Pasturized eggs

[remarkr]

In The Curious Cook you list a couple of ways to preheat the egg yolks to avoid the possibility of contamination with salmonella. With using pasturized eggs, it is not necessary, is it?

[Harold McGee]

That’s right, pasteurized eggs have been heated so as to eliminate any salmonella or other disease bacteria. They can be used ‘raw.’

Harold

[Suzanne]

As followup: I've never quite been able to get my head around the fact that eggs that have been brought up to the necessary heat for pasteurization remain "raw." Is that because they spend such a brief time at that high heat?

[Harold McGee]

Good point. Pasteurized eggs are “raw” only in the sense that they are minimally heated to kill bacteria, and are still capable of being further transformed—coagulated—by higher temperatures.

Harold