Did you know that if you hard-boil an egg incorrectly, it could burst with the same force exerted from an exploding 1277 AD Song Dynasty era land mine used to defend Southern China against invading Mongols?
Probably not.
That’s because I just made that up. There is absolutely no truth to that.
But, I did learn when studying writing, that a writer should always use a hook to start their pieces. A hook is a strong start with a punch that hits the reader right from the beginning and keeps them hooked and reading through the rest of the piece.
I also didn’t know how to get you excited about hard-boiled eggs. I thought the old “exploding land mine egg” hook was my best shot.
Following closely on the heels of my article on How to Properly Poach an Egg, I’m going to detail how to hard-boil an egg, nicely, every time.
Looking to see what I could find on the wonderful World Wide Web when it comes to boiling an egg, I have found there are instructions, opinion pieces and even websites just shy of full-blown support groups for people who would like to hard-boil an egg.
There is no need for any of this. I am going to teach you how to easily and safely cook a delicious hard-boiled egg.
Start with a medium saucepan, or a pan large enough to hold all of the eggs you would like to boil. Of course, make sure the pan is large enough to hold the water needed to cover the eggs by about an inch, if not more.
Fill it with water and then place the eggs inside.
If you wait until the water is boiling before you put your eggs in, they may crack—not explode–when submerged and the water will get inside the egg and the cooking time would change and it generally just makes for a poor hard-boiled egg that no one wants to eat in the end.
So, keep it simple. Put the eggs into a pan and cover the eggs with tap water.
Bring the water to a boil, and as soon as it begins to boil, immediately turn the burner off.
Leave the saucepan on the hot burner for exactly 10 minutes, do not touch it and do not remove it.
After ten minutes, immediately remove the eggs and put them into ice water to cool down.
Once the eggs are cool, put the eggs onto a paper towel on your counter and roll them under your palm cracking the egg completely. Peel away the shell.
If you have trouble peeling the egg you can peel it under cold running water which sometimes makes the peeling process easier.
This method has always produced great hard-boiled eggs for me.
They are never over cooked with a green tinge-the green tinge is due to iron and sulfur in the yolk which explains why it tastes, smells and chews terrible–and the yolk is set perfectly.
If the egg is not cooked exactly how you like it, you can always adjust the cooking time give-or-take a minute according to how you prefer your egg. Once you fine tune your timing if you need to, you will be able to cook the egg white and yolk the same way every time.
But start by cooking it for 10 minutes. I doubt you will have to do any adjusting once you see how great the egg comes out.
As always, I encourage everyone to write in, to share opinions, to tell me that cooking eggs this way is a terrible idea and that you know of a better technique, and then share that technique with me. I will then try it, and if it is indeed a better method, I will share it with everyone and we all shall never eat a bad or green hard-boiled egg again.
Wouldn’t that be a nice way to live?