– Why do the edges of eggs go like plastic when you fry them?

Question

– Why do the edges of eggs go like plastic when you fry them?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Egg white are mostly protein and water. When you cook them the proteins unwind and link up, that’s why it goes solid (ish). At the edges, you get that really thin runny white and over the period of frying the egg it’s thin enough that you drive out all the water. The body of the whites still has plenty of water and stays “jiggly.”

So the edges are a bunch of long tangled up stuck together long-chain molecules with no water…which, some subtle chemistry differences aside, is basically plastic.