The mythical pasteurized egg

(My apologies for the salty language.)

Today (Aug. 27), apparently, is National Pots de Crême Day. Who knew? I guess there’s a day for everything. I was informed of this by King Arthur Flour and their recipe for Pots de Crême, which is just a fancy French way of saying incredibly decadent little cups of chocolate pudding, usually served in little ramekins. My friend Ron makes these and each little ramekin tastes like death by chocolate, inasmuch as the recipe is just chocolate chips, heavy cream, sugar, espresso powder and a raw egg.

That raw egg always gives me pause whenever I contemplate making this. Although I’m willing to take the risk, I’m loathe to subject others to the risk of salmonella. The King Arthur recipe, of course, suggests making the Pots de Crême with pasteurized eggs with that airy self-assurance anyone who makes this suggestions tosses off. Yes, I’m sure I can find pasteurized eggs next to the hen’s teeth and snipe breasts at my Safeway. Truthfully, snide comments aside, pasteurized eggs, apart from Egg Beaters®, are hard to find.

Which led me to Google, of course, and “how to make pasteurized eggs at home.” Not too surprisingly, I found quite a few links on how to pasteurize eggs. To summarize, there are two approaches: heating the eggs in their shell in a hot water bath at 140° (some say 145°) for three minutes or so; or cracking open the egg and adding water (or lemon juice) to the beaten egg and heating to a simmer. Obviously the second method is a lot trickier.

Pasteurization, of course, is the technique of heating something like milk to a high temperature for a short time, ideally without changing the flavor or the texture of the product (the whites of pasteurized eggs are typically cloudy). The higher the temperature, obviously the shorter the time.

Opinion seems to be divided how efficacious heating the egg in its shell is. If the bacterium is only on the surface of the egg, this method should kill it. If it’s inside the egg, the water bath method probably won’t raise the temperature inside the shell enough. Commercially pasteurized eggs are processed under pressure and using special gases realistically unavailable to most home chefs.

The Georgia Egg Commission on its website suggests the heating a whisked egg with water method and you’d think an egg commission should know a thing or two. I suppose this method would work with frantic whisking and I’d attempt it with an improvised bain-marie, using my stainless steel round mixing bowl and a second person armed with an infrared surface thermometer like Alton Brown uses.

Until I buy such a thermometer, however, I’m afraid Pots de Crême are off the menu.

PS Some people suggest you can make pasteurized eggs with the sous vide cooking method—food encased in airtight plastic cooked at low temperature for long periods. It sort of makes sense because typically fancy sous vide machines can precisely control temperatures. Since these machines cost a lot, I’m not considering this a practical method for me, however.

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Jennifer Petkus divides her time between writing Jane Austen-themed mysteries, creating websites for the dead, woodworking, aikido and building model starships. She has few credentials, having failed to graduate from the University of Texas with a journalism degree, but did manage to find employment at the Colorado Springs Sun newspaper as a cop reporter, copy editor and night city editor before the paper died in 1986. She has done little since. Her husband is the night editor at The Denver Post. Her best friend is a cop. She watched Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon live. She is the author of, Good Cop, Dead Cop: A Novel about the AfterNet. She’s writing the sequel, The Background Noise of Souls, and another AfterNet related story, Jane Austen’s Book Tour.

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