Okay ladies and gents, let's get down to some serious discussion. I've almost come to the conclusion (after many years of experimentation) that there is no best way to boil an egg and then be able to peel the shell off without, oftentimes, tearing up the egg. In a perfect world, the shell would easily come off the egg everytime. This, of course, is often not the case. Tonight, I boiled the eggs for about 20 minutes. Now, I am letting the eggs sit in the pan in which I boiled them to let the water cool down before I take them out of the pan. Some would say to immediately take the eggs out and immediately place the eggs into a bowl of cold water. Is successfully boiling eggs which can then be easily peeled like trading?.....i.e. is it random? (Yes trading is random, but that's for some of those boring threads over in another forum.) Like I said, we are discussing serious "biness" here on this thread. So, what say you? I know we must have some master chefs lurking around here. What is the best/most reliable way to boil eggs in such a way that they are easy to peel?
My wife does em, and they turn out perfect every time. Put em in a pan with water, turn the heat on high until it boils, shut off the heat (but leave em on the burner) for x minutes, then rinse them off in cold water. I think it's 20 minutes, not sure. These eggs are large and just out of the refridgerator. Don't peel them until you are ready to use em.
I am a serious hard boiled egg eater. Hard boiled eggs are not demanding, no one can screw up a hard boiled egg. I like them cold hot or warm. I put them in a pot of water and boil them till I'm damn good and ready to get up from whatever I'm doing and turn the burner off. Depending on how much water I originally put in the pot it could be 5 minutes or 30 minutes. Then I let them sit in the pot until I feel like peeling them, again this could be immediately if I'm in a rush or let them sit for another 30 minutes. This being said, sometimes the shells peel right off and sometimes they don't, I don't really care or gave it a second thought until you just posted, but now that you've mentioned it, after much reflective thought, if the egg shells are hard to peel, I blame the egg, maybe the chicken or use it as an indicator, much like a horoscope on what the rest of my day will be like. Regards
Actually, part of my problem here is the fact that boiling eggs isn't something that I do very often. I bought a dozen the other day. I boiled six. Some came out excellent. Others wanted to tear up when I was peeling them. Perhaps it has something to do with that inner "skin" between the shell and the white of the egg. When you tap it on the counter, you can begin to peel the egg. Then, if that particular spot wants to cling to the white of the egg, perhaps it can be cracked in another area and more easily peeled. These six have cooled down considerably now. I'm about to have a couple. (One evening we should do a thread on Wendy's frosties. Talk about some good eatin'!!!)