomplete
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is feasible to survive on the 10 egg/ 5 days plan. Compared to my usual breakfast, this solution could last me longer through the day before I consciously felt myself hungry. The downside is that the eggs take a long time to prepare, they require more cleaning up and towards the end, the eggs are not that fresh anymore. I will probably not attempt the egg diet plan again in the near future, unless I chance upon proper cooking utensils.