Egg-speriments 1 and 2

Corny title, but fitting.

I've written about the wonders of Japanese egg preparations before. Got the chance to try 2 today. One complete failure, one semi success.

Egg-speriment 1: Quicky Onsen Tamago
Got this method from the sobaya-san at asakusa. Crack an egg in a small bowl or cup. Add boiling water. Microwave for 1 minute to get a quick and easy onsen tamago without the need for a temperature-controlling device or patience. I was skeptical. At best I thought this will turn out somewhere between poached and onsen.

Results: Meltdown/slight explosion. What soba-ya san left out was what power to use. High is not it. Egg was poorly poached at best. Whites and yolk were too hard for anything enjoyable. Plus, around the 55 sec mark a hole ruptured in the white casuing eggy water to spray in the microwave. Not cool. Medium setting next time.

Egg-speriment 2: Ni-tamago
Bit more success. Cooked 5 eggs in boiling water for 6 minutes and 20 seconds. Removed them to an ice bath for about a minute, peeled them, and ate them on top of curry after about 10 miuntes. What the ni-tamago is about is a hard boiled white with a yolk that is oozy and soft but not runny and definitely not chalky. We are going for a yolk texture that will hold itself when the egg is split in half using a fishing line or cheese cutter and can be stuck on top of a bowl of ramen or other partially soup-like food. This was very close. Yolk was probably a bit too runny for these eggs to be cut in half for a ramen-like dressing. I would go to 7 minutes in a boil before hitting the icebath. If 7 minutes results in any chalkiness of the outer portion of the yolk, I'd go 6 minutes on boil, remove from heat for 1 minute, then ice bath.