Strain Eggs Before Boiling or Frying
We usually think of an egg as having two parts: the white and the yolk. This is (of course) much more complicated. It is rarely necessary to think about all 15 parts of an egg , but accounting for both parts of the protein – external albumin and medium albumin – can lead to flavorful and picturesque poached eggs and fried eggs.
The two parts are easy to distinguish from each other. External albumin is thin and watery, spreading over the pan; while medium albumin is thicker, runs less and stands higher in the pan than.
Removing external albumin is easy. All you have to do is break the egg on a fine mesh sieve and leave it there while you heat up a frying pan or small pot of water. If you are in a hurry, you can tap it lightly.
What’s the point in that? Mostly aesthetics. Strain the egg before frying to keep it an acceptable size for the McMuffin, and if done before poaching, it will help get rid of the awful thin pieces. You also eliminate the problem of digesting thin albumin before thicker and higher average albumin is established.
But, more importantly (to me), it shifts your yolk-to-protein ratio in favor of the yolk, which is the source of all the flavor, ensuring that you are not left with sad, yolk-free chunks of liquid, overcooked proteins. …
If straining a little watery white protein seems “wasteful”, consider saving it for shakes, but honestly, I’m not too concerned about throwing this tiny bit of tasteless protein down the drain. For me, this is the most pathetic part of white. (Unlike the Pander Core, which, while mostly useless in the kitchen, has the most metallic name.)