The Perfect Boiled Egg

Essentials

A heavy based pot big enough to hold all your eggs on one layer. A slotted spoon and an accurate timer.

Serves

One.

Cooking Tip

To help prevent eggs cracking, always bring them up to room temperature first. Some people like to make a small pin prick in the shell at the rounded end to allow the steam to escape.

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Ingredients

• 2 ecoeggs at room temperature
• Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
• Thick buttered toast to serve

Method

Place eggs gently in your pot. Cover with at least 2.5cm (1") of cold water, add a pinch of salt and place the pan on a high heat. The following times relate to a medium sized egg, if yours are smaller take off a minute or add one for larger eggs. When the water is almost boiling, gently stir the eggs and set a kitchen timer for one of the timings below:

• 3 min for really soft yolk and set white
• 4 min for slightly set yolk and set white
• 5 min for firmer yolk and white
• 6 min for hard boiled with slightly soft yolk
• 7 min for firmly hard boiled

Reduce heat slightly to keep water bubbling but not fast boiling and stir the eggs once more. Once cooking time is complete, remove the eggs from the pan with a slotted spoon, place into egg cups and serve immediately with thick hot buttered toast.

If not eating the hard boiled egg straight away, plunge immediately into running cold water until cooled. This will help reduce the harmless grey ring around the yolk.

Alternatives

Mix half sea salt with ground cumin. Dip your peeled hard boiled eggs in the spice mixture and consume with warm Turkish bread and sweet minted tea.

Comments

[Lisa]

I'd love some tips on peeling hard boiled eggs. I often have trouble with the shell sticking, rather than peeling away quickly and cleanly, and the white pulling away with the shell. Really frustrating and time consuming, especially if I'm doing a batch.

[ecoeggs]

I think we all have problems with this from time to time. There are a numbers of contributing factors that can make hard boiled eggs difficult to peel. There are a few things you can do to help avoid it...

-older eggs are easier to peel than fresher eggs
-bring ecoeggs to boil starting with cold salty water
-place them in cold water immediately after cooking
-after cooling roll the egg around in your palm to crack the egg all over
-peel your boiled ecoeggs before you store them in the fridge

Hope that helps. Let us know how you go!

[Jo]

Yummy idea with the cumin, salt and turkish bread.

[Mandy Culph]

Hi,
I have seen some great videos on Youtube which show how to very quickly and easily peel a hard-boiled egg. Basically, you tap each end and remove a small cap of shell from both ends. You then put your mouth against the smaller end of the egg and blow, forcing the egg through the hole in the larger end and into your hand. If you are not about to eat the egg yourself, I guess you would want to rinse the egg before preparing and serving to others.

I haven't yet had the opportunity to try this method but the many videos on the subject look very convincing. Perhaps combined with the tips you have already provided, this task might be made a little (or even a lot) easier.

Good luck & happy egg-blowing!
Cheers,
Mandy

PS. I've really enjoyed viewing your website and will check in again after 11.30am tomorrow so I can see the chooks live on your chook cam. As a novice chook-keeper of 4 re-homed ex free-range Isa Brown hens, I am interested to watch the chickens' behaviour in a larger flock. Keep up the good work.

[ecoeggs]

I thought you might be pulling our legs, but that is one of the most brilliant techniques we've ever seen. We are going to test this out soon and then add it in to our tips.