Hard-boiling, soft-boiling or using a trendy sous vide—no matter the approach, cooking a whole egg preserves either the texture of the yolk or the white but rarely both. Now scientists think they have cracked the perfectly cooked egg.

After cooking the egg thusly, the researchers first studied it using spectrometry and an MR-like scanner. They confirmed that both phases (yolk and white) were cooked perfectly. They also found that the eggs had more healthy antioxidants (polyphenols) than boiled eggs, though it’s not clear why.

A new study reveals a technique called "periodic cooking" that balances yolk and white to perfection. The only catch? It’s a bit of a time commitment.

The team used computer models of computational fluid dynamics, then tested out the painstaking—yet reportedly delicious—recipe for themselves