Proteins · Eg

Egg

White 62 °C · yolk 65 °C

Per 100 g

143 kcal Energy

12.6 g Protein

0.7 g Carbs

9.5 g Fat

0 g Fibre

Gluten-free EGG

Let’s cook with it → Invent something with it

What it is for

Heat unfolds them and they link to each other: they bind, they firm, they build crust. They are one half of the Maillard reaction; sugar is the other.

Where it catches you out

Every protein has its own threshold and none of them are reversible. Egg turns at 82 °C, meat at 70, fish at 55 — once past, there is no coming back.

The knack

Crack it on a flat surface, not the rim of the bowl: a sharp edge drives shell into the egg.

Storage and health

How to keep it, and who it suits.

Keeping it

Refrigerated at 4 °C for 3-5 weeks; do not wash the shell, which removes its natural protective layer. Cracked out and sealed, two days.

Gluten-free

Egg is naturally gluten-free.

Allergen: EGG

Glycaemic index

This ingredient carries no meaningful carbohydrate, so it has no glycaemic index. On its own it will not move blood sugar; what you eat alongside it decides that.

What it works with

Pairings, and the reason for each

"They go well together" is not an explanation. Every pairing below has a chemical or structural mechanism under it.

Sugar →

Sucrose interposes between unfolding proteins and raises the coagulation temperature. That is exactly why sweet custards can be cooked hotter and longer than savoury ones without curdling.

Lemon →

Lowering the pH toward ovalbumin’s isoelectric point reduces charge repulsion so the white coagulates faster and tighter. The vinegar-in-the-poaching-water trick is real chemistry.

Also works with

Flour

Butter

Milk

White cheese

Spinach

Salt

What it fights with

Lemon

Added to hot acid without tempering, it curdles instantly.

What goes on top

Sizzled chilli butter over çılbır, sumac, dried mint; crumbled white cheese on menemen

Key compounds

Ovalbumin / ovotransferrin: Whites begin setting at 62 °C and firm by 65 °C.
Sarı lesitini: The emulsifier that makes mayonnaise and enriches sauces.

Nutritionally

Egg protein is the reference for completeness with a DIAAS above 1.0 — the reason a single egg rescues a grain-and-legume meal.

Terms on this page

Maillard: Protein meeting sugar above 140 °C to produce crust, colour and that roasted smell.
Ovalbumin: The main protein in egg white; it begins to set around 62 °C.

Where it turns up

What is made with it

10 dishes in the database use it.

Soups 4

Highland yoghurt soup

The default Turkish yoghurt soup and the textbook terbiyeli çorba. Rice simmers in water, yoghurt, flour and egg yolk are beaten separately, tempered with hot broth, returned to the pot and thickened without ever boiling. Finished with dried mint bloomed in butter.

Wedding soup

A ceremonial soup cooked in meat broth whose identity is its terbiye: strained yoghurt, egg yolk, flour and lemon juice beaten separately, tempered, and stirred in. Finished with butter and chilli.

İç Anadolu, Marmara

Toyga soup

A thicker, more archaic cousin of yayla çorbası: hulled wheat instead of rice, strained yoghurt instead of plain. A hospitality dish made in big pots at religious holidays, eaten hot or cold.

Afyonkarahisar, Amasya, Kayseri, Sivas

Tutmaç

Small cut noodles cooked with meat or lentils, with garlic yoghurt poured over at the plate rather than stirred into the pot. This is a far older and far simpler answer to the curdling problem than terbiye.

Mains 2

Mantı

Tiny dough parcels are boiled, laid over garlic yoghurt and finished with sizzled butter and chilli. Dried mint and sumac come last.

Kayseri

Small meatballs in yoghurt

Tiny bulgur-cased köfte cooked with chickpeas in a yoghurt broth. Gaziantep sources insist it is not yuvalama: yuvalama’s balls are rice flour, ufak köfte’s are bulgur.

Gaziantep

Desserts 4

Yoghurt cake

Turkey’s everyday tea cake. The yoghurt is both the liquid phase and the acid half of the chemical leavening.

Kalburabastı

Walnut-filled dough ovals are pressed against a sieve to emboss ridges, baked and soaked in syrup. The name comes straight from that gesture.

Yoghurt syrup cake

A pale tray bake cut into squares or diamonds and drenched in cold syrup. It looks like revani but is made with flour rather than semolina, and the yoghurt is genuinely in the batter.

Kayseri, Trakya

Revani

A semolina syrup cake. Butter is whipped to a foam, then eggs, sugar and semolina go in; baked at 165 °C and soaked with light syrup while still warm.

Quick ideas