October 18, 2008

How to Boil Eggs

Posted in Fun, Recipes tagged , , , , , , at 10:58 am by pdxfirefly

This post is a result of the hard-boiled eggs that I burned on 9/30/08.  Please refer to that post for the background on this story.  So, I thought that I would post the way to hard-boil eggs, since I really do know how to correctly boil eggs without burning them!
 First of all, you need to know that the best eggs for boiling are NOT the freshest eggs.   So, if you need eggs, then go to the grocery store and get them, but do not come right home and start boiling them.  Why?  Because fresh eggs are harder to get out of the shells cleanly once they are boiled.  Eggs that have been in your refrigerator a while will come out of their shells more easily than the fresh ones will.  If you must hard-boil fresh eggs, you can put a lot of salt into the water and this sometimes will help the eggs release from their shells, but still not as readily as “older” eggs will.  Also allowing the eggs and water to come to room temperature before boiling will be a big help, too.

Ok, you have the eggs that you want to boil.  Now get a small pan, not one that is too big for the amount of eggs you want to boil.  Put enough water in the pan to just cover the room-temperature eggs completely.  You can then put the lid on the pan and put it on the stove and bring to a boil.  Just a SLOW boil for 10 minutes.  Here is a picture of eggs in a slow boil.  A full rolling boil is not what you want.  A full rolling boil looks just like it sounds — lots of turbulence in the water and splashes.

Boiling Eggs by PDXFirefly

Boiling Eggs by PDXFirefly

After slow boiling the eggs ten minutes, turn off the heat and put a lid on the pan and let them sit ( or is it set) for 5 minutes.   Then you remove the lid and pour the water off and run cold water over the eggs in the pan.  Repeat the running of cold water over the eggs.  This is to hasten the cooling down process.  Then you can put them in a bowl in the fridge to cool longer until you are ready to shell them.

You can also slow boil the eggs for 5 minutes and then let them set ( or is it sit) in a covered pan for 10 minutes.

When you go to peel them, they will be perfect! My recipie for Curried Deviled Eggs will follow in a later post! Yum !!

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