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Clean-Peeling Eggs
I recently read an awesome article on
how to produce perfectly boiled eggs with clean-peeling shells,
from the
Serious Eats Food Lab.
The secret is to boil water (in a full pot or at the bottom of a steamer),
add cold eggs, then simmer or steam for 11 minutes.
Here is the "tl;dr" (too long; didn't read) version from the article:
"Lower your eggs straight from the fridge into already-boiling water, or
place them in a steamer insert in a covered pot steaming at full blast on
the stovetop. If boiling, lower the heat to the barest simmer. Cook the
eggs for 11 minutes for hard or 6 minutes for soft. Serve. Or, if serving
cold, shock them in ice water immediately. Let them chill in that water for
at least 15 minutes, or better yet, in the fridge overnight. Peel under cool
running water."
I'm not a "tl;dr" type of person (unless the "l" stands for "lame"), and
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the entire article. The author,
Kenji López-Alt,
used to be an editor at
Cook's Illustrated Magazine,
so I wasn't surprised he
tried every method out there in a controlled, scientific manner,
going through many, many dozens of eggs.
The epiphany for me was that eggs could be steamed!
Not only does it work like a champ, it is incredibly fast,
since it only takes a minute or so to boil a half inch of water.
So, here's how I'm going to make hard cooked eggs from now on:
- Put a half inch (or whatever is appropriate for your steamer basket)
of water into a pot, cover, and set to boil
- Meanwhile, load cold eggs into steamer basket
- When the water is boiling, lower basket into pot,
cover, and boil for 11 minutes
- Shock in ice water for 15 minutes
This article is part of the seeking42 recipe series.
