Conventional chemistry wisdom says that something which starts out as a liquid should either remain liquid or evaporate when heat is applied. Why do eggs go in the opposite direction?
In: Chemistry
Cooking means that a chemical reaction is happening. Chemical reactions dont go back when you change the temperature. Cooked eggs are like a baked cake or a fried potato; they can’t be simply cooled down to reverse the cooking.
Some liquids do boil when you heat them enough, especially chemically simple ones. However most complex organic liquids like egg white, milk, or aquafaba will cook before they boil.
The same way cooking cake batter causes it to turn into a solid, because of 2 reasons 1)it’s not just a phase change like boiling water, it’s a chemical reaction (which is why you can’t then cook the egg/cake to make them turn back into a liquid) and 2) because the actual liquid in the egg/cake batter does follow the standard phase change rules, the water evaporates, but it leaves behind the suspended/dissolved solids (like if you boil salt water, you get a glass full of salt crystals)
Explanation: Eggs whites contains a lot of what is called albumin, which normally is like a bunch of small balls of hair. These balls can just easily move around each other. But when heated, these ‘balls of hair’ will unfold, and bind together forming a network. You can kind of imagine it like a woven blanket instead. This blanket will keep together, and that is kind of the same that happens when egg whites are heated.
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