Malaysian soft-boiled eggs are distinct from regular soft-boiled eggs in that the egg whites are soft and gelatinous, and you can’t achieve that by boiling your eggs. Most top-ranking recipe bloggers seem oblivious to this fact, from what I can see on their websites.
These eggs are traditionally served with a dash of white pepper and soya sauce, and comes as part of a set with kaya toast. This popular breakfast is found in Malaysian kopitiams (coffee shops), which were introduced into our culture by early Hainanese migrants.
This recipe uses a Thermocook/Thermomix but anything that can regulate the temperature to about 60-65°C will work.
Someone asked during the Live broadcast re: making this without a Thermocook or Thermomix and is what I would suggest –
If you have a rice cooker or slow cooker, you could (in theory) cook it using the Keep Warm setting in these for some 45 minutes. I haven’t tried it but my research tells me the Keep Warm setting on both rice cookers and slow cookers is around 65°C so that is pretty perfect. Let me know if you give it a go and how it turns out.
After some consideration I’ve decided to use a previous formula for this recipe to what I used On Air; I mentioned then that I think it’s more stable to cook the eggs for longer, and the fact the yolk broke during the broadcast bears this out.
Malaysian Soft-Boiled Eggs
INGREDIENTS:
- (any number of) eggs – my tests were based on 59g ones
- 1.5L water
METHOD:
- Fill Thermocook/Thermomix jug with water, then place basket inside.
- Add eggs.
- Set at 25 mins / 65°C / Speed 1.
- Remove and serve with a dash of white pepper and soya sauce.
Alternate method (ie. the one that saw the yolk break during the Live broadcast) – with further tweaking I found that cooking for 14 minutes in a Thermomix/Thermocook at 70C, Speed 3, making sure there’s enough water to completely submerge the eggs, works pretty well. I’ve only had the yolk break up one other time using this method. This of course would preclude the use of a rice cooker or slow cooker if the warm setting on those is indeed 65C per technical specs I’ve seen in my research.
*Caveat – I’ve tweaked the settings numerous times in my testings and I’m almost inclined to reduce the temperature to 60°C because I personally prefer the yolk a bit runny, but do your own experiments to get it to how you like it.
