culinary experiments

kitchenetteTips for people studying/planning to study abroad: hardboiled eggs are one of the easiest things to cook. All one requires is a pot of hot water, no crockery or cutlery required, and no oil to wash out. However, as I've only recently discovered, it's apparently "very Asian" and the rest of the world doesn't seem to like it that much. Therefore, when I brought a dozen of them to a potluck at a friend's house, only two were eaten, both by me. Now I have ten hardboiled eggs sitting patiently in my kitchen.

According to the Institute of Molecular Gastronomy, the perfect egg is the 65-degree egg (149F, for Americans). If you’re interested in creating one of your own, you can follow the instructions in this article. However, as much as I would like to, it is absolutely unattainable here sans thermometer. Parisian kitchens tend to be miniscule, with electric heating plates and no ovens. In my tiny little kitchenette, the pan is bigger than the heating plate that takes forever to heat up, and the handle of the pan perpetually hits the corners whenever I try to turn it. As a result, all omelettes cooked on my stove end up half burnt on one side and uncooked on the other. Which is why I stick to boiled eggs.

Sitting here peeling eggs reminded me of being a kid. My extended family used to have a dinner every two months or so to celebrate whoever's birthday was in that time. In accordance with Chinese custom, there'd be a basket of red hardboiled eggs for us to take home. (Red signifies good luck) I didn’t actually really like hardboiled egg - I always found the white tasteless - but I was bored and they were fun to peel. When we got to the car, I'd have a half-peeled egg, red-stained fingers from the paint on the eggshell, and a mother yelling at me for dropping eggshell in the car.

I feel very Proustian.