Eggs – Milk or water for fluffier scrambled eggs

Americas test kitchen has tested this in a prior issue. I cannot put my hands on the issue right now which explained their process and the results. It also contained a good deal of explanation about the science of the process. They tried all sorts of liquids in their omelette and scrambled eggs recipe. They found that water did make the eggs slightly fluffy but did not slow the coagulation process. This led to a tougher scramble than milk. They wanted the same result for an omelette with a denser texture. The end result being that butter was better for an omelet.

However, some of the result was later reported in a Smithsonian Magazine Article. It is a much more compact summary but fairly on the nose for your question.

Their answer was as follows:

Add milk to scrambled eggs, frozen butter to omelets: If you want scrambled eggs, most of us know to throw in a bit of milk or butter while scrambling. That’s because the lipids in the dairy coat the proteins in the egg (11 percent in the whites and 16 percent in the yolks) and slow down the process of coagulation, a.k.a. when the proteins are denatured and unfurl, releasing much of the water in the mixture. Adding fat helps keep some moisture in and fluff up the final product. But the same does not go for omelets. “While scrambled eggs should be fluffy, an omelet is more compact,” the authors write. While milk works for scrambled eggs, it can add to much moisture to an omelet. The chefs recommend frozen bits of butter instead, which melt more slowly and disperse more evenly. And it turns out you can go ahead and salt the eggs before you even cook them up. Because salt affects the electrical charge on the proteins, it weakens the bonds between them, preventing overcoagulation. Bring that up at your next brunch.

The Science of Good Cooking: Tips From America’s Test Kitchen

I don't have a scientific backing to what I am going to say, but still I will try to make my point clear!

Cooking eggs is more of an intuitive thing. The fast vs. slow thing comes more from your own rendezvous with it.

Like in my house, when we say omelet, only my husband is allowed to put hands on it because he gets that perfect round thing without breaking any of the edges every single time he does it. I will share his method:

• Take a flat pan and heat it good enough.

• Drizzle a little oil on it and rotate the pan once so that oil gets to the sides.

• Now all you need to do is pour your beaten eggs on the pan and slowly cook it on a low flame until the edges start separating from the pan automatically(atleast it will come out easily when you raise it with spatula)

And bang on, our omlete gets cooked pretty fine everytime with a very soft and fluffy texture.

But when you say scrambled eggs, I would follow a different methodology in which I would:

• Take a pan with deep base and heat it good enough.
• Pour very little oil, just so that eggs don't stick to the pan.
• Pour the egg mix and keep the pan on very high flame and stir the thing vigorously until the eggs are cooked and it looks ready.

Basically what I think is, when you cook anything on a high flame, you need to stir it along so that the food does not stick to the bottom and gets burnt(even when you are using a non stick pan, eggs might get stuck in a minute or so), which you can do while making scrambled eggs but can't do while making an omelet obviously.

I hope next time you put your hands on it, you will listen to your heart!! Happy Eggs!! :)