Korean Jammy Eggs
Love these Korean marinated jammy eggs. Jammy, yummy and absolutely divine. Be warned, you’d not stop at one!
Servings: 9 Korean jammy eggs
Ingredients
- 9 eggs ( ~60g each)
Marinade
- 350 ml water
- 250 ml soy sauce
- 3 tbsp brown sugar or white granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds
- 2 tbsp Korean red pepper powder (check link in blogpost above)
Condiments
- 2 red chillies
- 2 green chillies
- 5 cloves garlic
- 4 to 5 sprigs of spring onion
- Half a large purple onion diced
Instructions
- If your eggs are stored in the fridge, take them from the fridge and leave eggs out until they are at room temperature. (This step is very important as the cooking time will be different if the eggs are cooked straight away taken out from the fridge.)
- Fill a pot with water to a level that will submerge the eggs. Add 1 tbsp salt, 2 tbsp white vinegar and bring to a brisk boil.
- When the water is boiling, gently ladle in the eggs @room temperature (see note 1) and cook for 5 1/2 minutes on medium heat. Once time is up, quickly remove and transfer the eggs immediately to an ice bath. Cool completely for at least 30 minutes. (*The eggs will not peel well if they are not cooled completely, see note 4.)
- In the meantime, prepare your sauce and condiments. Slice and dice the garlic, onion, chillies and spring onion. To a large bowl, add 350ml water, 250ml soy sauce, 3 tbsp brown sugar (white sugar is fine too), 2 tbsp of Korean red pepper powder. Stir to combine well, making sure the red pepper powder is mixed in well and not lumpy. Once the sauce is ready, add in the condiments and 1 tbsp of sesame seed. The sauce is ready.
- Finally, gently crack and peel the cooled eggs. Rinse in clean water to remove any shell bits and place the eggs in the sauce. Chill for at least 2 hours or overnight to allow the eggs to marinate and absorb all the wonderful flavours. Enjoy.
Video
Notes
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#1 Egg temperature
The egg should be at room temperature when they are placed into the boiling pot. If the eggs are cold just out from the refrigerator, there is a likelihood they may crack as the cold egg hits hot boiling water (mine did).
The other reason for making sure that the eggs are @room temperature is the cooking time. The colder the egg, the harder it is to determine how long exactly to cook the egg to get it perfectly jammy. If the egg comes straight from the fridge, you will need to experiment to adjust the cooking time as cold eggs take a longer time to cook.
Given that I have gone down this pathfinder way with more than 50 eggs, take my advice - give some time to leave eggs out and cook them only when they are @room temperature.
#2 Egg size
A lot of the TikTok videos I watched advised to cook the eggs for 6 min. But 6 minutes cannot apply across the board as eggs come in different sizes. In my case, 6 minutes gave me boiled eggs and not jammy eggs. So here’s the thing, logic demands that cooking time will vary depending on the size of the egg.
The rule of thumb I have established is this: A 60g egg @room temperature requires 5 1/2 minutes of cooking (directly into boiling water).
What happens if an egg is smaller or bigger? Simple: do the math and reduce or increase the cooking time proportionately. For my 50g egg, I cooked it for ~ 4 1/2 minutes (50/60g x 5 1/2 minutes) and it was wonderfully jammy.
Optional: If I am cooking a whole batch of 9-12 eggs, I always like to weigh my eggs to make sure they are all about the same size. Clearly, a 50g egg and a 60g egg will cook differently at the same timing. If you are slightly OCD like me 😬😬 and want perfect jammi-ness, measure your eggs.
#3 Hot water or cold?
An egg if put on too high heat or for too long will tend to have rubbery egg whites. Starting with cold water therefore lets us heat the egg more slowly, which keeps the whites from getting rubbery. But it also takes longer and gives one less control over cooking time. For instance, how long will it take the water to boil? Well, that depends on the size and shape of your pot, how much water is added etc.
For this Korean Jammy Eggs recipe, timing is absolutely key to get perfect jammi-ness and hence I like to start my cooking process with boiling water as that gives me more control over time. However, one disadvantage here is that the egg is more susceptible to cracks due to the high heat. Therefore always use eggs@room temperature and add salt to reduce the chances of leakage or cracking (See note 1 and note 4).
#4 Tips to get that flawless peeled egg
- Adding salt: This prevents the likelihood of cracks during cooking. Egg white solidifies more quickly in hot salty water than it does in fresh. So a little salt in your water can minimize the mess if your egg springs a leak while cooking. The egg white solidifies when it hits the salt water, sealing up the crack so that the egg doesn’t sprout a streamer of white.
- Adding vinegar: IMHO this is the game changer as it makes the eggs easier to peel. The vinegar contains acid which reacts with the calcium carbonate in the eggshell. This reaction produces carbon dioxide gas (these are the little bubbles forming on the eggshell) which gradually softens the hard shell, making it more fragile and easier to remove.
- Is an ice bath necessary? Yes, absolutely! If you don’t plunge your egg into ice cold water when you take it off the heat, it will go on cooking ... and cooking ... and cooking … which means your eggs will be overdone and no longer jammy! The ice bath also cools the eggs quickly, causing it to contract slightly away from the shell which helps reduce the chances of the shell sticking to the egg. Never peel a hot jammy egg as it will be still wobbly and you’ll get a wibbly wobbly mess ... imagine trying to deshell a semi soft boiled egg, you get the idea. I typically like to soak the eggs in the ice bath for ~ 30 minutes before peeling. The ice bath is essential to allow the egg to cool completely and firm up in the process. So don’t skip the ice bath.
- Dipping the egg in water: whenever the egg shell gets rather difficult to remove, I like to occasionally dip the egg back in water as I am peeling to allow the water to loosen the membrane and help it separate from the shell. You can also do this under cold running water as you peel, to help the separation.