There was a thread a few years back about the best way to boil an egg. I'm too lazy to look for it. I love hard boiled eggs and they've usually been a challenge to peel. I have tried a few methods and they would work some of the time. Well, I found one that works all the time. Bring water to a boil. Put eggs in boiling water for 13 minutes. Not 12. Not 14. Thirteen. Remove eggs from boiling water and chill with cold as possible tap water for 1-2 minutes. Peel the egg. You can put any unpeeled eggs in the frig for later consumption. They'll still peel easy. I'm telling you that egg shell will peel off easier that a schoolgirls panties on prom night.
Thanks for that. Will try. I eat a lot of them with V&O... and peeling is always a bitch. I usually lose 20% of the white. .... "Not 12. Not 14. Thirteen."...lol
Most recipes have them put in the boiling water but as the heat is turned off. Do you keep the pot boiling?
Keep it boiling. It does not have to be a hard boil when you initially drop the eggs in. Just a few bubbles rising up is enough, but keep the water boiling for the entire time. The 13 minute count starts when the eggs are dropped in. This 13 minutes is to get the yoke fully cooked. If you like a softer boiled egg you can do 11 minutes. The shell will still peel easily so long as the other steps are followed.
Have you tried it both ways to see which works better? Keep it at rapid boil for the whole 13 minutes, or turn off heat right after it reaches the boil and let it sit in the really hot water for same mount of time? Overcooked yolks tend to turn green, which is unsightly. Assuring the eggs have had time enough in the fridge after purchasing them could help too. I've noticed that the longer the eggs have sat in the fridge before boiling (think a week), the easier to peel (using the shell-cooling method you described above, of course. You HAVE to cool the shell off to make it more stiff to peel away smoothly.)
I have never turned the heat off, but I have turned it down with no noticeable difference in peeling. I have always had the eggs refrigerated for at least a couple days before boiling.
Might try your findings. I wonder: does using a spoon to tap gently around the egg makes things easier ?
I read somewhere that if the yolk is darkened at the edges then it is too cooked. The Famous Fred Foresight recipe calls for placing the eggs into a pot of hot tap water (why start with cold?). Place on high heat and cover. As soon as the water reaches full boil, remove the pot from the heat but do not lift the pot cover. Allow the eggs to sit in their covered hot tub for 15 to 20 minutes (I prefer closer to 20). Then do whatever the hell you want with the egg. The edge/rim of the yolk will not be darkened and the egg will be nicely cooked. I also read that it might be useful to add a bit of salt and vinegar to the water. One is supposed to help the egg from cracking while cooking, and the other is supposed to help keep the egg contained if it does crack. I'm not sure which does which, or if either really does anything, but I do both. Works for me.
Try boiling them with 1 Tsp baking soda in the water. Also, fresher eggs are more difficult to peel, so we constantly have some "aging" for a couple of weeks in the fridge. America's Test Kitchen says eggs properly refrigerated will keep up to 60 days.
Yowzer. 13 minutes in boiling water!!!! not for me. that is wayyyy overcooked and makes them very sulphury in taste and smell and harder to digest. My view of course, but hey, I am the one that has to eat them. I put them in the water first. That is to say, i put them in the cold water in the pot. Then I put the burner on high and let the water and the eggs come up to a quick hard boil. Then I just turn the burner off and let them sit there in the until the water cools down. So there is no heat other than the bringing it up to a had boil then total shut down. Also, with this approach, there is no watching or "oh shit" because you went off to do something else. Okay, next, you come back about tweny minutes later, and fish the eggs out. Put a cutting board next to the sink. Take an egg and and bonk it lightly on the cutting board while rolling it around and around. So you end out with the egg totally in tact but the shell thoroughly rumpled and shatter all way round. Then you reach over and turn on the cold water. totally cold and run it over the egg. (the cold causes the egg to contract away from the shell). Then just use your fingers to pick the shell right off. Once you get under fingernails under the shell you can peel it all the way around in one shot. Keep the water running over the egg while you are doing. Then do the rest. I have given a lot of description here but those who see the routine can see that it is a one, two, three and done process. This gives you an egg (assuming they were fresh) where the egg yolk is totally cooked but still soft and not black on the edges which means it is seriously overcooked. If you are burping and smelling lot of sulphur from your stomach or in the air, you are seriously overcooking them and it also makes them harder to digest. Put me down as a NO for 13 minutes at a boil. Thirteen minutes at a boil is fine for a lobster though! (sorry, growing up in Maine so I digressed). Also, if you want to do a larger batch and use the cooked eggs over a longer period, go ahead and make pickled eggs with some of them. Very easy to do and always a crowd pleaser. If you dont know how to do it, just say so. No harm in asking for help when it comes to essentials in life. Ideally, you take the pot of water that you are going to cook the eggs in and turn the heat on and let it get quite warm but below cooking temp and shut it off. Then gently set your eggs in there and let them set there for ten minutes in the warm water and then bring the water up to a boil to begin the cooking. You dont have to but a lot of people get aggravated because their eggs crack and split open while they a boiling them. This is what happens when you take an ice cold egg out of the fridge and plop it into the boiling water without letting the egg come up to room temp a little first and then boil the bejesus out of it. If this has been a problem, then don't do that. If it has not been a problem and you are happy with how things are going, just keep doing whatever you are doing. Personally, it peeses me off when that happens so I take steps to avoid it. When I was in college we used to call a beer and a couple pickled eggs a "chicken dinner." heh.